SKIFF, Alta. (Reuters) — Durum, the wheat used to make pasta, has fared better against dry conditions than other major crops in a pocket of southeastern Alberta, crop tour scouts noted today.
Durum is typically planted in drier soils than spring wheat, but fields still looked surprisingly decent, given some of the driest conditions in decades on the Prairies.
Yields looked to fall slightly below average in the area, said Justin Daniels, director of commodity risk management at CWB Market Research Services, formerly the Canadian Wheat Board.
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“We haven’t seen a disaster yet in durum,” he said in drizzly conditions.
The tour organized by CWB Market Research is traveling through Thursday on three routes across Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.
Durum stood tall and carried large heads of kernels in most fields.
Near Foremost, Alta., however, fields looked thin and short, pointing to how scattered rains have resulted in varying farmer fortunes from one field to the next.
Quality of durum in Canada, the biggest exporter, may be more important than the crop’s size, given lower grades last year, said Courtney Boryski, a trader at U.S. commodity company Gavilon.
Yesterday, spring wheat yields measured less than half of last year’s results in southeastern Alberta but were on track to set a record high in southern Manitoba.
Canada is the world’s largest canola exporter and producer and expected to be the third-biggest wheat-exporting country in 2015-16, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
In an area stretching from north of Calgary to Lethbridge, spring wheat yields averaged 23 bushels per acre, well short of the previous year’s 50 bu., said CWB weather and crop specialist Bruce Burnett.
Further east in Manitoba, where rain has been adequate, spring wheat was in “excellent shape,” and yields averaged 69 bu. per acre, close to a record for the route through southern Manitoba to Brandon.
Canola fields also looked impressive there, Burnett said, in contrast to the small, late-developing fields in Alberta.
In Saskatchewan, Canada’s biggest wheat- and canola-growing province, crops looked better than expected from Saskatoon to Melfort, Prince Albert and Lloydminster, he said.
Wheat averaged 52 bu. per acre, similar to last year, and canola yields also looked in line with 2014.
Reuters is traveling on the CWB tour route through southeastern Alberta and southwestern and south-central Saskatchewan. That area last year produced about one-fifth of Canada’s spring wheat, two-thirds of durum and about 17 percent of canola, according to Statistics Canada data.
