LUMSDEN, Sask. – A trio of chubby grain bins line up behind Jim Latrace as he augers yellow peas into one of their large metal bellies.
Latrace scrabbles up the bin to check how full it is, then returns to the grain truck to raise the tilt on the truck box before standing watch over the peas spilling into the auger.
A smaller white bin nearby is already full of the bounty from last fall’s planting of winter wheat, harvested from the Qu’appelle Valley farm earlier this month.
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Latrace was somewhat disappointed with yields of 45 bushels an acre from the 200 acres he planted.
Seeded Sept. 1, the wheat got a good start with good snow cover and spring rains.
“Everything was good until it got 35 C for two weeks,” he said. “We were short on rain after June,” he said. “It got cooked there in early July.”
With that behind him, Latrace is now hoping to complete his harvest of spring crops before fall planting begins again this year.
“We’re a little ahead on everything as it was so hot,” Latrace said. Half the crop is harvested.
Yields are average at best for spring crops, a little less than Latrace would have liked. It was a first attempt at growing winter wheat for the seed grower, who farms with his father-in-law, Albert Lutzer.
Little winter wheat is grown around Lumsden, but Latrace sees its potential for ethanol markets in future.
“I’m always looking for something to fit into new markets,” said Latrace, who grew peas, lentils, durum, barley and canola this season.
The weekly Saskatchewan Crop Report indicated that 21 percent of the winter wheat crop and 36 percent of fall rye were combined by the first week of August. The southeastern harvest was most advanced while the northern grainbelt had not yet started.
Saskatchewan Agriculture agrologist Terry Bedard said there were 430,000 acres of winter wheat and 110,000 acres of fall rye grown in Saskatchewan this year.
Yields are about 36 bu. an acre for wheat and 32 for rye, with 80 percent coming off in good to excellent condition.
She said these plants likely benefited from flowering well ahead of the intense midsummer heat.
“That’s what’s attractive about planting them,” Bedard said. “They hold their condition better.”
She said most Saskatchewan areas received adequate moisture in the early weeks of the growing season, except in the southwest, where continuously dry conditions have reduced all yields.
Winter wheat acres were up this year, while fall rye numbers were down, she said.
That’s likely because northeastern farmers, unable to seed in wet conditions in the spring of 2006, planted in the fall instead.
Disease issues were minimal for fall planted crops, said Tracy Preete, with Agri-Trend Agrology in Lumsden.
Their biggest challenge was heat.
“There was very little rain after the Farm Progress Show,” he said, noting small rain showers were not significant enough to help plants.
In Manitoba, harvesting of fall planted crops is complete in most areas, with variable quality and average to above average yields, some as high as 75 bu. an acre.
Crops that received spotty rain in July are reporting above average yields.
In Alberta, winter wheat harvest is under way in southern areas stretching toward Saskatchewan.
