Good Harvest Progress Last Week

The provincial Farm Production Advisor in Steinbach says area farmers took advantage of the warm weather last week to get a lot of crop into the bin. Earl Bargen says most of the canola and spring cereals are now in the bin.

 

"There's going to be the odd field still out there but I think the guys are wrapping up fast. I also saw the start of some of the soybeans coming on off on Friday and Saturday before the rain hit here on Sunday. That would definitely be the stuff that was planted earlier and maybe some of the earlier maturing lines that are out there."

 

Bargen says he's hearing early soybean yields in the range of 25 to 35 bushels per acre which he considers good after the year we've had.

 

Meanwhile, he says corn is close to full maturity but producers will need some dry weather for them to dry down for harvest.

 

"The fields that I monitor, the milk line is basically done and I'm starting to see that black line. That's telling me that it's physiologically mature. The rest is kind of dependent on the kind of weather we get and how fast the rest of it can dry down. If we could have held onto last week's weather for another week or two, I'm sure it would have sped things up. As far as sunflowers, I think they're kind of in that similar physiologically mature stage, or getting close."

 

Bargen adds winter wheat seeding is continuing but producers are getting near the end of that window. He notes one field that was seeded about two weeks ago is now in the two leaf stage.

 

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.