The crop season continues to be a "strange year for farmers", according to producer Dale Paslawski, as farmers concentrate on destroying weeds, start doing a second-cut of haying, deal with flushes of different insects and complete harvest on the crop that was seeded this year.
"I am not doing any harvest, but have seen my neighbours working on their canola," said Paslawski. He noted that the canola crops in his area don't look good for yields, as there is lots of second-growth or shriveling crops in the fields.
Diamondback moths and Bertha Armyworm are also a concern for canola producers in the southeast. "There are bugs in the later seeded canola, especially around the Corning area," said Paslawski. "There are flushes of different insects that farmers are spraying for because of the late seeding season."
Many producers were able to make good harvest progress, according to the weekly crop report from the Ministry of Agriculture. Harvest progress was made on lentils, peas and winter cereals, with 12 per cent combined and 24 per cent swathed or ready to straight combine.
"Lots of guys are doing a second-cut haying, or even wild haying," said Paslawski. "The alfalfa crop is looking good, so it should be an okay season for our cattle producers."
"We finished our wheat, and it looks good," said Dean Nikolejsin. "There was lots of the crop drowned out, but we got enough on the higher grounds."
"The yields for the canola are pretty sporadic, there are a few ground-out spots that have a lot of weeds," added Nikolejsin. "We started spraying for summerfallow for a second time."
It will be a long harvest season, as for some producers they haven't even started yet. "It was a late seeding season, so we haven't started anything right now," said Gord Gallinger.
A producer of spring wheat and oats, Gallinger said that "the oats look good, but the wheat isn't as good. I think they both will progress, as long as we don't get any more rain."
Crop conditions and staging vary throughout the region, depending on the spring's excess moisture and seeding date. The majority of crop damage is due to wind, hail and insects.
"We also had a hail that came through the area that damaged a lot of area crops, lots of farmers lost everything was seeded," added Paslawski. Especially after farmers in the southeast struggled to get crop seeded into the ground because of excess moisture, the loss of crops due to hail damage can be difficult.
Operations for Paslawski have been "low key", as he continues to get weeds under control before freeze up. "The land is working up really nice here, after receiving some shots of moisture, but there are farmers in clay areas where the land is too hard to work up."
"Earlier on in the season, we worked on the weed situation with the cultivator, just to get them under control," said Gallinger.
North of Midale, the fields are being cultivated to handle a well-known weed called water dock, that when it matures turns rusty-red colour and is also known as fire weed. "They are swathing the fire weed, and then doing some burning to get rid of it," said Paslawski.
Topsoil moisture rating on cropland is reported as five per cent surplus, 63 per cent adequate and 32 per cent short. On hay land and pasture, topsoil moisture is rated at two per cent surplus, 69 per cent adequate and 29 per cent short.
Pasture conditions in the region are rated as seven per cent excellent, 78 per cent good, 14 per cent fair and once per cent poor. Most cattle producers in the southeast have indicated adequate water supply for their livestock.
"Things have dried up pretty good," said Nikolejsin. "It would be nice not to have rain for some time, and help farmers work on their fields to prepare for next year's seeding season."
