Saskatchewan Agriculture reports several weeks of dry weather will still be needed to complete this year's harvest.
Saskatchewan Agriculture released its weekly crop report yesterday.
Shannon Friesen, a Crops Extension Specialist with Saskatchewan Agriculture, says yet another week of very cool wet weather, with many areas of the province reporting rain as well as snow, continued to slow the harvest.
Clip-Shannon Friesen-Saskatchewan Agriculture:
At the moment our biggest concerns in the fields with quality tend to be factors such as bleaching and sprouting and so, because we've had a lot of rain and a lot of snow and a lot of lodging, many of our cereal crops still left out in the fields are actually suffering from that.
We've also heard many reports of standing crop actually shelling out and now that we do have some swathed crops out there we also have some geese and some wildlife actually feeding on those as well.
The longer that the crop is out there the more open it is to actual downgrading but again we are hopeful we can get that off.
What we are hoping now is that we do get some warm, dry and windy days.
We do not need it to be 20 degrees or anything and we can actually combine when it's a bit cooler out but what we're really looking for is some dry conditions.
We have seen many areas of the province have continuous rain, continuous snow and in many cases a combination of that for well over a month now.
It seems like we got all of our moisture in the fall time instead of spread out through the year.
We are hoping that the forecast is accurate and that we are going to reach some double digits in the next week or so.
Friesen says 78 percent of the crop is now in the bin, up from 73 percent last week, but behind the five year average of about 84 percent.
She says the one good thing is that the moisture has improved soil conditions and should help for next year's crop.
Source : farmscape