Manitoba farmers make significant harvest progress

Minimal rain and warmer temperatures allowed Manitoba farmers to get more crop in the bin.

Crop quality has been reported as generally good but spring cereals that sat out in areas that received higher amounts of rain have been downgraded and there have been some poorer quality oats due to too much moisture.

Manitoba Agriculture Cereal Crop Specialist Anne Kirk said the harvest is sitting at about 72 per cent complete.

“The most amount of rain recorded was in the Gardenton area with 5.5 millimeters. Many areas got no rain over the past seven days which was great for harvest,” Kirk said. “Things were also quite warm so we did see good harvest progress and some longer days for combining.”

The last bits of spring cereals in the field are coming in now. Kirk said there is some spring wheat, barley and oats left to combine in the southwest and the northwest but in the central, eastern and Interlake most people would have finished within the last week.

“We still have canola to harvest so canola is coming off throughout every region as well as soybeans. Canola is looking at about 76 per cent harvested overall and soybeans are about 24 per cent harvested overall,” she added. “In the next week, if the weather is cooperative, I would expect a bigger jump in the canola and soybeans.”

Kirk said for the corn that is appropriately dried down, harvesting of that crop and progress will be noted in next week’s crop report.

Depending on the amount of moisture received, there is a wide range of crop yields with spring wheat averaging above 60 bushels per acre and up to 90 or 100 bushels in areas that received timely rain, oats from 100 to 130 bushels per acre and barley about 65 to 110 bushels.