April 29th Wet is Good

One could complain about the snow in AB but than we look back at the start of the 2009 season at the beginning of May and are just happy to have started as early as we did this year. We are pretty much where we would have been at the end of May in completed surveys and even have results from a successful drill behind for one of the first clients this year that turned out much better than expected. We also know the moisture is needed badly in a lot of the West and will be great for the farmers.

We worked into MB last week and were to complete one more survey here and than head into SK this week. With the amount of rain in the forecast we were looking at the radar map early this morning, and after checking with our scheduled clients in MB and SK we made the decision to hole up for a day or 2. As a big part of our work is off-site we decided to get caught up on paperwork, pretty sure it would be more productive than waiting on sites for rain to stop the next couple of days. The radar track looks like all the sites we are headed to will be in rain from MB thru SK and SNOW in AB for the next 2-3 days so it’s pretty hard to skirt around it and try and get any work done. Hopefully we can get started over the weekend and get into SK early next week. This may put the BC loop a couple of weeks away yet but still when we thought we would get there earlier in the year before getting the early start we did.

Alberta “GROWING FORWARD”- Water Management Program

We are very pleased to see the Alberta Water Management Program is available to farmers and ranchers this spring thru the relatively new “Growing Forward” initiative replacing the previous rural water development program. The AB Water Management Program is just one segment of the broader federally supported “Growing Forward” frame-work for CDN agriculture, that will bring multi-faceted assistance to Alberta farmers including product development, increasing access to global markets, energy management, protecting the environment, animal welfare, food safety and managing risk.


In a quick review of the application process for water development assistance, there are sure to be a few comments of “looks like too much paperwork” but in my opinion the program and application process is a step in the right direction. It will in some cases be the catalyst for producers to complete an assessment of what may be their operations most important resource. Alberta’s Water Management Program shows solid effort by the ARD (AB Agriculture and Rural Development) to target funding not just to establish a new water source, but to also incorporate the development of a Water Management Plan that will help assure long term sustainability of the new and existing water sources, the environment, and help facilitate plans for future growth and development of the farming operation. We feel that through the application process, farmers and agri-business, will get a more accurate understanding, or at the very least, additional insight as to the part water resources play in their farming operation and it’s future sustainability.

The link to Alberta’s Growing Forward Water Management Program is below. The blue column on the right of the web page provides the links to other Growing Forward Programs currently available.

http://www.growingforward.alberta.ca/growingforward/program_WaterManagement.htm

April 6 Update

Coming back from MB last week was quite encouraging from a “spring has arrived” aspect. Right across the west most of the snow was gone and we also stopped to do a couple of roadside ground tests for frost in SK and E AB attempting to pound a 3 foot rod. Though it still showed some frost in the ground we also stopped to check with a back hoe operator digging road side near Irvine, AB and he suggested the frost was pretty much gone on the sunny side of the slopes, still a bit left on the shaded side. We are pretty excited to be getting what is an earlier start this year as last year we did our first survey May 1 and had snow after that hold us up. We will have a few surveys done in S AB this week. Spring clients from BC have been checking and we have suggested we would be getting there by mid-May but we expect if the weather doesn’t surprise us it could be earlier to at least get the early bookings done.