By Alice McFarlane

Manitoba harvest ahead of normal

Sep 25, 2020 | 10:32 AM

MANITOBA – Harvest progress in Manitoba is slightly ahead of normal, according to the latest crop report from Manitoba Agriculture.

Farmers have 70 per cent of the crop in the bin, slightly ahead of the three-year average of 68 per cent.

Crop specialist Dane Froese said harvest is going well with the cereal and pea harvest nearly complete and farmers working on canola.

“Producers had a really good start and made significant progress with the canola harvest particularly in the south west and north west regions where a lot of that crop was seeded a little bit later or had some environmental struggles throughout the summer,” Froese said. “We’re seeing some nice warm harvest conditions despite the frost earlier in the week.”

In the northwest, Froese said canola is drying well, with roughly 90 per cent of the swathed crop harvested at Roblin, and 40 to 50 per cent combined at Swan River.

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“Producers will be starting into soybeans if they haven’t already with dry beans getting closer to the finish line,” he said.

About nine per cent of the flax crop has been harvested. Froese said flax stands up well unless there is heavy snow or driving heavy rains. It can be harvested with or without frost.

“Frost does help to dry down those stems. Green flax stems going through the combine cause headaches for producers similar to how hemp might behave,” he said.

There have been reports of grasshopper pressure in pastures as they have moved out of the mature crops. Froese said they are getting more disease reports.

“We’re finding more cases of verticillium stripe in canola then in years past as a result of better identification and conditions that favoured the development of the disease. It doesn’t appear to be affecting yield dramatically,” he said.

Several frost events coupled with warm daytime temperatures this past week have rapidly advanced soybean and corn crops. Farmers are also desiccating sunflowers.

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alice.mcfarlane@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @AliceMcF