Manitoba Agriculture reports better weather allowed the pace of the harvest to pick up over the past week.
Manitoba Agriculture's final crop report of the season, released yesterday, indicates another week of sunny dry weather will probably be needed to complete this year's harvest.
Anastasia Kubinec, the Manager of Crop Industry Development with Manitoba Agriculture, says temperatures in the high single or low double digits would bring down moisture in grain corn and reduce the need for drying and aeration.
Clip-Anastasia Kubinec-Manitoba Agriculture:
This past week we actually saw quite a bit of progress in harvest, more so than what we've seen on a weekly basis probably in the last month so that's been great news.
A lot of producers were able to finish up the crop that they had or were able to get a really good handle on the crop that is remaining in the field.
Right now, currently as of October 22, were sitting at 91 percent harvested in Manitoba and that's up from 84 percent last week on October the 15th.
For the spring cereals coming off we are seeing a reduction in grade just due to weathering but that is just a weathering factor.
There has not been very many reports of sprouting in the spring cereals which is great news.
In the earlier crop we would have had everything as a number one just because of no weathering.
In the later crops such as soybeans, sunflowers and grain corn all crop quality is looking to be excellent.
The only crops that we would have had to harvest well before this wet period in September and October would have been that of soybeans and the initial soybeans being harvested, there were concerns with quality due to higher greenside and that was a reflection of the very hot and dry summer and the hot and dry finish for those soybean varieties.
The soybeans that are currently coming off, the quality looks to be excellent with very little indication of greenside.
Kubinec notes the seasonal crop report will be released October 29th and will include seasonal summaries for seeded acres, harvested acres to date, reports on quality, insects and diseases and moisture for each region.
Source : farmscape