Rain Briefly Pauses Saskatchewan Harvest

Saskatchewan Agriculture reports rainfall in many areas of the province this past week caused producers to briefly pause harvest.Saskatchewan Agriculture released its crop report yesterday for the period from September 9th to 15th.Kim Stonehouse, a Crops Extension Specialist with Saskatchewan Agriculture based in Tisdale, says it was slow going.

Quote-Kim Stonehouse-Saskatchewan Agriculture:

Everything is progressing.Harvest has moved to about 53 percent complete right now and this is about a 12 percent increase over the previous week but it has been slow due to the rain that's happening throughout the province, mostly on the east side this last week but there have been rain delays throughout the harvest.Other factors though that are contributing to the delay in harvest is high humidity that we're face makes days quite a bit shorter for harvest because it won't dry in time to get out in the field at a good time but also uneven maturity and second growth of crop or also of weeds that is causing producers to have to implement other operations in the field just to get harvest complete and get the grain in the bin.

Right now, we're behind the five-year average of 73 percent and behind the ten-year average of 62 percent. The crops that have come off are winter wheat and fall rye. These have been completed for a little bit but the peas and lentils are getting very close to finishing. Peas are at 96 percent and lentils are about 91 percent complete.

Other crops such as triticale is about 75 percent, barley is 72, durum is 66, spring wheat is at 56 percent, oats are at 52 percent and canary seed is around 20 percent.For oilseeds, mustard is leading the group there are 41 percent completed while canola is at about 21 percent and flax is around six percent.

Stonehouse says this past week, wind, wildlife and waterfowl were the main causes of crop damage however we are getting reports of frost in the later maturing crops, there have been reports in the past week of hail causing damage to crops and grasshoppers continue to damage crops in some areas.