A leisurely Sunday drive taken by Lacombe, Alta., agrologist Phil Thomas to celebrate a family birthday in Lloydminster revealed producers can celebrate the impending harvest season.
“Generalizing, we have a reasonable crop coming along considering the conditions we’ve had,” he said.
Thomas, a senior agri-coach with Agri-Trend Agrology, spent many such days on prairie roads this summer getting a bird’s eye view of this year’s crop potential.
“We have had a yield hit out there across Western Canada, but there are some very nice crops,” he said.
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Intense heat and humidity and a lack of general rains caused flower blasting and off colours in canola, and white caps in barley.
“We’ve basically moved from a real good crop to a slightly above average crop for a lot of areas. For lighter areas, we’ve moved from average to below average.”
He cited Morden and Morris in Manitoba and the southern Peace in Alberta as the areas where dry conditions will reduce crop yields. Crops are the most advanced in Eastend, Sask., another dry spot.
Crops grew quickly through a hot, humid July, but can expect a reprieve in early August with considerably cooler temperatures in the forecast for the eastern Prairies.
Thomas said that will slow plant maturation and give them a chance to finish filling.
Crops are about two to three weeks ahead of normal development for this time of year.
While heat can be harmful when above 30 C, moisture in the soil can provide cooling relief to plants and allow them to continue to advance.
Late seeded crops in the wet areas of northeastern Saskatchewan made rapid progress due to the heat.
Thomas noted how the same variety of canola can take 80 days to mature in Manitoba and 105 days in Alberta due to the differences in heat units.
“If the plant is adequately fed, has a good nutrition base and is getting adequate water, it can withstand high temperatures,” said Thomas.
In Manitoba, winter wheat and fall rye harvests are largely completed and a week to 10 days ahead of normal.
Yields are very good and quality is excellent, reported Rob Park of Manitoba Agriculture, who expects a different outcome for spring crops.
“We expect later seeded crop yields will be impacted fairly significantly,” he said.
The northwest looks good for moisture while southern Manitoba is dry. Some areas around Winnipeg received 20 percent of normal rains, he said.
Park said crops are thinner and shorter, have not been able to sustain any tillering and have ripened quickly, with yields expected to be slightly below average.
“It hung on for a really long time but the moisture didn’t come,” said Park.
Canola and flax flowered in the heat and were turning colour by the end of July, about two weeks earlier than normal.
“In a lot of cases, things look not bad but the way they’re finishing off so quickly says that the yield will be penalized,” said Park.
The dryness has a silver lining for plant diseases, said Penny Pearse, with Saskatchewan Agriculture.
“Heat and dryness slows most plant diseases; a lot of diseases are spread by rain splash,” she said.
The incidence of disease is low, but dry weather has contributed to the formation of powdery mildew in field peas.
Stripe rust in wheat and ascochyta blight in chickpeas have also been observed this year.
