Quality Wheat is a buy..Canadian Farmers to leave large unplanted acreage due to rain

06/18 13:55 CDT Heavy rain shuts Canadian highway, prevents planting


* 100 mm (3.9 inches) falls in SW Saskatchewan
* Farmers to leave large unplanted acreage due to rain

WINNIPEG, Manitoba, June 18 (Reuters) - Heavy rain swamped the Canadian Prairies on Friday, ending the last hopes for cropplanting in some regions and closing a stretch of the main cross-country highway.

Rain covered much of the Prairies, Canada's primary grain belt, with Environment Canada estimating that close to 100 mm (3.9 inches) had fallen in southwestern Saskatchewan from Thursday to Friday. Highways officials in Saskatchewan and Alberta closed the Trans-Canada Highway near the provincial boundary and set up extensivee detours because of flooding problems on an intersecting Alberta highway.

Sunday is the final insurance deadline for Prairie farmers to sow crops, but the Canadian Wheat Board expects them to leave the most unplanted acres in 39 years. The worst affected farming areas are in eastern
Saskatchewan, but smaller parts of southern Alberta and Manitoba have also been hit.

"I don't think there will be any seeding anywhere between now and Sunday," said Manitoba farmer and canola futures trader

Bill Craddock.

(Reporting by Rod Nickel; editing by Rob Wilson)

((rod.nickel@thomsonreuters.com; +1 204 947 3548; Reuters