Widespread rain the past few days has slowed Manitoba’s harvest but work remains on track. Dennis Lange, a pulse and soybean specialist with Manitoba Agriculture and editor of the provincial crop report, says currently we’re sitting at 55 percent complete over all crops over all regions in Manitoba.
The central, eastern and Interlake areas have really moved along with the cereal harvest. Central and eastern regions are sitting at about 95 percent complete harvested on spring wheat, barley and oats so things have really moved along there. Generally, quality has been pretty good for the cereals this year. With the spring wheat there has been a few more acres of number-2 wheat this year. There’s been a bit of fusarium and on the oats, there’s been a little bit light oats in some regions but generally test weights have pretty good. For the most part those crops are moving along nicely.
Canola has really moved along as well. We’ve seen more harvest progress there, sitting at 49 percent complete across the province with central regions leading the way at about 70 percent and the northwest region trailing behind at about 25 percent but they’re usually a little later. At this point, we’re mid September with 55 percent done. A lot of the cereals are in the bin already, which is good to see. Maybe a bit behind on the soybeans but last week we had some 30-degree temperatures and that really moved things along.
No harvesting yet but I’m expecting in the next seven to ten days we’re gong to see some harvesting. I’m expecting good yields this year. We’ve had good moisture in most regions this year so I think for soybean yields I’m expecting a bit better results yield wise. They were respectable last year at 38 bushels as a provincial average but this year I think we’re on track for that if not a bit better.
~ Dennis Lange-Manitoba Agriculture
Lange anticipates rain over the past couple of days will limit harvesting progress the rest of this week but he’s looking foreword to more progress next week.
