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Yields still rated poor in harvest conditions

Warm weather allows for winter wheat seeding



The recent warm weather has helped those southeast farmers that seed winter wheat, as other producers return to their combines and swathers to complete harvest operations.

"Seeding winter wheat is going quite nicely, and we have the bulk of it done now," said Marcel van Staveren. He added that the ground was a little dry for seeding operations, before the Weyburn area received 45mm of rain during the period of Aug. 30 to Sept. 5.

"The conditions are excellent for it right now," van Staveren reported on Thursday. "A lot of my neighbours are also seeding winter wheat."

In addition to seeding operations, van Staveren was also able to complete his harvest operations. "We only seeded four per cent of our operations, and that is all combined now. It looks absolutely terrible, there are a lot of thinned out acres, and it will likely yield at 60 to 70 per cent less than average."

"We are currently at a standstill for combining, until the ground dries up enough. It all depends on the weather," said Shane Watson. He has been working on harvesting durum, lentils and canola. While most of the water has dried off from his operations, there is still 30 per cent of the field that has moisture issues.

His comment on the quality of the crops was, "we will be waiting for next year. The yields were down, and the acres were down."

Of the 2011 crop for southeast Saskatchewan, 43 per cent has been combined and 30 per cent is swathed or ready to straight-cut, according to the weekly crop report from the Ministry of Agriculture.

Those crops that were combined so far during harvest operations include 92 per cent of the winter wheat and fall rye; 23 per cent of the spring wheat; 29 per cent of durum; 19 per cent of oats, 32 per cent of barley; 90 per cent of lentils; 93 per cent of peas; 48 per cent of canola; 63 per cent of mustard and nothing is ready for canaryseed.

Crop conditions and staging vary throughout the region, depending on the spring's excess moisture and seeding date. Determining crop stage for proper swathing is difficult in fields with variable growth.

The other big job for producers right now is spraying unseeded acres for weeds. "We are taking advantage of the good weather, and doing a lot of clean up work to prepare the fields for next year," said van Staveren.

"We are still spraying all the chemfallows, and will have to go over them again to get rid of the dock weed," reported Kyle Schurko. "Managing all our unseeded acres is the biggest challenge. Some fields caught rain again and are still wet, and it will be interesting to see what the winter will bring."

Topsoil moisture rating on cropland is reported as nine per cent surplus, 80 per cent adequate, nine per cent short and two per cent very short. On hay land and pasture, topsoil moisture is rated as four per cent surplus, 80 per cent adequate, 15 per cent short and one per cent very short.

The majority of crop damage is due to wind blowing swaths around and rain flooding crops. Some producers are concerned about lost quality on those crops that were swathed before the rain. There was also hail damage ranging from 30 to 100 per cent reported in the Ceylon area.