Harvest Expected To Start This Week

Jul 30, 2019

The owner of Prairie Sky Crop Solutions in Niverville says the harvest could get underway late this week. Reg Friesen says some crops are just about ready.

"The winter wheat is probably going to be harvested, my guess is, late this week. There is also some early barley out there. Spring wheat, in general. is probably going to be another week or two yet for some of the early stuff."

Friesen says crops have benefited a lot from the early July rains, although he notes some parts of the region got excessive amounts that led to a lot of water damage. These include the Aubigny and St. Malo areas. But, generally, Friesen says crops are looking much better than they did at the start of the month. He hopes the rain came in time to help the grain fill out.

"I hope so. You never really know until the combine gets in there. Last year, we were lacking rain also, the cereals were quite short, the canola was looking thin and quite short, and it actually turned out that it was one of our best harvests. So you never really know until the combine gets in there, but I'm hoping it came in time. I think it did."

Friesen says one major challenge this year has been insects.

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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.