By Alice McFarlane

More combine fires reported during 2020 Saskatchewan harvest

Sep 3, 2020 | 2:45 PM

SASKATCHEWAN – Farmers in southwest Saskatchewan continue to lead all regions with the most harvest progress.

Producers in that area reported 50 per cent of the crop combined while the southeast region is at 39 per cent.

John Ray farms roughly 1,000 acres in the Creelman district southeast of Regina.

He has just started swathing but said most farmers in his area have been moving through the crop quite quickly.

“I think most of the yields are average to above average. Everybody was dry to start with then we got late June rains. Remarkably, it helped the crop,” he said.

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Ray also has 250 head of cattle. He said the hay crop was extremely poor.

“We were haying in late July, so it set our hay season back quite a bit,” he said.

The hot, dry weather had an impact on the crops in southern and central regions. One of the factors contributing to crop loss include strong winds that shelled standing crops and blew some swaths around.

Dodsland area farmer Shiloh Bennett said they’ve combined 40 per cent of their crop and the wind hasn’t been a problem.

“Back when we used to swath our canola if you got some high winds, you’d have to worry about the swaths rolling up on themselves or blowing away. We switched to all straight cut varieties which makes it quite a bit nicer for combining,” she said.

Crops extension specialist Shannon Friesen said there were reports of light frost over the weekend and early this week, but damage was minimal.

She said another concern has been with fires. Several crop reporters said there were incidents near Moose Jaw, Swift Current, Estevan, and Weyburn which is higher then normal.

“With the extreme dry conditions there were many, many reports of combine fires. We would like to remind producers to be safe and make sure you have a fire extinguisher,” Friesen said.

The west-central region is at 25 per cent complete while the east-central district is 20 per cent.

The northeast is lagging behind at 10 per cent combined while the northwest is at just three per cent.

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alice.mcfarlane@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @AliceMcF