Emerging crops in the Weyburn and surrounding district are rated as good to excellent in their early stages, with some damages starting to appear due to grasshoppers and flea beetles.

Virtually all crops have been seeded in the Weyburn area, said extension agrologist Elaine Moats, and the emerging crops are in various stages of development. Early-seeded crops are approaching the flag-leaf stage, while some more recently seeded crops are just emerging or haven't yet emerged above the ground.

"As a whole, producers would like to see more uniform emergence. There has been damage to canola and mustard from flea beetles, and in some cases by grasshoppers, and there have been damage to many other crops by grasshoppers, most of it on field perimeters," said Moats.

Many producers would also like to see a good general soaking rain in the area, along with some hotter weather, to help the crops' development along, said Moats; so far, most of the moisture has come from intermittent, scattered showers in the area.

She added it's difficult to make a blanket statement about how crops are doing due to the variability of the rain showers and their effects on the emerging crops. Some areas have good moisture conditions and the crops are coming along very nicely, while other fields are fairly dry and have poor emergence.

Doug Watson, who farms in the Yellow Grass area with his sons, said they have done some spraying along road allowances for grasshoppers and on a quarter-section, along with some spraying for weeds.

Most of their crops have emerged and are developing, he said, adding, "It wouldn't hurt to have a general rain. The rain has been intermittent so far."

The Watsons have seeded a variety including chickpeas, lentils, flax, barley, canola, spring wheat and durum.

There has been some spraying throughout the whole region for flea beetles, and for grasshoppers along the edges of fields, particularly in ditches and near sloughs, said Moats. The adult flea beetles should die off by the end of June, she added, but the hatching of grasshoppers can be seen throughout the entire region.

"The bulk of the eggs were laid along ditches and by sloughs, and in fields with cereal crops the eggs are throughout the field," said Moats, noting some non-traditional crops have already seen grasshopper damage, simply because there was no other green material around for them to eat. This includes lentils, and some oats and peas.

Weyburn area farmer Jeff Gaab said crop development in his fields has been pretty good so far, and he has seen some problems with grasshoppers, and some flea beetles but not too much.

"We've been getting just enough rain. We could really use a good soaking rain anytime now. It's starting get on the dry side, although we're not suffering yet," he said, adding he has many reasons to be optimistic about this year's crops.

While much of the province suffered a drought last year, Gaab noted the southeast area did quite well, although there were some issues with cereal grain quality.

"I'm sure we're looking at quite a bit better production this year," said Gaab, adding his farm is raising a wide variety of crops, including durum, barley, oats, canola, mustard, some flax and field peas.

Crop reporters in the southeast area with Sask. Ag and Food have reported crops in the following stages of development: spring cereals are rated 58 per cent as normal and 40 per cent are behind; oilseeds are 56 per cent normal and 44 per cent behind; and fall cereals are 67 per cent normal and 20 per cent ahead of normal.

The intermittent nature of the rainfall can be seen even from RM to RM. In the weekly rainfall summary for the week ending June 14, the RM of Tecumseh reported four millimetres of rain, while Brock next to it had 15mm; the RM of Cymri recorded 7mm, Griffin had 3mm, Weyburn had 5mm, Brokenshell recorded 9mm, Fillmore saw 18mm of rain and Wellington had 9mm; the RM of Francis recorded rainfall of 12mm, Lake Alma had 24mm, Surprise Valley recorded 23mm, Laurier had a rainfall of 13mm and The Gap recorded 19mm of rain.