Manitoba Agriculture reports cereal crops have been the bright spot this year in terms of both yield and quality.
Manitoba Agriculture released its weekly crop report yesterday.
Anastasia Kubinec, the Manager of Crop Industry Development with Manitoba Agriculture, says, with the exception of the Pas which has yet to start, harvest is pretty generalized across the province.
Winter cereal and field peas are pretty much 100 percent harvested with yields being average to below average for those particular crop types. There is quite a variation in yields in those crops as well as all of the other crops being harvested right now and that’s very dependant on whether or not there’s been in season moisture and sufficient moisture for those crops.
Spring wheat, barley and oats, really started getting lots of acres harvested this past week. In some areas spring wheat is completely combined as well as the oats and the barley. Yields for spring cereals have been the bright spot. We’ve had lots of average if not above average and some exceptional spring cereal yields. As well, in the spring wheat we’ve had exceptionally high protein and in all cereal crops we’ve had very low fusarium levels so far.
The only issue, again, is areas that did not receive adequate precipitation throughout the season. Yields are lower than what producers were hoping for but protein has been quite high. In barley as well our fusarium has been low and there has been producers saying that they’re getting malt quality for barley which typically does not happen in Manitoba so that’s good news for those producers.
~ Anastasia Kubinec, Manitoba Agriculture
Kubinec says the canola harvest has just started with early reports of average to below average but those would have been the early seeded crops that withstood some very hot temperatures at flowering and a lot of early flea beetle pressure which could have diminished crop stands. She says, with the lack of moisture and warm temperatures, later crops remaining in the fields are ripening prematurely and we are seeing evidence of heat stress with wilting of lower leaves and some leaf loss.
