Harvest starts, hailstorm damages crops in Saskatchewan crop report

Saskatchewan is seeing the first few crops getting harvested after a year where different sides of the province saw very different outcomes.

In the western part of the province, less moisture has caused dryer crops and many are now in their desiccation stage, with a few moving into harvest.

Crops Extension Specialist Matthew Struthers explains just who is getting the first round of crops into the bins this year.

"Harvest has begun for a few producers out there, mainly down in the southwest and the south central region, where crops are a little farther ahead due to the lack of moisture they're going through. Quite a few fields were desiccated in the last week and a half, and more are still being dessicated and some are even being combined this past week and also going into this next week. It's still a minimal amount of land that's been desiccated so far."

Topsoil moisture across the province continued to decline slightly compare dot last week. Cropland topsoil moisture is rated as four per cent surplus, 64 per cent adequate, 25 per cent short and seven per cent very short. Hay and pasture land topsoil moisture are rated as two per cent surplus, 65 per cent adequate, 20 per cent short and 13 per cent very short.

With the heat and lack of moisture, some soils are starting to dry out, but farmland is still ahead of what the province experienced last year.

"Nothing to be concerned about, certainly better than what we were at last year, but we've seen this decline and we've had some hot summer days. There was quite a bit of wind," said Struthers, "So that dries the soil up pretty fast. We still need a few of those light showers to pass through the province to make sure the crops don't burn up in the heat before they're able to get harvested."

Parts of Saskatchewan were hit with high winds and hail that introduced crop damage, with one large storm affecting farms in a large area.

"There's a hail storm that started in the West central, kind of by the Marengo area, and it cut all the way to Lake Diefenbaker and the started to head kind of south-southeast. It was quite a large swath that it covered, and there was some minor damage but there's also some very severe crop damage where some fields were completely destroyed, so it's very unfortunate to see that this time of year," said Struthers, "With harvest just a few weeks away for some people, and it's very disheartening for sure."