Provincial Harvest Nearly Complete. Southwest Ahead by a Nose

The penultimate Saskatchewan Crop Report is in, and according to Crops Extension Specialist Matt Struthers, harvest should be just about complete when the final report comes in.

With little to no precipitation in the past week, most producers were able to wrap up their harvest, currently sitting at 95 percent combined. That's up from 89 percent from the previous report, and far ahead of the five-year average for this time of year at 70 percent.

"Well ahead of where we normally are. And that's just due to the poor season that we've had. Very hot. Very dry. And that just accelerated everything right to the end. And then also we had perfect, or near-perfect conditions for harvest. Very little rain. Very few delays and producers were just able to get in there and get their crop off."

According to the weekly statistics, the southwest is the farthest ahead, at 98 percent, followed by the southeast and west-central regions at 95 percent while the east-central and northeast regions have 94 percent combined and the northwest 93 percent.

Struthers added that while some producers were lucky, the province as a whole took a hit in terms of yield, but that the saving grace might be quality.

"Yields were much lower than average or normal. But the saving grace might be quality. Due to the fact that it was dry, we didn't have as many fungal pathogens throughout the year. So that might be the saving grace for some producers."

That's a small consolation for producers; some of whom, according to Struthers, had little choice but to simply cut and bale out their crops for livestock feed; getting back a fraction of their investment, while hoping that the stubble and crop residues are enough to trap good amounts of snow over the winter to restore some of the soil moisture.

That was especially prevalent in the southwest, he says, speaking specifically about the region with Swift Current Online on Monday.

"If you go farther southwest towards Swift Current and Gull Lake and let's say, Consul and Val Marie. Conditions were very, very dry all year long. A lot of struggles. A lot of fields down there that didn't head out or pod out; they just sort of stopped growing and producers were stuck with a six-inch crop that they needed to cut for feed."

Struthers added that the final crop report for the season should be released this Thursday.