Manitoba Agriculture reports rain and strong winds in the eastern and Interlake regions as well as in parts of the northwest and central regions on Monday and snow in parts of the Northwest slowed the harvest.
Ann Kirk, a cereal crop specialist with Manitoba Agriculture, says, with about 93 percent of the crop harvested across the province, farmers are getting close to wrapping things up.
Over the past week we did have fairly good harvest conditions at the beginning of the week. We did have precipitation over the weekend in many part of the province. Rain and then snow in the northwest region did put a pause on harvest over the weekend and the beginning of this week.
Spring cereals are basically complete. Canola is very close to completion as well as dry beans. Those are about 96 percent complete. Soybeans are also very close to completion at about 90 percent. So, what’s left is about 25 percent of the flax crop, 80 percent of the sunflowers and about 60 percent of the grain corn is left to harvest so we have made good progress and it’s just those remaining later season crops to come off.
In general, we saw some poorer quality in some of the spring cereals that had a very long harvest season. Some of those cereals did sit out on fields and were wet quite a few times prior to being harvested so there was some loss of quality in those spring cereals but, in terms of the later season crops like what we’re harvesting right now, the soybeans and corn, no major quality issues there.
I’m expecting over the next week or so that there will be a big push towards grain corn, finishing off those remaining soybean acres and getting into the sunflowers. Also, as field conditions dry up, farmers will be wanting to do field work including cultivation, fertilizer applications, so just a big push to get work done before winter sets in.
~ Ann Kirk, Manitoba Agriculture
Kirk notes that winter cereal planting is complete and crops are establishing well with the majority of winter cereals at the three-leaf stage.
