Manitoba Agriculture reports, despite rainfall over the past week that delayed harvest in most parts of the province, this year’s harvest is now about 10 percent complete.
Ann Kirk, a cereal crop specialist with Manitoba Agriculture, says isolated rainfall and storm events across the province this week brought rainfall ranging from zero to 111 millimeters putting a hold on harvest in the wetter areas.
Right now, we’re looking at the majority of winter cereal crops, the majority of them being harvested. We’re looking at about 85 percent overall for winter wheat and fall rye and we’re expecting that most of those crops are off in the southwest, central, eastern and Interlake with the northwest lagging a bit behind.
In terms of spring wheat, spring wheat is at about 18 percent harvested across the province, the majority of which is in the central region. Barley is at about 20 percent harvested across the province.
The southwest and central region have 25 to 30 percent of their barley off and oats are sitting at about 10 percent. For field peas we’re looking at 65 percent harvested and canola has just started and we’re estimating about one percent of the canola acres have been harvested. The yield estimates for winter wheat right now range from about 50 to 80 bushels per acre and fall rye at about 60 to 110 bushels per acre.
As you know many parts of the province have been quite dry throughout the growing season and those drier areas do have lower yields. Spring wheat on average is about 50 to 60 bushels per acre and oats are ranging from about 100 to 150 bushels per acre and barley about 60 to 70. The canola that we’ve seen come off so far, we’re seeing yields ranging from 45 to 60 bushels per acre and field peas we’re looking at an average of 60 bushels per acre.
~ Ann Kirk, Manitoba Agriculture
Kirk says producers will be looking for warm dry weather to assist in drying the ground out or drying crops down so they can continue with harvest. She says in many areas the spring cereals as well as peas are ripe and are just waiting for field conditions to be appropriate for harvest while a lot of canola has been swathed or is getting close to being ready for harvest.
