For the third year in a row, many eastern prairie oat growers will have
marketing problems when they try to sell their crop.
Early to mid September rains in eastern Saskatchewan and across
Manitoba have caused sprouting, mildew and staining in many crops,
problems that buyers won’t tolerate.
“My guess is that if it’s any more than two percent (sprouted), you’re
looking at the feed market,” said Statcom oats analyst Randy Strychar.
“Some mills can live with one percent. Some can deal with two percent.
Read Also
Increasing farmland prices blamed on investors
a major tax and financial services firm says investors are driving up the value of farmland, preventing young farmers from entering the business. Robert Andjelic said that is bullshit.
Any more than that and they’re going to reject it.”
If producers look hard enough, they may still be able to find a market
if their crop isn’t damaged too much, said one miller.
Harvest rains soaked the crops from eastern Saskatchewan to the Red
River valley. Oats in swath are susceptible to sprout. Standing crops
are vulnerable to staining and mildew.
Strychar said he doubts the problems this year are nearly as bad as two
years ago, when huge amounts of the eastern prairie crop were
downgraded due to sprouting. That crop was fully mature and was soaked
during a hot and humid period. This crop is later-maturing, so is less
likely to sprout.
But producers will have an anxious time until they see what’s in the
bin. Early harvested crops show a range of qualities.
“Mills are telling me it’s mixed and all over the place,” said Strychar.
Dennis Galbraith of Can-Oat Milling in Portage La Prairie, Man., said
he has not yet seen any terrible crops, but he has seen lots of minor
damage.
Crops harvested before the rains look excellent, but the later ones
have suffered. He also doubts that the damaged crops still out there
will be as severely affected as those in 2000.
“Don’t think that just because you had a disaster two years ago that
you will have one this year.”
But a borderline crop will present its own marketing problems.
“This year there is an awful lot of stuff in the middle ground,” said
Galbraith.
Because of these sudden quality problems, oat buyers and processors
have been debating where to draw the acceptability lines, Galbraith
said. With so much of the crop affected, buyers are taking a hard look
at what they really require and are adjusting their grading.
For millers, who require high oat milling quality but aren’t hurt by an
ugly outside appearance, stained crops will not necessarily be
rejected. Once they’re hulled, they could be good quality for the
millers.
But Galbraith said that won’t apply for American high-value horse feed
buyers, who have strict appearance standards. With a large high quality
Scandinavian oat crop available, those buyers won’t be interested in
stained oats.
“Shop your crop around,” said Galbraith.
“You might find that those of us that look at interior quality as
opposed to exterior appearance are still interested.”
He said producers should take multiple samples of their oats, and check
quality differences between fields. From what he has seen this year,
variability is great from field to field.
“There can be 10 different qualities from the same field in the same
bin,” said Galbraith.
Low bushel weight is not much of a quality concern this year compared
to last. This year’s crop does not appear to be light so far.
