The heat and high amounts of rainfall are causing southeast area crops to grow rapidly, and they are changing on an almost daily basis under the hot sun.

In the past week, the temperatures have been getting warmer and warmer, and rainfall from thundershowers have added to the overall humidity, with the result of rapid crop growth right now, said Sask. Ag and Food's crop specialist, Elaine Moats.

"Some of the early-seeded canola plants are beginning to flower, or are shooting out stalks to prepare for flowering. We're also starting to see the effects of the rain, and in areas that have had heavy rains, there are patches where crops have been under stress from excess moisture," said Moats, noting the damage is coming both from flooded fields, and areas that have saturated soil so that air cannot get in to the plants' roots.

In many cases, it depends on the lay of the land whether a low-lying field will be saturated, or just patches of it where sloughs are located, she said.

There are also reports starting to come in of crops receiving herbicide drift damage, as crop spraying takes place sometimes under less-than-ideal conditions and crops are affected that are not supposed to be sprayed, said Moats.

Cereal crops are developing well for the most part, depending on when they were seeded.

"There's a huge range of seeding dates, from mid-April until just recently. There are crops that are tillering, and others are at the seedling stage," said Moats.

Winter cereals, such as fall rye and winter wheat, have mostly headed out, but are generally behind in growth from where they should be at this point, and were likely delayed by the cool weather of April and May.

"Normally they'd be flowering at this point. The warm weather will help the crops advance," said Moats.

Asked about problems in the crops at this point, Moats said there are no new reports of any insects causing damages other than the reports from a week ago that some diamondback moths have been caught in area traps. For the most part, there are leaf diseases starting to appear in some crops, due in part to the high humidity. Depending on their stage of development, many crops are growing out of this problem.

If the humidity stays at this level, "we may see problems with leaf diseases on barley and perhaps wheat. With high heat conditions of around 30, however, it helps reduce the humidity and dries the leaf," said Moats, adding that temperatures in the range of 25-27 with lots of humidity tends to lead to disease development.

Growers of chickpeas also have to watch, as the heavy rains may have caused some bruising of the leaves, which predisposes the leaves to getting disease. This isn't the case for lentils and peas, as those plants are tougher and are more resilient.

With temperatures reaching the 30-degree range on Monday and Tuesday, the moisture in the plants will help them withstand the loss of moisture due to heat, and even the humidity in the plant canopy will help the plants make it through.

Not all areas have excess moisture, as an area southwest of Weyburn has a "reasonable" amount of moisture, and are holding their own at this point.

Hay and pasture land are taking advantage of the moisture levels and are responding with good growth.

"As you go southwest and west of Weyburn where they haven't had as much rain, the pastures aren't growing as vigorously, but they are holding their own," said Moats.

She added there are still some acres not seeded in the southeast area, but these are scattered, and will either be seeded or put to greenfeed, depending on the timing allowed by the rain showers.