Manitoba growers are racing the weather. The province's latest crop report says the winter cereal harvest is complete and spring cereals are nearly finished in the Central, Eastern and Interlake regions, but repeated rain, cool temperatures and heavy morning dew have narrowed harvest windows and begun to cost late-harvested grain its grade.

Spring wheat, barley and oats cut early gave average to above-average yields of good quality. Fields harvested since are showing sprouting, low test weights and colour loss; in the southwest some barley is being downgraded to feed. Oats are lagging wheat and barley because of green, lodged and wet fields, and many farms are running dryers and aeration on grain going into the bin too wet.

Canola is the crop being watched most closely. Provincial yields are reported as below average to average, more fields were swathed than in recent years because of lodging, disease and uneven ripening, and verticillium stripe, wind and excess water have caused shattering and lodging in the southwest and flood and wind damage in parts of the Interlake.

Soybeans are the brighter story: most fields are at R7 to R8 with good maturity and yield potential, though earlier drought in Central Manitoba left fewer four-seeded pods and some pod abortion in the upper canopy. Pea harvest is nearly done with average yields and good quality, edible beans have begun, corn is at dent stage with silage under way, and flax and sunflowers are approaching harvest.

For livestock producers the rain has been a gift. Pastures are in excellent condition for mid-September, fly pressure is down, hay yields are above average though quality varies with cutting date, straw is baling well and most dugouts are at or near full. Specialists still urge feed testing before winter. Grain growers, meanwhile, want a long run of warm, dry, windy days.

Photo: Bryan Wittal / Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)

Source: Farms.com