An unprecedented stretch of hot, sunny weather has turned around the fortunes of this year’s wheat crop.
A month ago, grain industry officials expected that the 2009 crop’s quality and protein content would be below average.
A late start to the growing season and cool, damp weather across much of the Prairies this summer wasn’t promising early on.
But those fears have evaporated, thanks to a stretch of summery weather across much of Western Canada during the past three or four weeks.
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“We’re quite a bit more optimistic than we were at the start of August,” said Lawrence Klusa, manager of quality control for the Canadian Wheat Board.
When crop estimates are made at the beginning of the harvest season, he said, it’s assumed there will be problems along the way. So the longer the crop carries on problem-free, the better the estimates become.
“The late good weather will have definitely helped maintain a very good grade for the most part,” Klusa said.
“At this point, with about 50 percent of the spring wheat harvested, I would expect we’re starting to move to where the crop would potentially be better than average.”
Typically, about 65 percent of the spring wheat crop falls into the two top grades. It’s been higher than that in the past three years and this could make four years in a row.
As for the crucial issue of protein content, Klusa said that should match or be just slightly below the long-term average of 13.7 percent.
“The spring wheat samples we have seen so far look pretty good and we would expect to be about average this year,” he said.
Over the previous three crops years, protein levels averaged 13.4, 14.1 and 13.4 percent.
Wheat board agronomist Mike Grenier said he wouldn’t be surprised to see protein above the long-term average.
It’s not unusual for analysts to underestimate a crop before harvest, he added. “I think people were hedging their bets, just being cautious.”
Ron DePauw, a wheat breeder from Agriculture Canada’s research centre in Swift Current, Sask., said 2009 has been one of the strangest growing seasons he can recall.
“It was a very, very unusual growing season. An abnormally long season,” he said.
Normally there are eight or 10 hot days in July before the crop matures.
That didn’t happen this year, and as a result the plant’s greenery remained viable longer into the season and able to effectively “remobilize” the available nitrogen into the developing kernel, boosting yield.
The plant was also able to produce good protein levels, which is not usually the case when yields are high.
“The very cool growing conditions really helped set things up for high yield and helped increase the nitrogen for a long period of time for better protein,” DePauw said.
Traditionally, higher yields mean lower protein, but this year the two could co-exist due to the long, stress-free growing season, capped off by ideal conditions in September.
DePauw said he knows of one producer who had a 60 bushel crop, didn’t apply nitrogen and ended up with 13.5 percent protein.
“That’s due to the very, very unusual growing season,” he said.
