By Bruce Cochrane.
Saskatchewan Agriculture reports continued rainfall since mid-June is taking a toll on the quality of crops being harvested across much of the province.
Saskatchewan Agriculture released its weekly Crop Report yesterday.
Daphne Cruise, a Cropping Management Specialist with Saskatchewan Agriculture, reports the harvest got underway a week to ten days earlier than normal and things were looking good until mid-June when the rains started and they haven't let up.
Daphne Cruise-Saskatchewan Agriculture:
We haven't got any hard percentages and numbers on what it means for the crop grades but, from comments that we're getting and even indications from industry, is higher Fusarium incidents in the durum crop especially and in the hard red spring wheat crop.
What that means, it sounds like quite a few number-2 grades coming down through the pipeline with some high incidents of fusarium percentages in those crops so that's the one thing right now.
It sounds like, for the most part, protein is on average and in some cases quite good so that's a nice surprise to many producers.
When it comes to the lentil and pea crop, there again because of the higher incidents of disease on the sample, number-2 and sometime in some cases even lower.
Also earth tag attached to those pulse crops because a lot of our lentil and pea crops have been lodged for some time and so getting the combine header to pick up a majority of the crop you really have to get close to the ground to get the majority of those kernels into the combine.
In some of those cases, you are starting to pick up a little dirt with it.
When it comes to that, that's kind of the things we're dealing with right now when it comes to crop quality but hopefully next week we'll have a better indication of what that means as far as the crop grades.
Cruise notes, the forecast for the next week is calling for rain so things aren't overly promising.
She says right now its a matter of getting the combines into the fields and hopefully we get some better harvest weather in the coming weeks.
Source: Farmscape