Farmscape for August 17, 2018

Saskatchewan Agriculture reports crop yields so far have ranged from average to well below average but the quality has been good.
Saskatchewan Agriculture released its weekly crop report yesterday.
Shannon Friesen, a Crops Extensions Specialist with Saskatchewan Agriculture, says five percent of the crop is now combined and nine percent swathed or straight cut, well ahead of the five year average of three percent combined and four percent swathed, the result of hot temperatures and a lack of moisture over the last couple of weeks and over the last week in particular where extreme temperatures have resulted in crops drying down quickly.

Clip-Shannon Friesen-Saskatchewan Agriculture:
We've really had a lack of moisture and a lot of high temperatures lately and so a lot of the yields are quite variable right across the board.
Some areas have received some showers over the last couple of months but a lot of areas really have missed those.
Yields that have been reported so far range anywhere from average to well below average and that's not a surprise to us of course.
We're certainly not looking at a bumper crop like we would have hoped but, with the lack of moisture, things are still holding on.
In terms of quality, our quality is so far good.
Last year as well we had very good quality and that was mainly due to the fact that it didn't really rain last fall time.
In previous years we've had a lot of issues with rain in that late August September time and so we've always had a lot of issues with disease, sprouting and bleaching and staining and other things like that.
Overall it's another unique year for us and certainly we do have good quality but unfortunately the yields just aren't there this year.

Friesen says moisture conditions have steadily worsened.
She says topsoil moisture on cropland is rated as 31 percent adequate, 44 percent short and 25 percent very short and subsurface moisture is also quite dry.
For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

       *Farmscape is a presentation of Sask Pork and Manitoba Pork