By Bruce Cochrane.
Manitoba Agriculture reports cereal crops harvested so far in Manitoba have come off in very good condition and yields have been above average.
The harvest of the fall seeded cereal crops, winter wheat and fall rye, is essentially complete in Manitoba and the harvest of the spring cereals, spring wheat, barley and oats is just getting underway.
Pam de Rocquigny, a Cereal Crop Specialist with Manitoba Agriculture, reports, despite wet weather this season, the cereal crops are coming off in very good shape.
Pam de Rocquigny-Manitoba Agriculture:
We've seen winter wheat yields range anywhere from 50 bushels per acre upwards to 100 bushels per acre.
We're estimating a provincial average yield of around 75 bushels per acre for winter wheat so definitely above our five year average for winter wheat here in Manitoba.
We've heard so far that the crop came off in pretty good quality and there's been variable protein levels as well.
I think the good news is we were seeing some symptoms of Fusarium Head Blight out in the field but it doesn't look like it translated into higher levels of fusarium damaged kernels within the harvested samples that have been graded so far so that's been definitely good news.
Our fall rye harvest is also complete as well and we've had yields ranging from anywhere 40 to 95 bushels per acre so, once again, above our five year average for fall rye yields Manitoba.
Of course our spring cereal crops are being harvested as we speak.
In terms of the yield ranges that we've seen so far, just based on the harvest just starting to get underway, spring wheat yields are ranging anywhere from 40 to 90 bushels per acre, for barley crops anywhere from 70 to 85 bushels per acre and for oats anywhere from 90 to upwards of 175 bushels per acre so definitely some good yields on the top end of those ranges for our spring cereal crops.
De Rocquigny says the sporadic rainfall, high humidity and wet field conditions have been challenging so a stretch of warm dry weather will help producers complete the harvest and help maintain the quality of the crops.
Source: Farmscape