CANMORE, Alta. Ñ Frost, rain and cool weather made this year’s crop difficult for farmers. It’s also created headaches for grading officials, said the head of the Canadian Grain Commission.
Chris Hamblin told a joint convention of the Western Barley Growers Association and the Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association that frost, green immature kernels, fus-arium, mildew and sprout damage have complicated the task.
“What made grading this year’s crop very difficult was the various combinations of grading factors,” Hamblin said.
When frost hit many parts of the Prairies in the middle of August, the commission knew it would cause problems, but it wasn’t until the commission received samples from farmers that it knew how bad the crop had been damaged.
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“The harvest survey revealed much bad news,” said Hamblin, referring to grain samples that farmers send the commission to help it assess the crop.
Even winter wheat, which is normally harvested earlier and trouble free, had sprouting problems.
“The quality of crop was extremely variable,” she said.
Frost was the main grading problem this year. It damaged 40 percent of the Canadian Western Red Spring wheat samples and downgraded 35 percent of the Canada Western Hard White wheat.
The commission also saw samples with combinations of green and immature kernels and samples that looked like a mixture of high and low quality, indicating major variability in the field.
Fifty-two percent of the CWRS and 46 percent of CWHW was downgraded because of green kernels.
The difference between this year’s crop and the previous year’s crop is striking, Hamblin said.
In 2003, 95 percent of the red spring wheat graded in the top two grades. This year only 36 percent was in the top two grades, according to the harvest survey.
A combination of number four grade and feed grade accounted for 40 percent of this year’s harvest, compared to previous years when those two grades accounted for less than one percent.
“It’s a dramatic change.”
Only 58 percent of canola graded number one, compared to 97 percent that graded number one last year. This year 29 percent graded number two compared to two percent last year.
With the havoc caused by weather, Saskatchewan farmer Con Johnson wondered if it was time to move to a non-visual system of grading because the grades given to his grain were erratic.
“I had five grades out of one pile of grain,” said Johnson, a member of the wheat growers group.
This year showed more than ever the need to change from grading based on visual characteristics, which is the basis for distinguishing grain, he said.
Hamblin said while the grain commission would like to see an increased use of technology in grading grain, it’s still not a reality.
“Rapid variety identification tools that are accurate, cost effective and could be deployed in elevators are the holy grail of grain quality assurance,” she said.
“This technology is being developed but practically it is no where in sight.”
The grain commission is looking at restructuring minor use wheat crops so they don’t need the kernel visual distinguishability criteria, she said.
“The positive aspect of KVD is that it enables relatively good segregation of wheat classes, which in turn gives us a very effective quality assurance system,” she added.
“The drawback is that it excludes from production nonmilling varieties that may be well-suited for feed and more industrial purposes.”
The wheat growers and the barley growers supported a resolution that called for changes to the grading system to allow grain to be bought on the basis of its quality characteristics and not its visual characteristics as a way to develop more markets.
“KVD imposes too many restrictions on our ability to develop and market varieties that both farmers and our customers need,” said wheat growers president Cherilyn Jolly.
“We need to move beyond a rigid visually-based grading system to one which is responsible to the quality traits that end users are seeking.”
Brenda Brindle, general manager of the Alberta Grain Commission, said with the poor crop, falling numbers become key for customers, so equipment to test for it should be available in Canadian elevators, as they are in the United States.
Hamblin said equipment for testing falling number is one of the technologies the commission wants to explore.
However, research revealed problems with existing machines.
“We’d like to move to more technology, but what technology do you move to,” she said.
“We don’t have a neat tool that can accurately grade grain.”
