Alberta farmers are expected to produce their smallest canola crop in years because of poor weather and uneven germination.
Harry Brook, a crop specialist with Alberta Agriculture, said total canola production in the province will be roughly half of what it was last year.
In 2008, Alberta canola growers produced about 3.75 million tonnes of canola.
This year, production could easily fall short of two million tonnes.
The last time Alberta’s overall production was less than two million tonnes was in 2002 when 1.2 million tonnes were harvested.
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According to Brook, uneven germination and differential staging have forced many canola growers to cut their crops for animal feed.
He estimated that as many as 30 to 40 percent of the province’s canola fields have already been harvested as silage or greenfeed.
“Because there was so much variable staging, there was no way in the world that a lot of those crops could be harvested,” he said.
Ted Nibourg, a business management specialist with the province’s Ag Info Centre, said uneven germination, lack of moisture and cool temperatures have reduced yield potential in most growing areas.
More recently, two large hailstorms swept through the province, affecting more than one million acres.
The outlook for Alberta’s cereal harvest is also unspectacular.
Brook said poor growing conditions in much of the province will reduce cereal grain quality.
Wheat and barley yields will likely be well below average and kernel weights and sizes are expected to be lower than average due to a lack of moisture.
Quality issues
Malting barley could be in particularly short supply this year, he said.
Provincial crop specialists are anticipating a barley crop with average to below average yields and relatively high protein levels.
Quality concerns exist throughout the province, said Brook, adding that overall cereal grain production could be 30 percent lower than last year.
Lorelei Hulston, provincial crop insurance manager with the Agriculture Financial Services Corp., said it will take weeks to calculate losses associated with two major hailstorms that hit the province last month.
Early estimates suggest 1.5 million to two million acres were damaged.
Entering August, Alberta’s crop inspectors had a light caseload and the AFSC had received only a few hundred damage claims across the province.
As of Aug. 24, the number of claims had ballooned to more than 4,000, Hulston said.
“There was quite a bit of heavy damage especially in those two big storms.Anecdotally … there were lots of guys where every acre they (had was)100 percent hailed out, so there was some very severe damage.”
In Saskatchewan, production specialist Grant McLean said it’s too early to estimate how much grain Saskatchewan farmers will produce.
He said yield potential varies widely from one region to the next but crops throughout the province are behind schedule and the risk of frost has producers on edge.
If the frost stays away, some areas will harvest high quality crops with above average yields, he said.
