Manitoba Agriculture reports harvest is now underway in all regions of the province except the northwest. Ann Kirk, a provincial cereal crop specialist with Manitoba Agriculture, says harvest started moving into full swing over the past week.
We had variable amounts of precipitation over the last week. In every region of the province, we had areas with no precipitation and then it rained up to 45 millimetres in the Interlake area and parts of the northwest got over an inch as well so 43 millimeters, so variable amounts of precipitation. But we are seeing that much of Manitoba is showing optimal or dry moisture conditions at the surface depth and some localized areas are showing very dry conditions.
We have had a start on harvest over the past week. Most of the harvest that we’ve seen is in the winter wheat and fall rye and in the northwest we don’t have reports of harvest starting for the winter cereals but in every other region of the province we do have winter cereal harvest ongoing. It’s mostly confined to the southwest, central and eastern regions with less harvest happening in the Interlake. Overall, we have just under 20 percent of the winter wheat estimated as harvested and about 40 percent of the fall rye estimated as harvested.
We’ve also started on spring wheat, barley, oats and field peas. Spring wheat and field peas we’re seeing, the estimate was less than one percent of the province is completed, barley about five percent and that’s mostly in the southwest and central regions, we’re seeing more of that harvest taking place.
~ Ann Kirk, Manitoba Agriculture
Kirk says harvest activity is expected to pick up over the next few days as farmers finish up the winter cereals and move into the earlier seeded spring cereals, barley oats and spring wheats and peas and we have seen a lot of swathing of crops like canola and oats. She says reports have been received from the central and eastern regions of 90 to 120 bushels per acer for fall rye and 40 to 110 bushels for winter wheat, so good yield potentials.
