Saskatchewan Harvest Now 23 Percent Complete

Saskatchewan Agriculture reports, with 23 percent of this year’s crop now harvested, crop quality and yields are variable.Saskatchewan Agriculture released its weekly crop report yesterday for the period from August 26th to September 1st.Tyce Masich, a Crops Extension Specialist with Saskatchewan Agriculture says, although warm and dry weather conditions throughout the province allowed producers to make good harvest progress over the past week, at 23 percent complete, the harvest is still behind the five- and ten-year averages.

Quote-Tyce Masich-Saskatchewan Agriculture:

Last week we did ask our reporters on winter wheat and fall rye grades and quality.Overall quality is all right throughout the province.There's a lot of variability.In the western areas there was a bit more rain there late in the season which definitely took a toll on quality so quality is maybe a little lower in the western part of the province but quality is a bit better in the eastern part of the province so there's a bit of variation there.

And, in terms of yield like I mentioned, there's a bit of variability with yields this year.The eastern parts of the province are reporting pretty good early yields for mainly their pea, lentil and spring wheat crops and barley as well but in the southwest there's been some pretty poor yields in that region just with how dry early on and  throughout the growing season it has been.

It's kind of unfortunate for producers out there but there are some producers in the southwest that are reporting average yields as well.It really depends on where you are and how much rainfall that you got during the growing season.Harvest is really just getting going in the west central part of the province.

In the Rosetown and Kindersley area they're just starting but I've heard some pretty good yields coming from their barley and lentil crops so it'll be interesting to see what next week's report has because we will be asking our reporters on yield information for this year's crop.

Masich says producers will be looking for more warm dry weather.He says growers are hoping to finish off most of the pulse crops and make progress with spring wheat crops while most oilseed crops are still a week to ten days away from being ready for harvest.