Manitoba Harvest Reaches 73 Percent Complete

Limited rainfall over the past week allowed the harvest to jump ahead in Manitoba. Manitoba Agriculture released its weekly crop report yesterday.Anne Kirk, a cereal crop specialist with Manitoba Agriculture, says very low amounts of precipitation allowed the harvest to move forward reaching 73 percent complete across the province.

Quote-Anne Kirk-Manitoba Agriculture:

We are seeing the most harvest progress in the central region where we're estimating that the spring cereal crops and field peas are 100 percent done.In the eastern Interlake region, we're estimating about 72 to 75 precent and then the northwest and the southwest slightly lower with 61 and 69 percent.The crops that are near or complete would be the winter cereals, the spring cereals, field peas.

Canola is nearing completion.We're estimating a range of about 65 to 85 percent complete throughout the province.Then, over the past week, flax and soybeans have really just gotten started.We're estimating province wide about 17 percent of the flax done and about 30 percent of the soybeans complete.

In many crops we are seeing a range in yields just due to things such as excess moisture and some fields not draining as well or some reseeding activity so we do have quite a range.

For spring wheat we're estimating about 40 to 95 bushels per acre with averages around that 70 bushels per acre and a wide range in protein as well, about 10 to 15 percent protein.Oats, the estimate is 110 to 180 bushels per acre, barley 80 to 120.We are seeing the average canola ranging from about 30 to 45 bushels per acre but a wider range in reported yields.

We have limited numbers of yield estimates for flax but we have seen 20 to 25 bushels per acre in the southwest.Dry beans, we have about 60 percent of the crop being harvested and average yields are estimated at about 17 hundred to two thousand pounds per acre.With soybeans we're seeing average of about 45 bushels per acre.

Kirk says, if the weather holds we'll see those canola acres come off, a big push on flax and soybeans and we've seen a little grain corn harvested in the eastern region and, with a good week, we'll see more grain corn harvested.