By Geoff Smith

Harvest begins, but not yet in northwest

Aug 4, 2016 | 12:00 PM

Combines have begun rolling in parts of west-central Saskatchewan, but crop in the northwest is not quite ready to go.

Daphne Cruise, regional crop specialist with the ministry of Agriculture, said it’s good to see parts of the province a week to ten days ahead of schedule, but added the northwest isn’t there yet.

“There are some indications that the pea crop might be ready in a week to ten days, and even some fall cereals, but typically not a lot of fall cereals (are) grown in the northwest,” she said. “But yes, it’s coming in and it’s coming in quite quickly, it sounds like.”

Rain would help crops in the area, as one-third reported less than adequate topsoil moisture. Cruise said, however, they’ve improved in the past couple of weeks.

“Some producers in many areas of the northwest and west-central have indicated that the crops look fairly good despite their lack of moisture, I think because of the last few weeks when there’s been some catch-up and some of the crops were able to compensate for some of the earlier-season dry conditions,” she said.

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She added rain is not helpful right now as harvest gets underway. Macklin recorded 50 mm of rain during the period, with 32 mm at Kindersley and 24 mm at Luseland, but decent quality and good yields are still expected in areas such as Macklin and Landis. Two-thirds of the west-central hay crop has been baled or put into silage and quality is listed as four per cent excellent, 58 per cent good, and 38 per cent fair.

Haying progress is about the same in the northwest, with six per cent of the hay crop rated as excellent, 69 per cent good, and two per cent poor. Crops are said to be in generally good condition.

Geoff Smith is battlefordsNOW’s News Director, business and agriculture reporter. He can be reached at geoff.smith@jpbg.ca or tweet him @smithco.