Western Canada’s winter wheat industry is bracing for a sharp reduction in acreage due to excess moisture last fall and a late 2010 harvest.
Rod Fedoruk, director and former chair of the Saskatchewan Winter Cereals Development Commission, said Saskatchewan’s winter wheat producers will likely harvest one of their smallest crops in years in 2011.
Official estimates have not yet been released, but Fedoruk said provincial acreage could be as low as 200,000 acres.
Last spring, some industry stakeholders were anticipating a large increase in seeded acreage.
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Last spring, when excess moisture interfered with spring seeding operations, many in the winter wheat industry thought producers would plant winter cereals on their unseeded acres after their land dried out.
But according to Fedoruk, those acres did not materialize.
“That’s not the way it happened,” said Fedoruk, who farms near Kamsack, in east-central Saskatchewan.
“Mother Nature didn’t co-operate. By late August, by the time producers were trying to get their winter wheat crops in, the rains were again impacting us and making it difficult to get those crops planted.”
In addition, frequent rain and cool temperatures throughout the 2010 growing season delayed development of spring crops and oilseeds, Fedoruk added.
As a result, farmers who had planned to plant fall-seeded crops onto stubble were unable to do so.
Winter wheat acreage has fallen dramatically over the past two years.
Across the West, seeded acreage in the fall of 2010 is expected to be about one third of what it was in the fall of 2008.
Reduced production and large variations in overall quality last year are presenting challenges to marketers.
“Quality is an issue,” Fedoruk said.
“We’re not getting the high select varieties that we need to market throughout the world.”
Doug Martin, a winter wheat grower from East Selkirk, Man., and director of Winter Cereals Manitoba, said seeded acreage in Manitoba was also lower than expected last fall.
Martin cited delayed crop maturity and a late harvest as factors affecting acreage.
The quality of last year’s winter wheat crop may have also influenced producers’ decisions, he said.
“Last year’s (winter wheat) crop came off quite weathered and fusarium levels were very high so I think that might have influenced some growers who were thinking of seeding winter wheat last year,” Martin said.
“I don’t know exactly what the numbers will be, but I would say it could be 25 percent to 30 percent of normal….”
Martin said Manitoba winter wheat producers are also concerned about the impact of proposed changes to the winter wheat classification system.
As of Aug. 1, 2013, generic winter wheat varieties will be reclassified as general purpose wheats meaning some varieties will no longer qualify for sale as milling varieties.
One of the varieties to be reclassified, CDC Falcon, is one of the most widely grown winter wheat varieties in Manitoba largely because its resistance to fusarium head blight is better than most other varieties.
Martin said the loss of Falcon as a milling quality wheat could affect winter wheat acreage in the province.
He said industry stakeholders have raised their concerns and suggested that Falcon should not be reclassified until a suitable replacement is identified.
“The issue is on their radar,” Martin said.
Rob Graf, a winter wheat breeder with Agriculture Canada in Lethbridge, said a new line that offers similar fusarium resistance could be put forth for registration later this spring.
If the Agriculture Canada line is registered in 2011, seed supplies could be available to commercial growers by 2014.
