Tight seed supply will occur in 2022

With this year’s extreme drought and the rapid escalation of grain prices, it’s more important than ever for farmers to line-up next year’s supply of planting seed early. An Interactive Saskseed Guide is now available on-line to connect producers with appropriate Saskatchewan seed growers.

The regular printed version of the Saskseed Guide will be available early in the new year, but Saskatchewan Seed Growers’ president Mike Shewchuk is urging producers to secure their seed supplies as soon as possible and the interactive guide can help with that.

“For some crops and some varieties, producers may be disappointed if they wait until closer to spring,” notes Shewchuk, a seed grower from near Blaine Lake. “The drought was widespread and seed production is down due to lower yields, but many other factors are also involved,”

Producers who might have planned to use their own production as seed may have had a complete crop failure or all of their production may have been committed under contracts. Therefore the demand for seed is expected to be greater than normal.

Meanwhile, seed growers will have to decide how much of their certified seed production to hold for sale as seed and how much to sell into the commodity market. Many commodity prices are at or near record highs, but there’s no guarantee prices won’t decline by spring. Like other farmers, seed growers have to make marketing decisions aimed at maximizing returns.

“We’re very happy with how well the Interactive Saskseed Guide works,” says

Shewchuk, “It’s a way to get information to growers in a more timely fashion and that’s particularly important this year.”

Available from the Saskatchewan Seed Growers’ Association website at www. saskseed.ca, producers can enter the crop variety they are looking for and all the Saskatchewan seed growers with that variety are listed along with their contact information. In the future, the guide will also feature a map pinpointing all the grower locations.

While the information on seed suppliers is current, the variety performance information on the site does not yet include results from the 2021 trials. However, performance data does not change dramatically from one year to the next.