ANEROID, Sask. (Reuters) — Potential yields of spring wheat and durum are down across much of the Prairies after some of the driest conditions in decades, scouts noted on the annual CWB Market Research Services crop tour.
Parts of Alberta and Saskatchewan received less than 40 percent of normal rainfall during May and June, raising concerns about canola and durum supplies because Canada is the biggest exporter of both.
In northeastern Alberta, scouts measured spring wheat yields of 40.3 bushels per acre on average, down about 20 percent from a year ago, said CWB weather and crop specialist Bruce Burnett in a report late yesterday. Canola, which is harder to estimate when it is flowering, showed signs of poor germination.
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In southern Alberta, durum yields measured about three-quarters of last year’s counts, while yields from Medicine Hat, Alta., into southwestern Saskatchewan looked 13 percent less than a year ago.
Rain earlier this week in central Alberta should boost wheat yields somewhat and extend canola’s yield-determining flowering period, Burnett said.
On Thursday, scouts in southern Saskatchewan saw more tell-tale signs of dryness: thin fields of durum that produced smaller than usual heads.
Canola was filling pods and stood shorter and thinner than normal.
Temperatures were cool, however, and recent rains may also help nudge crop yields higher, said Justin Daniels, director of commodity risk management at CWB.
“The ground isn’t dusty dry and the weather isn’t hot, so the plants have a good chance to fill the kernels they do have,” he said.
Last year, however, the same fields looked “beautiful, tall and thick,” he said.
There are exceptions to the trend of falling yields. In western Manitoba and eastern Saskatchewan, a region soaked with too much rain a year ago, spring wheat yields averaged 42 bu. per acre, up two bu. from 2014.
Earlier this week, scouts noted spring wheat and canola yields in central Saskatchewan that were in line with a year ago, while southern Manitoba spring wheat yields may set a record high after ample rains.
The tour’s three routes converge on Regina later today, and CWB will release Western Canada’s yield estimates for spring wheat, durum and canola tomorrow.
