WINNIPEG, Man. – The Canadian Wheat Board expects this year’s Prairie wheat crop will be similar in size to the 2010 crop, but if the harvest goes well over the next couple of weeks the quality should be significantly higher than last year.
“We’re hoping to see a return to normal quality profiles for the (Prairies),” said Ian White, CWB chief executive officer, at the board’s annual crop year-end news conference, held in Winnipeg Friday.
Analysts with the board estimate all-wheat production in Western Canada will be 21.3 million tonnes for the 2011-12 crop year, slightly less than Statistics Canada’s forecast, released Thursday, of 21.6 million tonnes.
Only 38 percent of Canada Western spring wheat satisfied the top two grades in 2010. In an average year, the board noted in a release, 68 percent of wheat falls into the two top grades,
The quality of the crop and yields in Alberta and central Saskatchewan should be very good, said Bruce Burnett, CWB director of weather and market analysis, but much depends upon the weather during harvest.
“It’s late August and especially some of the later planted wheat crops aren’t mature yet. As we saw last year, if we get a frost between now and somewhere between Sept. 5 to 10 … it could cause some quality damage to the crop,” Burnett noted. “There’s a portion of the crop … north of Calgary and up to Edmonton and certainly up in the Peace River region, where they need another week to two weeks of development time to get mature.”
As for other cereals, the board forecast a durum crop of 3.9 million tonnes in this year, up from 3.0 million tonnes in 2010 and up from Statistics Canada’s forecast of 3.7 million.
Total barley production is expected to be 8.0 million tonnes, compared to 7.0 million tonnes last year.
Barley quality should be superior to 2010, White said, as the board struggled last year to find enough high quality malting barley to satisfy customers needs.
