Saskatchewan farmers, ecosystems battle drought across province
Global News
The absence of rainfall has left rivers and wetlands dry, impacting species and plants in the province.
Saskatchewan farmers are in desperate need of rain, but they are not the only ones battling drought.
The absence of rainfall has left rivers and wetlands dry, impacting species and plants in the province.
John Wilmshurst, the native grasslands conservation manager at the Canadian Wildlife Federation, said the drought is having an impact on everything in nature right now.
“The drought has an effect on all plants, whether they be crops or hay species, tame species or native species,” Wilmshurst said. “You see that the grasses are shorter, there’s less seed in the grasses, there’s less leaves out there.”
For native grasslands in the province, the drought is having the same effect as it is on crops. But because they aren’t areas that need to be seeded every year like crops, they are more resilient in the long term.
“What’s happening in Saskatchewan for the last five or six years will have less effect on native grasslands than in croplands,” he explained.
And the worry for producers is growing.
“We had early rainfall and the crops started out quite well,” farmer Stuart Leonard said. “And then it didn’t rain again. We had about four, five inches of rain, then the rains stopped and then the heat started. So it’s really baked in the crop,”