The long, difficult harvest that caused widespread anxiety in the fall of 2009 is causing more headaches in 2010 as farmers begin their search for reliable seed supplies.
Bruce Carriere, owner of Discovery Seed Labs in Saskatoon, told commercial grain producers and certified seed growers that a late, wet harvest has had a significant impact on certified seed supplies across the West.
Seed from some crop types is in short supply, germination levels are below normal and samples are arriving at seed labs later than usual, meaning backlogs and longer waiting times.
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“This year, because of the late harvest that we had, there’s actually two different crops out there,” Carriere said.
“There’s a crop that came off in September, which is in great shape … and then there’s the stuff that came in later, in November, and that crop is an entirely different story.
“We’ve seen lots of stuff that’s right down in the 10 and 15 percent germination level. Vigour is right off the board and it’s full of disease,” he added.
“There will be some shortages out there.”
According to Carriere, early-harvested crops came off in ideal condition with good germination and few disease problems.
Kernel weights in some early-harvested crops were slightly below normal, so farmers should adjust their seeding rates accordingly, he said.
However, quality issues were widespread for crops harvested later in the year. For those, germination levels are below normal and seed vigour is down.
Oat supplies are expected to be unusually tight.
The vast majority of the province’s oat crop came off late last fall and germination levels in many samples are poor.
Carriere said his lab has seen germination levels from five to 75 percent.
“Twenty seven percent of the oat samples that we tested … are below that 75 percent range and I think in oats, you don’t want to be playing around with any (germination) numbers less than that.
“So I expect to see a shortage of good oat seed,” he said.
“There’s a few seed growers out there that have stuff carried over from last year and if I was buying seed, that’s the stuff I would be looking for.”
Much of Saskatchewan’s wheat crop suffered a similar fate.
What little was harvested in September is in good shape but the rest is in poor condition, relative to a normal production year.
“There was not much wheat that came off in the early harvest so you’d better be looking for wheat right away,” he said.
“Some of the newer varieties, I understand, are already sold out so you might want to be looking around for some of those newer ones if you’re going to be changing your wheat seed this year.”
Demand for lentil seed is also expected to be higher than usual this year, especially for red varieties, Carriere said.
Lentil acreage is expected to rise sharply this spring so supply issues could arise.
“If you’re looking for lentil seed, you’d better be locking in your pricing right now and taking delivery of them because as the price of lentils goes up, so does the price of the seed,” Carriere said.
“There’s already been one increase that I know of in the price of lentil seed so you might want to make sure you’ve got that locked in.”
Barley that was harvested early looks very good but crops that were harvested later will almost certainly have lower germination levels.
Field peas came off in relatively good shape, he added, although many producers who tried to hasten the harvest process last fall applied glyphosate to dry down their crops.
Producers who used glyphosate as a desiccant and intend to plant farm-saved peas in the spring should test their samples for glyphosate residue.
The same is true for cereal crops treated with glyphosate.
“We’re seeing some significant damage, in terms of being sprayed too early, and that’s not good for the seed crop,” Carriere said.
If glyphosate is sprayed too early the plant’s root system will be smaller, which eventually kills it.
Fusarium levels were a concern on some late-harvested cereals but the fusarium strain most commonly detected was not fusarium graminearium, the most toxic strain.
Testing in Carriere’s labs is almost six weeks behind schedule and farmers waiting for results can expect to wait two weeks longer than usual.
He encouraged commercial grain growers to ask certified seed growers tough questions this year to ensure they know what they are buying.
In particular, seed buyers should ask to see germination certificates and should note test dates.
Carriere said germination levels in some late-harvested bulk cereal crops could decline between now and seeding time, depending on the moisture content of seed and environmental conditions in the bin.
He said some barley could fall into this category.
“We have seen some stuff come off with fairly good germs but I don’t believe it’s going to hold up that long.”
