Rain is falling in the southeast as farmers are seeding their fields, potentially bringing well-timed moisture.

A lack of moisture has been a problem in some areas of the province, though the southeast has fared better than most in recent years.

Agrologist Edgar Hammermeister details the potential effect that welcome moisture could have on farmers.

"I think even for the guys who are just nicely getting started there, thinking about last year we'll take all the moisture that will come. There will be enough; it doesn't take a lot of moisture for the straw to start hanging up on drills and you start having poor seedbed conditions. So the farmers will take it easy, it's not too late at all, it's early yet for starting seeding so they'll be patient."

Hammermeister says the forecast has even come down from previously speculated amounts, though there likely won't be too much seeding in the southeast.

The moisture is just enough over May to give a good window for farmers while also providing much-needed moisture.

"I think there's going to be really good seating windows for farmers to be able to get things done and there's going to be some intermittent showers, but at the moment anyways, those extended forecasts aren't suggesting it's going to be any kind of big rain events to shut us down for any amount of time. So once we get through this week, I think there we'll have good windows and seeding should get done on a fairly timely basis this year." 

Hammermeister says he is looking forward to what could be a good year for farmers.

"I'm a farmer, so I'm always optimistic. It's just very degrees of optimism. I'm cautiously optimistic here because we've got very good soil moisture conditions to start and the crops are going to have an opportunity to get going."

"But we're going to have a little bit of a wait and see if some of the longer-term forecasts for the growing season are expressing a little bit of concern for the central plains and the northern prairies, particularly the eastern prairies are going to start seeing some drying conditions here, possibly going into the latter part of June and into July."