Lee Moats was not discouraged by reduced winter wheat acres planted on
the Prairies last fall.
Figures from Statistics Canada show growers in the three prairie
provinces seeded a total of 460,000 acres of winter wheat, down from
510,000 the year before.
The biggest drop was in Saskatchewan, where growers planted 180,000
acres of winter wheat last fall. That was 50,000 acres less than the
previous year.
Moats, president of Winter Cereals Canada, read some good news into the
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numbers.
Dry autumn weather in many areas of Saskatchewan and Alberta caused
uncertainty for growers pondering whether they should plant winter
wheat. The fact that a lot of growers still went ahead with winter
wheat may be an indication of the confidence they have in the crop,
Moats said.
“I’m hoping it means we have a large core of committed growers.”
Despite the decline in planted acres, it was still the second largest
winter wheat crop planted on the Prairies in the past 10 years.
While the acres declined in Saskatchewan and Alberta, Manitoba growers
decided to increase their plantings.
Winter wheat acreage in Manitoba has been rising steadily since the
mid-1990s. Last fall, 220,000 acres were planted.
Moats suggested the “ecological advantage” of winter wheat is among the
factors encouraging increased production in Manitoba.
The crop typically goes into flowering earlier than red spring wheat.
That makes it less prone to damage from wheat midge and fusarium head
blight, two problems for growers in Manitoba.
With herbicide tolerance in wild oats becoming a concern, crops that
emerge earlier in the spring gain appeal because of their
competitiveness.
Generally, growers in Manitoba are having good success with the crop,
Moats said.
“Winter wheat has yielded very well there.”
In Alberta, growers planted only 60,000 acres of winter wheat last
fall. That’s similar to the area planted there three years earlier, but
it represents one of the smallest winter wheat crops in the province
during the past decade.
Gary Stanford, a grower and chair of the Alberta Winter Wheat Producers
Commission, said limited precipitation was a concern in the southern
part of the province, where growers wondered whether there was enough
moisture for germination.
In central Alberta, there generally was enough moisture to get the crop
started, Stanford said.
Barry Fowler, a grower from Quill Lake, Sask., said there was adequate
snow cover in his area to help protect the crop from the cold
temperatures of recent weeks.
However, he said the cold snap that hovered over the Prairies this
month is a concern for growers. Winter wheat plants are vulnerable at
this time of year.
“Up till March, there was no problem,” said Fowler, a director with
Winter Cereals Canada. “The temperatures weren’t too bad.”
