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By Alice McFarlane

Crop Report

Northeast leads with most crop combined

Oct 17, 2019 | 12:16 PM

Relatively warm and dry weather allowed for some producers to return to the field last week.

The ministry of agriculture crop report has 69 per cent of the crop in the bin up from 55 per cent last week.

While many areas received mixed precipitation others received very little and were able to spend more time in the field.

Crop extension specialist Shannon Friesen said the one bright spot is the north east region with 85 per cent of the crop combined.

“That is up from 61 per cent from last week and does bring them more in line with the five year average,” Friesen said. “Most of that progress came because it was warm, it was dry and it really just seemed to miss those rain showers and snow storms. With some warm and dry weather in the forecast we are hopeful more producers can actually wrap up in the next week or two.”

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The west-central region has 77 per cent combined, the southwest is at 76 per cent, the northwest 65 per cent, the southeast region is at 62 per cent and the east-central region is lagging behind at 51 per cent combined.

Friesen said province-wide there are concerns about crop quality with reports of significant downgrading at the elevator due to sprouting. The majority of the crop coming off is tough or damp and is being placed into aeration bins and grain dryers.

“We started hearing about sprouted crops even at the end of August and early September,” Friesen said. “It’s not just the normal crops such as wheat, barley and oats actually sprouting. We have heard of canola and flax as well. We were just getting the rains at the wrong time and once that crop is laying in the swath or still standing we start to see issues. There will be some challenges with marketing but hopefully we are able to get the crop off, get it dried down for safe storage and then we can go from there.”

Friesen said most livestock producers indicate they have adequate supplies of hay, straw, greenfeed and feed grain heading into winter.

There is significant downgrading at the elevator due to sprouting crops.

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alice.mcfarlane@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @AliceMcF