Operations on hold as farmers deal with heavy rain

As the rain continues to pour on the southeast many businesses are affected, but farmers especially are having their operations halted by the moisture.

Usually seeding in spring happens around this time, but thanks to the rain the ground is much too soft to hold tractors.

On top of that, there's been so much rain that farmers are beginning to see standing water in some areas that they had planned on seeding this year.

Troy Adams, who farms to the west of Estevan, says that they'll be shut down for a bit unless some sunlight can dry out the ground.

"We've had to shut down here this week and it looks like we'll be shut down for a while. We're going to need some drying time here, for sure. The water's starting to pool and the ground's pretty much saturated already. No matter what happens, we're going to need some sun and some warmth just to get things dried out."

Compared to last year there's a lot more moisture - with that dryer year, new land was opened up for use by farmers.

However, it seems like with this heavy rain that those spots are being reclaimed this year.

"We've got a bit of overland flooding, all the low spots are now full and water is starting to pool in a few areas that we haven't seen in a few years." said Adams, "We've been really dry the last few years and worked up a lot of those low spots and reclaimed a lot of sloughs, that's all underwater now so we're kind of back where we're used to be."

Farmers are also likely to start changing plans around what crops they can plant, as the yield potential of some crops is swiftly shrinking as the rain continues.

"It's just the matter of what point of the season we are. Any of the longer-season crops are probably not going to get in the ground now. I think some acres will be switched to oat and barley if guys can find seed," said Adams, "It just kind of changes things around as the calendar keeps ticking away."

Adams says that overall the moisture is appreciated, he just wishes it came down over a longer period rather than all at once.