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[00:00:08] Mike Howell:
The Dirt with me, Mike Howell, an eKonomics podcast where I present the down and dirty agronomic science to help grow crops and bottom lines. Inspired by eKonomics.com farming’s go-to informational resource. I’m here to break down the latest crop nutrition research, news, and issues, helping farmers make better business decisions through actionable insights. Let’s dig in. Well, hello again, listeners. Glad you’re tuning in this week. We’re going to talk a little bit more about the weather. That seems to be top of mind with a lot of producers this time of year. To help me do that, we’ve got David Spence with us this week. David, welcome to The Dirt.
[00:00:51] David Spence:
Thanks. It’s great to be here, Mike.
[00:00:52] Mike Howell:
David, we were talking before we jumped on the air here and we have a little bit in common. Seems like you are a Mississippi State graduate as well.
[00:00:59] David Spence:
Yes. Back in 2004, I graduated from the broadcast meteorology program at Mississippi State. Have a lot of great memories from it. Learned from a lot of amazing professors, great people. It was fun to graduate from that program. I’d already been in television weather when I attended. So it’s not that I left the program to get a job. I had already had a job, but I joined the program to help with my own knowledge and expertise in weather.
[00:01:25] Mike Howell:
I was doing a little check and I knew the school was pretty popular, but I didn’t realize that one in three broadcast meteorologists actually went to Mississippi State. That’s quite a feat for the university there.
[00:01:35] David Spence:
It’s a very popular program and most people who come out of that program are gainfully employed in the business. I went through it 22 years ago. I’ve since retired from television, but I’m doing weather through other platforms, and Mississippi State certainly helped me advance in my career.
[00:01:51] Mike Howell:
David, if you will, give our listeners a little bit of background about yourself. We’ve talked about Mississippi State, but I know there’s a lot more to your background. Tell them a little bit about what you’ve done over the course of your career. Well,
[00:02:01] David Spence:
I’m in Calgary in Canada, and I did television weather here on the CTV station for almost 40 years. I started out in 1981 and retired in 2021. There was a two-year gap where I left and went and did something else before I came back to do it. I’ve been involved in the community here in Calgary for decades doing weather, doing some volunteer work and that sort of thing. And recently, in the last two years or so, my focus has really been on agricultural weather for the Canadian Prairies through ruralrootscanada.com. It’s an agriculture focused website that covers the three prairie provinces in Canada, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba.
[00:02:37] David Spence:
And I’ve been doing weekly weather outlooks for that website now for the past couple of years. And it’s been very fulfilling. It’s a whole different thing. When you’re used to doing daily weather for one particular region on television night after night after night, and now you’re doing weather for three large provinces. It’s a whole different ballgame, and it’s one where you really have to dig into the data and really work hard to get it right.
[00:03:01] Mike Howell:
I bet that is a challenge. That’s where we want to go today, David. We want to talk about the weather and the Prairies there in Canada and see what you’ve got forecast for the spring and summer months. It’s already hot here at my house. We’ve hit 95 degrees several times already. It’s really dry. We’ve got bad drought going on here. The pond outside my front yard is noticeably dry. It’s really low. And you get up in the Midwest, the wheat crop is suffering, but the farmers were able to jump in and get the crop planted really early this year.
[00:03:30] Mike Howell:
The crop’s probably two weeks ahead of schedule in a lot of places. And I’m hearing reports that soybeans are already being planted as far north as Minnesota this year, and that’s unheard of for this time of year. Let’s talk about what happened this winter in the Canadian Prairies. Everybody is always concerned about the snowfall and did the Prairies get enough snowfall this winter?
[00:03:47] David Spence:
Parts of the Prairies did, yes. Going into the winter, we were under a serious drought as well. Most of the prairie provinces were either abnormally dry or in moderate drought. And then there were some areas of extreme drought as well, particularly here in Alberta where I’m situated. But we did have considerable snowfall. Some areas of the Prairies, I’m thinking central Alberta, central and southern Saskatchewan and parts of Manitoba had 200% of their average snowfall. And what that meant for them was they could come out of the short-term drought.
[00:04:17] David Spence:
The long-term drought is going to take a longer time to resolve, but the snowfall happened just at the right time for those areas. Seeding hasn’t quite begun in earnest yet. I think there’s some pockets, some areas where seeding is underway, but the soil has been primed for seeding. It’s nice, it’s moist. We are actually in for another big snowfall coming up over the next two or three days, especially in Saskatchewan and Manitoba. I think seeding there, if it has started, is going to be delayed somewhat while we wait for this next round of snow to go through and disappear.
[00:04:49] David Spence:
It’s very much predicated on how the snow disappears. Quite often at this time of year, we’ll go from one extreme to another. We’ll have a day where it’s snowing and in the springtime, that’s when we get our biggest snowfalls. We could get 10 to 20 centimeters of snow in one dump, and then the sun comes out the next day, the temperature climbs to the point where that snow starts to evaporate and doesn’t really do any good, not soaking into the ground. Whether the snow that’s coming up does any good, still unsure. The snow that fell over the winter has done a lot of good. Much of the Prairies pulled out of the short-term drought. The exception is southern Alberta.
[00:05:24] David Spence:
And in fact, the drought worsened there because snowfall in that particular area… If you’re familiar with it, I’m talking Medicine Hat, Lethbridge, that region. Snowfall over the winter was only about 60 or 65% of average. The drought is intensifying in that region, whereas elsewhere on the Prairies, it’s really easing off.
[00:05:41] Mike Howell:
David, I just can’t imagine having snow this time of year. I know y’all are accustomed to it, but when is the risk of snow over in your part of the world? How late in the year do you expect to get snowfall?
[00:05:51] David Spence:
Generally, the end of April is when it winds down, usually a little bit before that. This year’s a little unusual in having snowfall so late in the season, particularly in Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Again, I’m in Alberta. We’re very high elevation here. It’s about 3000 feet, something like that, elevation in the city of Calgary. And you go to the west and you approach the Rocky Mountains and the elevations only get higher. The potential for snow is greater, late season snow. I have lived here since 1981, and I have witnessed snow falling in every single month of the year, including July.
[00:06:24] David Spence:
I got married on August 22nd, 1992, and on that day it snowed and it snowed hard. Snow never really goes away here, but the big snowfall, end of April, it’s usually done for. And in terms of seeding, seeding gets underway probably end of April toward early May. For people in the cities who want to plant gardens, plant more sensitive things like flowers and that sort of stuff, the rule of thumb here is wait until the last week of May.
[00:06:50] Mike Howell:
Okay. We can’t wait until the last week of May. We’ll be pushing a hundred degrees and nothing will survive very long in those temperatures down here. Quite a different environment between where you and I are located.
[00:07:00] David Spence:
I wish you luck.
[00:07:02] Mike Howell:
David, we talked about spring. It’s just right around the corner. You talked about the moisture conditions there and people are getting ready to start planting and some have already started some of that. Overall, how are the conditions in the Prairies? Are we primed and ready to go or do we still need to get a little more moisture?
[00:07:16] David Spence:
More moisture is welcome. Any drop of rain at this point would be welcome. Even though some areas have pulled out of short-term drought, there’s still that long-term drought. The deeper soil moisture still needs to be replenished because we’ve gone for about a decade with inadequate rainfall, and it’s going to take time to replenish all that. So yes, moisture is still welcome. As long as it doesn’t interrupt the fieldwork that has to be done between now and the middle to end of May when we have to get the seed in the ground so that there’s time for it to grow. We have a very short growing season here, and it’s crucial that the planting gets underway as soon as possible now.
[00:07:48] David Spence:
The soil is pretty well primed in most areas, again, except for southern Alberta, but southern Albertans, I hate to say, it’s not pleasant, but they’re kind of used to this. We in this area are in a semi-arid climate because we’re on the lee side of the Rocky Mountains. I’m in a place where there’s grassland. There are no natural trees east of the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, except along the riverbanks. In my city, Calgary, the trees that I’m looking at out the window over there now were planted. They don’t grow naturally here.
[00:08:19] David Spence:
I often say that when the homesteading happened back in the early 1900s and people in particularly the British Isles were told to come over here and, “Set up farms, we’ll give you free land.” And a lot of them did, including my own family. I Think they were sold a bit of a bill of goods here because they came to a very dry, parched terrain and irrigation systems over the years have been developed to deal with that. But rainfall itself in particularly Alberta next to the Rockies is a pretty scarce supply because the down slope wind coming off those mountains just dries out the atmosphere.
[00:08:51] Mike Howell:
David, we’re talking about the weather and that’s something in agriculture that we spend a lot of time studying and trying to predict the weather and figure out what’s going to happen during the course of the growing season. If we could understand the weather a little better, it could help us make better management decisions through the course of the year. I’m going to put you on the spot and what can you tell us about the forecast for this spring and going into this summer? Can you give us any words of wisdom that’ll help the growers in the Canadian Prairies this year?
[00:09:15] David Spence:
I can be characteristically vague. How about that? There’s no way, of course, to predict the weather with any date-to-day accuracy beyond three to five days, but there are some pretty good signals that we’re in for a hot, dry summer, especially in the western part of the prairie provinces where I live in Alberta, parts of Saskatchewan and El Nino’s developing. And when El Nino develops, it pushes a big ridge of high pressure up on the west side of the North American continent. So over British Columbia, Washington, they’ll be under influence of high pressure. And just how far that high pressure spreads to the East will determine what kind of summer we’re going to get.
[00:09:50] David Spence:
I suspect if past El Ninos are an indication, we’ll have a pretty dry summer in Alberta and in British Columbia. The further east you go, the less dry it may be. But I think even in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, it will be drier than average due to El Nino, and of course warmer than average too. This does not create ideal conditions for crop growth. I fear that come September, we’re going to see stunted crops along many of the fields in the Prairies, despite the abundant moisture that’s in the soil right now. If we don’t get a lot of rainfall, especially from mid-June to early August, I think we could be in a little bit of trouble.
[00:10:26] Mike Howell:
David, we have Eric Snodgrass on from time to time and he gives us a lot of weather updates and that’s pretty much the same thing he was saying when we had him on about a month ago.
[00:10:34] David Spence:
I’m a big fan of his, by the way. Fantastic. I watch his videos all the time.
[00:10:37] Mike Howell:
We love Eric. He gives us a lot of great information. But one thing Eric tells us is places to look for, to watch out, to see what’s coming. He can tell us to look at one place to see what’s going to happen in the Midwest, the corn growing areas. I’m sure you have areas to watch for the plains there in the Western Canadian planes. Tell us where you look to see what weather patterns may be developing this summer.
[00:10:57] David Spence:
Again, it depends where you are. So here in southern Alberta, a couple of things occur here that are rather unique to the region, and one is the development of thunderstorms. We are in a zone just east of a major mountain range in which pressures can drop and when pressures drop fast, storms also build fast. It’s not like you’re in, let’s say, southern Manitoba where you can look to the west and see the storms coming and you know that can put a rough timeline on when they’re going to strike your location. Here, the storms develop right over us. You have to go through a lot of data to determine if the conditions are proper for the storms to develop because they form like right here.
[00:11:35] David Spence:
But for the larger scale storms, the mesoscale stuff, we know we’re going to get a lot of rain in the southern Prairies if a low pressure system is going to cross northern Montana, North Dakota, and that’s going to push a lot of moisture into southern Prairies of Canada. And we watch that very carefully. We watch in the winter Arctic high pressure coming down, giving us some bitterly cold weather. But we also watch the Pacific Ocean. And if a large low pressure system develops in the Pacific Ocean and pumps some air across the Rockies into our region, we know we’re likely in for a Chinook, which is a mild and dry weather pattern that can take temperatures well above freezing, even in the middle of winter.
[00:12:11] David Spence:
Now, if you go to the east, you’re watching other locations. Manitoba, it’s right in the center of the continent. And in Manitoba, they get what we don’t get, and that is Gulf of Mexico moisture coming up, and that creates a lot of instability. You’re likely to see some stronger thunderstorms, tornadoes, that sort of thing in southern Manitoba than you might see elsewhere on the Prairies. And by stronger storms, I mean large scale storms. Here in Alberta, yes, we get thunderstorms and we get tornadoes and that sort of thing, but they are very isolated. We’ll get popup thunderstorms here and there rather than mesoscale convective systems rolling through.
[00:12:47] David Spence:
We will get spin up tornadoes, EF0, EF1. They’re fairly common here. Although that said, some of the deadliest tornadoes Canada’s ever seen have been in Alberta, EF4s. There was an EF5 in southern Manitoba a few years ago. But nonetheless, we are in Alberta likely to see frequent isolated storms that form right over our area, whereas on the Eastern Prairies, there are things to watch. You can watch moisture coming up from the Gulf of Mexico into southern Manitoba. You can watch storms coming from the west, from Alberta into Saskatchewan and monitor them as they go through. And they will tend to strengthen as they do go through because they’re encountering more fuel, more moisture as they move from west to east across the Prairies. I hope that answers your question.
[00:13:29] Mike Howell:
Absolutely. And David, you brought up something that is springtime here. And this time of year, we are always worried about tornadoes in my part of the world. And I usually don’t think about tornadoes in the Prairies in Canada. I guess that’s because I don’t live up there and don’t really pay that much attention to it. But how common are tornadoes and severe weather in your part of the world? And can you give our listeners a little safety tip if they happen to be in some of these tornado warned areas? What do they need to do?
[00:13:54] David Spence:
Well, tornadoes are nowhere near as common here as they are where you are, that’s for sure. In Alberta, for example, we may get an average of 12, 13 tornadoes a year, whereas you’ll get 12 tornadoes out of one single storm. That’s the difference. But nonetheless, whether a tornado happens in isolation or whether a tornado happens as part of a larger storm like you would get, the safety rules are the same. Get to the lowest level of your home, basement if you’ve got one, put as many walls between you and the outdoors as possible and wait out the storm. Turn on a radio, turn on a television, get some form of outside communication. Maybe a cell phone alert would help you out as well.
[00:14:32] David Spence:
And just wait until half an hour after the last rumble of thunder is heard before you even start to venture outside, and chances are you’re safe. But again, the key is to get to the lowest level of your home, put as many walls between you and the outside as you possibly can. We don’t have tornado shelters here like in your part of the world, so that’s the advice we give here.
[00:14:52] Mike Howell:
David, that’s pretty much what we do here. We don’t have a lot of shelters down in my part of the world. I know they do out in the Oklahoma and Kansas areas. We see a lot of those out there. Great advice on the tornado safety. David, I know we’ve talked about a lot of topics here today. Is there anything that we may have missed? Anything that you want to leave our listeners with before we sign off today?
[00:15:10] David Spence:
I just hope that there is knowledge and awareness and appreciation, I suppose, of the unique challenges Canadian farmers face as opposed to those in America. We have a much shorter growing season that limits the amount of crops we can grow. And it is all predicated on weather patterns that are, for lack of a better word, helpful. If we don’t get those helpful weather patterns, we could have a disastrous year on the farm. And we have gone through a few poor years in the Canadian Prairies over the past decade or so with a lack of moisture. It’s the old cliche. It’s always next year. Always look to next year.
[00:15:46] David Spence:
But this time around, I think we’re looking at next year, we’re looking at this coming season with a certain amount of skepticism because even though moisture levels have been replenished across much of the Prairies due to the snowfall we had over the winter, there’s still that El Nino threat coming along. And while of course sunshine and warm weather does help grow crops, it also needs moisture. And with El Nino, moisture can be in short supply. There’s a little bit of trepidation about the season upcoming, but we’ll see what happens.
[00:16:14] Mike Howell:
We hope everybody gets the rain they need this summer or when they need it. Five o’clock every Friday afternoon, half inch of rain would be really nice, but very few people get it like that. David, we really appreciate you taking time to join us today, talking about the Canadian weather patterns. Listeners, we appreciate you tuning in this week. If you will, hang around for just a couple of moments and we’ll be right back with segment two.
[00:16:36] Mike Howell:
Farming isn’t farming without questions, and now there’s a place to go for answers. At eKonomics, an entire team of agronomists is waiting and ready to help for free. No question is too big or too small. Visit Nutrien-eKonomics.com and submit your question with the Ask an Agronomist feature. Listeners, welcome back for segment two, our ask an agronomist session. And our agronomist on call today is Lyle Cowell. Lyle, thanks for joining us today.
[00:17:07] Lyle Cowell:
Thanks for having me, Mike. Always great to have this chance to talk to the farmers out in the audience.
[00:17:12] Mike Howell:
Well, today’s question is about potash. What are the consequences of under-applying potash?
[00:17:17] Lyle Cowell:
Much like any nutrient, it depends. It depends on, do you need to apply potassium? Now, potash supplies potassium and chloride, actually two essential nutrients. So I guess the real question is, do you have a deficiency in potassium or do you have a potential deficiency in chloride? It is more likely that you’d have a potassium deficiency, but we do have to remember that sometimes we see a benefit from the chloride applied with what we call potash as well. What happens if we reduce the rates or choose not to apply?
[00:17:48] Lyle Cowell:
We have to be careful of that because it can have a large impact on both crop yield and quality. We should use a soil test. Soil tests are not perfect by any means, but they’re a good tool in that nutrient toolbox to start to understand the likelihood of needing potassium as well as the rate that might be needed. The risk can be real and quite significant, and we need to really make sure that we are applying enough. Part of the problem that we have to remember with potassium is that potassium is required in significant quantities very early in the season.
[00:18:19] Lyle Cowell:
With some crops, you can run into a bit of deficiency, go back into the crop, top dress it, and recover almost all the yield. Because of the early demand for potassium, sometimes that just doesn’t work very well. It’s hard to utilize a top dress application with potassium well into the season and recover the yield. You have to make that decision early on. We do need to be thinking about ensuring that we apply enough potassium as part of the crop planting phase before we think about planting.
[00:18:51] Mike Howell:
Lyle, great information, we really appreciate it. Listeners, if you need more information, you can visit our website, that’s nutrien-eKonomics.com. Until next time, this has been Mike Howell with The Dirt. Hey guys, if you like what you heard today, do us a favor and share this podcast with someone else. It could be your neighbor, your friend, your crop advisor, or whoever you think would enjoy it. Your support helps ensure future episodes. So please like, subscribe, share, and rate the show wherever you’re listening from.
