Manitoba Agriculture reports extensive rains and intense thunderstorms in the far southwest corner of the province and in parts of the eastern region have slowed this year’s harvest.
Sonya Wilson, an oilseed specialist with Manitoba Agriculture, says extensive rain and thundershowers, especially in the far southwest corner of Manitoba and parts of the eastern region over the weekend, halted the harvest.
We have our winter wheat, fall rye and field peas completely done which is as we would expect. We have spring wheat sitting at about 90 percent across the province with it being basically done in the central region and the northwest sitting at about 80 percent complete. The next where we’re farthest along is with barley. We’re sitting at about 87 percent. Again, the central region is basically done in terms of barley harvest and the northwest is sitting at about 75 percent. Oats as well, we’re sitting at 80 percent and so are quite close to being finished and most producers are turning their attention to canola as those crops are wrapping up. We’re sitting at about 33 percent already harvested and off the fields across the province with the central at 60 percent and the northwest at eight percent. We’ve also seen a couple producers moving to soybean harvest, especially in the eastern region.
Then, in terms of where we’re sitting, we’ve definitely had some more rainfall in the past couple of weeks here so I would say we’re sitting a bit below average but it really is dependent on the region. I would say the eastern region might even be a bit ahead of what typically normal is just because it was drier but then these later rains are definitely going to be putting a halt on a lot of the harvesting operations.
~ Sonya Wilson, Manitoba Agriculture
Wilson says over the next week growers will be looking for fields to dry up and crops to dry down for harvest to move forward.
