WELDON, Sask. – Denis Doderai remained optimistic about his canola crop after the first snow came last September. He tried to harvest it when he could, but winter prevailed and more than 100 acres remained in windrows near Fenton, Sask.
This spring, Doderai took a sample to an elevator manager, who told him there was no market for his overwintered crop.
“That was it. The crop is dry this spring, but if there is no market then there is no point in threshing. The guy told me that there might be a market (for the spring-harvested canola) this July. I’m not putting this in the bin hoping to move it in July,” said Doderai.
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“Crop insurance wrote it off and so did I. We burnt it. It is time to go seeding and there is no point in endangering the 2003 crop by messing with the 2002,” he said.
He is not alone. More than 850,000 acres of prairie canola spent the winter in the field.
While a few combines are running in Saskatchewan’s northern grain belt, plumes of smoke are more common than clouds of harvest dust.
Barry Swanson, an agronomist in Prince Albert, Sask., said his region has been the hardest hit in the province with outstanding crops.
“I think some is still being harvested with a combine. But from here on, I think most of it will be done with a match,” he said in an interview May 5.
Swanson said producers need to be careful when burning.
Dan Slind’s combines are plowing through the crop near Weldon, Sask.
He has 640 acres of barley and 640 acres of flax to remove from his fields before seeding and says his decision to turn last summer’s canola crop into silage “seems to have been the right choice in hindsight.
“It was so late and such a poor crop with second growth and all,” Slind said. “We were glad to not have to play with it at harvest time. Instead it got eaten by cattle at a local feedlot.”
Slind’s feed barley isn’t much worse now than it was last fall, he said of his light, 37-pounds-to-the-bushel cereal crop.
Micheal Georget of Domremy, Sask., has 400 acres of canola and 500 acres of cereals still in the fields.
“(Canola) was $4 (per bu.) last fall. Today I don’t know if it isn’t worth trying to take it off the field. It may need a match ….”
He added they are baling the held- over cereal crops. “We didn’t have any hay or pasture last year. So we need another 200 bales to get us through until the pasture comes. Last year’s failed crop was what got our cattle through this winter,” he said.
