Saskatchewan harvest chugs along

There was good harvest progress over much of Saskatchewan last week—although there were rain delays in some areas.

The weekly Saskatchewan Agriculture report says combining is 41 per cent complete—up from 23 per cent the previous week. The five-year average is 58 per cent and the ten-year average is 49 per cent.

The southwest is 55 per cent combined and the southeast is at the halfway point. Plenty of progress made in the northwest last week, which is now at 41 per cent combined. East-central sits at 31 per cent with west-central and the northeast at 27 per cent combined.

Peas are mostly in the bin with lentils at 84 per cent. Moving to the cereal crops—barley is 54 per cent combined, durum 49 per cent, while spring wheat and oats are 35 per cent harvested. Canola sits at 12 per cent combined and flax at three per cent.

Volunteer crop reporters were asked to provide yield estimates—keeping in mind there can be large variations between fields due to scattered rainfall during the growing season. These are the provincial yield estimates by crop:  hard red spring wheat (50 bushels an acre), durum (38 bushels an acre), oats (93 bushels an acre), barley (71 bushels an acre), peas (42 bushels an acre), canola 39 bushels an acre and lentils 1,784 pound per acre.

Breaking down the yield estimates for the two main crops by region—for canola the best average yields are expected in the west-central and northeast regions at 44 bushels an acre. East-central is next at 41, northwest 37, southeast 34 and southwest 29 bushels an acre. For hard red spring wheat, the top yield estimates are in the southeast and northeast at 55 bushels an acre. The two central regions sit at 51 percent, with the northwest at 43 per cent and southwest 36 bushels an acre.