Farmers are busy checking crop development, spraying weeds and scouting for insects and disease.

The latest crop report shows seeding operations are at about 98 per cent complete with the last two per cent on the eastern half of the province.

Crops Extension Specialist Matt Struthers says producers are just getting into some of those wet areas now to seed, and then there's also quite a bit of green feed that's to go in. 

Over the last week the province saw some fairly widespread rain events with minor to severe flooding reported in some areas.

Struthers says the Rosetown-Kindersley area got hammered with rain.

"They got a lot of rain in a very short period of time, and that did result in some flooding just due to the sheer volume and then also just how dry it is there. The soils not really thinking about picking up a lot of moisture and all of a sudden it gets a whole dump. So hopefully that damage isn't too bad, that's still being assessed right now. "

He notes while it caused some damage, it was still good to see.

"It will make a huge difference. What we saw there in the West Central Region, Southwest, and then the southern part of the Northwest is a lot of crop hadn't even come up yet.  A lot of fields germination was patchy just due to how dry it was. So this moisture will greatly improve the chances of crops being able to germinate and emerge. It will also hopefully improve hay crops fast enough now, in order to get the first cut off in a couple of weeks. Then also with pastures, you know those pastures are really struggling and grass just wasn't growing fast enough or couldn't grow faster than cows could eat it. So, hopefully this rain is able to give that grassland a bit of life and bounce back quite quick."

Of course, with the rainstorms came the wind and hail, the hardest hit area was Grand Coulee which saw about six inches of pea sized hail.

Struthers says our hope is that not much of the crop had come up yet in that area and so escaped that damage, but there's certainly other areas around the province that did get hail and that damage is still being assessed.

According to the latest report provincially, cropland topsoil moisture is rated seven per cent surplus, 65 per cent adequate, 19 per cent short and nine per cent very short. Hay and pasture land is rated as six per cent surplus, 61 per cent adequate, 24 per cent short and nine per cent very short. For some hay fields in drier areas, the rain might have come too late and the hay crop may not be ready for first cut in a couple of weeks. In areas where moisture was abundant, the crops look very good.

He says at this point crop conditions across the province mostly range from fair to good. 

"Provincially, 69 per cent of fall cereals, 60 per cent of pulse crops, 50 per cent of spring cereals and 41 per cent of oilseed crops are at their normal stages of development for this time of year. With the recent rains, producers are hopeful that conditions will improve, especially in the west."

 Most damage this week was from drought, flooding, insects (flea beetles, grasshoppers and cutworms), gophers, hail and wind. Producers have wrapped up some of their reseeding operations and are now turning their focus back to spraying to keep pests under control.

A complete, printable version of the Crop Report is available online at https://www.saskatchewan.ca/crop-report.