Saskatchewan Agriculture reports farmers made progress earlier this week in the harvest before widespread rainfall stalled field operations across much of the province. Saskatchewan Agriculture released its crop report Thursday for the period from September 1st to September 7th.
Samantha Marcino, a Crops Extension Specialist with Saskatchewan Agriculture, says currently 27 percent of the crop is in the bin, up nine percent from the week prior but still behind the five-year average of 58 percent harvested and the 10-year average of 50 percent.
Quote-Samantha Marcino-Saskatchewan Agriculture:
Large amounts of precipitation were recorded throughout the province. Almost the entire province recorded some amount of rainfall. There were actually eight RMs that recorded over 100 mm of rain, so some areas receiving some significant amounts. The largest amount of rain that was reported fell in the RM of Longlaketon with 138 mm of rain.
The RM of Eyebrow had 132 mm of rain and the RM of Sarnia recorded 127 mm of rain. So, fields are generally saturated in some of these regions that receive that much rain but producers are hoping for some warm dry weather going forward to get back into the fields. Producers reported this week that there are concerns from the heavy rain and wind, there's a lot of lodging now. That, on top of the moisture, there are really a lot of concerns on what quality is going to be out there, whether that's bleaching or sprouting or things like that.
I think we won't really know the full extent of that until we see what the weather does here for the next couple weeks. If it dries up and producers are able to get into their fields and get harvested, I think there's still a really good chance that lots of this grain will come off in pretty decent condition.
Marcino says some producers have expressed concern over the potential for frost this upcoming week but the hope is that doesn't come to fruition and that our nighttime lows stay above the zero mark. She says a couple of days of warm, dry weather will allow producers to get back out into the fields, especially in the regions that didn't receive that excessive rainfall and with the equipment these days they can cover a lot of acres in a short period of time so even though they're behind the five-and-10-year averages, they can make up that difference in a big hurry if the weather cooperates.
Source : Farmscape.ca