Strong winds rolled swaths across fields and toppled grain bins during the Thanksgiving weekend.
Wind blew into Alberta late Oct. 10 and continued into Saskatchewan and Manitoba over the following two days, knocking out power lines and creating havoc across the Prairies.
Shannon Friesen, cropping management specialist with Saskatchewan Agriculture, said the high winds rolled crops around, shelled standing crops, blew shingles off buildings and toppled grain bins.
“Most of the swaths out there were canola,” said Friesen.
Only 10 percent of the crop is still in the field, mostly in central and northern Alberta.
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Friesen isn’t sure how much canola was knocked out of the standing and swathed canola.
In Manitoba, 90 percent of the crops south of Highway 1 had been harvested, and damage to crops was limited, said Amir Farooq, a farm production extension specialist with Manitoba Agriculture.
“There’s not much loss,” he said.
Most of the remaining grain, sunflower and soybeans weathered the storm. Reports of bins being toppled and power lines down along the western border were reported over the weekend.
Paul Wipf of Viking, Alta., estimated that 25 percent of the seed in the standing canola was shelled out because of the high wind.
Alberta Agriculture officials were unavailable for comment.
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