Farmscape for August 18, 2017

Saskatchewan Agriculture reports dry weather in much of the province has taken a toll on crop yields but quality is far better than last year.
Saskatchewan Agriculture released its weekly crop report yesterday.
Shannon Friesen, a Cropping Management Specialist with Saskatchewan Agriculture, says provincially seven percent of the crop is in the bin and seven percent has been swathed or is ready to be straight cut.

Clip-Shannon Friesen-Saskatchewan Agriculture:
Certainly, even though we are slightly ahead of the five year average, most of that is due of course to the lack of moisture we've had all year and the crops have been advancing very very quickly.
We have seen some showers over the last couple of weeks.
Ideally they would have come more in June and July but, of course, it's now harvest.
Mother Nature always decides that this is time to get some rain.
For many crops any rain that we do get now would be too late, simply because they have advanced too far, many of them have actually been combined and there's really not much green left out there.
For more later seeded crops any rain may help actually fill them and we will take some rain to help replenish the topsoil.
Importunely we are going to need a substantial amount of rainfall in much of the province prior to next spring in order to replenish what we have lost and we have heard, due to the lack of moisture, that yields vary anywhere from well below average to even slightly above average, all depending on where you are, when you were able to seed, what kind of soil you have and if you were lucky enough to get moisture.
Luckily this year quality has been fairly good so far.
We have heard that we have some lighter bushel weights and some shrunken seeds due to the warm and dry conditions but, over all, it is in much better shape than we were this time last year when we had frequent rainfalls, lots of lodging, lots of disease and a lot of issues with harvest itself.

Friesen says, as long as the weather holds, harvest should sail along.
She says the hope is the rain will stay away for the rest of harvest and after harvest we get lots of rain.
For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

       *Farmscape is a presentation of Sask Pork and Manitoba Pork