Manitoba Agriculture reports widespread rain over the past week interrupted the harvest but work is getting back underway.
Anne Kirk, a provincial cereal crop specialist with Manitoba Agriculture, says on average the harvest is at about three percent complete, which is right on the five-year average.
For winter cereals, we’re seeing about 80 to 90 percent of winter cereals being harvested in all areas except for the southwest region where we’re at about 40 percent. For spring wheat, we’re seeing the majority of the spring wheat being harvested in the central region of Manitoba. We are seeing some spring wheat being harvested across the province though. Small amounts of barley and oats have been harvested in the central region and for field peas, we’re seeing about 25 to 30 percent of field peas being harvested in the southwest, central and Interlake. Field pea harvest hasn’t really started in the eastern region and it’s just started in the northwest region.
We haven’t had much disease pressure so, with the earlier harvested cereals, we’re not seeing a lot of fusarium damaged kernels or DON samples, or so we’ve heard so far so quality is fairly good. We have heard some reports of ergot in fall rye which is to be expected. We are seeing winter wheat averaging about 60 bushels per acre. For fall rye it’s kind of been a bit of a range with yields ranging from 60 to 90 bushels per acre but I’ve heard reports as low as 30 bushels per acre in some very dry areas. For spring cereal crops, I don’t have much to report in terms of yield because it’s so early. For the field peas, the yield range is about 45 to 55 bushels per acre in the southwest and central region.
~ Anne Kirk, Manitoba Agriculture
Kirk says moisture reserves are fairly low in some areas, particularly the central region which has caused some heat stress, especially in soybeans and corn but recent rain and cool temperatures have alleviated some of that stress.
