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Fall harvest all but complete in the area

Oct 26, 2017 | 5:00 PM

Harvest has all but wrapped up for many farmers in the province and it appears to be a very successful year however that depends on where you live in Saskatchewan.

Shannon Friesen, Regional Crops Specialist with Saskatchewan Agriculture said that farmers in the North are reporting a much better harvest than their counterparts from the South.

“Crops for the most part are the best we have seen in many years especially in the Northeast and Northwestern parts of the province,” Friesen said. “Most of the credit can be given to the very dry fall we’ve had this year.”

Friesen said provincial yields were average however that too was all contingent to where you farmed.

“If you lived in the southern part of the province there are producers saying yields are below average,” she said. “However in the North, timely moisture has helped with the higher than normal yields.”

According to Friesen, the dryness of the fall meant that many area fields did not see high disease issues and as a result there was less downgrading due to sprouting, staining and bleaching.

“Producers really lucked out this year with the amount of dry weather they had,” she said. “But certainly after the fall we had last year you are not going to hear anyone complain.”

Last October, an early snowfall hit many parts of the province with heavy, wet snow and harvest basically stopped causing huge losses for many. Provincially around 82 per cent of the harvest was in at the time of the snow while here in the North about 70 to 75 per cent was completed.

“Most producers were unable to even attempt to get back in the fields until well after Halloween,“ Friesen said. ”Unfortunately for many that was just too late as some could not resume combining until either the ground froze or this spring.”

Friesen also warns because the province had such a dry summer that topsoil and subsoil moisture conditions for next spring are now a concern for many in the agriculture industry.

“We would like to see some rain or heavy wet snow prior to the freeze this winter,” she added. “We have tapped out the majority of our water table this year and it needs to be replenished.”

She said if adequate moisture is not received this winter seeding conditions next spring will be impacted.

“As we seen this year the weather is so hard to predict,” Friesen said. “This spring was very wet and there were concerns about getting the seeding done then we fast forward to summer and we are concerned about all the dry weather.”

“Now we worry about getting moisture during the winter months,” she said. “Just goes to show there’s never a dull moment in agriculture.”

 

roger.white@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @RJWtheReporter