Harvest close to wrapping up in North West region after tough season for farmers

In summing up the harvest, Acaster said, it was “better than I feared, worse than I’d hoped.”

“The yields were quite variable across the field,” he said. “The whole of our crops ended up being well below average, as far as yields. Some got hit worse than others, the peas in particular. The heat did a lot of damage.”

Some of Acaster’s canola production fared better than expected but he estimated it was about a third to a half of an average yield, at best.

Quality-wise, most of the crops came out not too badly though, he said.

“I think the quality isn’t going to be a big issue, just the quantity,” Acaster said.

One of the biggest challenges was finding additional supplies of feed for the cattle since the hay crops were extremely short.

As well, by mid-summer, the farm was almost out of pasture because the grass started to dry off and wasn’t growing.

“At one point, we were looking like we were only going to be a couple of weeks away from having to start either supplementing cattle on pasture or start writing off crops and turning them into fields that [cattle] could graze,” Acaster said.

“Fortunately, we got some rain in August. At that point, it turned that picture around for us quite drastically. The cattle pastures did come back to life, and we were able to keep grazing but that was probably our biggest stress factor here.”

Saskatchewan Ministry of Agriculture Crops Extension Specialist Matthew Struthers said 93 per cent of crop has been combined in the NW region of the province, based on the latest report.

“They [producers] are just behind the provincial [tally] overall, and they are doing really well,” he told battlefordsNOW.

Harvest in the region is up from 77 per cent from the week prior.

“They just need a little bit more good weather and they will be wrapped up in the [North West],” he said.

Most of the cereal crops have been taken off. Currently, the remaining crops to harvest are mainly canola fields. Canola regrowth has slowed down the harvest process.

“You just can’t have that being run through the combine,” Struthers said. “It just makes issues and makes for more work. So producers will be looking at using a herbicide or maybe waiting for a frost to come through, to kill down that regrowth. Then, get out there once it has all dried down.”

Lack of top-soil moisture continues to be a concern. While August saw some rainfall, there hasn’t been much in the past couple of weeks.

For the North West, the top-soil moisture rating for crop land is 12 per cent adequate, 47 per cent short, and 41 per cent very short. Hay and pastures are rated as eight per cent adequate, 41 per cent short, and 51 per cent very short.

“Now that harvest is just about wrapped up, we need a good solid week of rain before winter, maybe even a couple of weeks of rain. And then, during the winter we need a good snowfall to help us out for next spring,” Struthers said.

The tallies are not in yet for yields in the region. He said there may be a couple of areas that did receive a decent amount of rain when they needed it, but most of the province was significantly impacted by the drought.

“When you look at the province as a whole, the yield and quality is going to be below average for many crops,” Struthers said. “It was just that type of year. We didn’t have the moisture, we had that extreme heat, and everything suffered out there.”

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Angela.Brown@pattisonmedia.com

Twitter: @battlefordsnow

by Angela Brown

Harvest close to wrapping up in North West region after tough season for farmers

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