Dry Weather Allows Saskatchewan Harvest to Advance Rapidly

Saskatchewan Agriculture reports dry weather over the past week allowed this year's harvest to advance rapidly. Saskatchewan Agriculture released its weekly crop report yesterday for the period from September 2nd to September 8th.Tyce Masich, a Crops Extension Specialist with Saskatchewan Agriculture, says dry weather over the past week allowed farmers to move the harvest forward.

Quote-Tyce Masich-Saskatchewan Agriculture:

A lot of the crop got harvested this week.Last week harvest progress was at 23 percent and this week it's 41 percent complete across the province.That's still behind the five- and ten-year averages but it's getting closer to those five- and ten-year averages so progress is catching up to where it should be for this time of year which is certainly a good sign.

A lot of that was because it was largely dry in the province this past week and producers hope that trend keeps up, that the rain stays away for now so they can continue to get the  crop off in good time.Pretty much all the winter cereal and pea and lentil crops have been taken off.There might still be a few lentil and pea fields out there that still have to be combined but for the most part those crops have been taken off in all regions.

Right now, producers are mainly just working on taking off their spring cereal crops so progress for those crops range from one third to half of these crops being off depending on where you are in the province. In the southern region, so the southeast and southwest, harvest is over half done in those regions where as it trails a little bit behind in the central and northern regions where progress is anywhere from about a quarter done to a third done in those regions.

It really depends on where you are and then canola crops are starting to be taken off as well. I think pretty much all six regions of the province have at least some producers taking off canola so about one tenth of canola in Saskatchewan has been harvested so far. I expect that to pick up in the coming weeks.

Masich says winter cereal grades have been falling in the top two categories while yields for all crop types are above the historical average going back to 2005 with spring wheat averaging 50 bushels an acre, barley 71 bushels an acre, canola 39 bushels an acre, field peas 42 bushels an acre and lentils 17 hundred and 84 pounds per acre.