By Sarah Wallace

Farmers look for warmth with harvest nearing

Aug 16, 2013 | 6:38 AM

The northeast portion of Saskatchewan, much like the rest of the province, is hoping for warm weather to continue to get crops into harvest mode.

“It looks like we are getting that warm weather right now so hopefully it can continue into harvest season. Not as much rain has been recorded in the region in the last couple of weeks which has helped relieve some of the moisture stress on some of the crops particularly south of Prince Albert and north of PA which for a lot of the season they have had that excess moisture stress,” said Daphne Cruise, regional crop specialist for Saskatchewan Agriculture.

According to Cruise, some of the crops have, in many cases, been drowned out around the sloughs. “But after that the crop condition looks pretty good. Producers are indicating that things look not to bad and they are hoping to get into the harvest season in the next couple weeks.”

Most crop reporters are indicating that producers are about 10 days to two weeks behind normal for this time of year, but Cruise said warm weather should help the process.

Being behind 10 to two weeks can cause some issues for producers. “I suppose at this point in time, especially for the north regions of the province, there are producers worried about frost particularly because the north end of the region tends to get frost earlier than the southern regions,” Cruise said.

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“That being said we have had some very long open fall harvest seasons, so that’s what we’re hoping here, is to get that warm weather just because most of the crops in the north east are filling and podding and some of the later seeded crops are just finishing flowering as well.”

She said farmers are still feeling pretty optimistic about the weather warming up.

Weekly Crop Report

A portion of the winter wheat cereals in the southwest and west-central portions of the province are ready to be straight cut according to the latest crop report from Saskatchewan Agriculture.

In those regions, producers have just begun swathing canola and desiccation of peas and lentils has also started as crops start to turn.

“Challenges with swath dry down and bailing continue for livestock producers. Haying progress varies according to rain showers. The estimated average hay yields on dry land are reported as 1.6 tons per acre (alfalfa and alfalfa/brome hay), 1.3 tons per acre (other tame hay), 1.3 tons per care (wild hay) and two tons per acre (greenfeed).

On irrigated lane, the estimated average hay yields are 2.8 tons per acre (alfalfa and alfalfa/brome hay), one ton per acre (other tame hay) and 4.2 tons per acre (greenfeed). Hay yields on dry land as well as on irrigated land are on par with the five year average,” the report said.

Topsoil moisture across the province on crop land is rated at five per cent surplus, 81 per cent adequate, 13 per cent short and one per cent very short.

Topsoil moisture on hay land and pasture land is rated at three per cent surplus, 79 per cent adequate, 17 per cent short and one per cent very short.

Farmers will continue to prep their fields for harvest and finishing up their haying.

swallace@panow.com

On Twitter: @sarahthesquid