Saskatchewan Agriculture reports hot dry weather during July is responsible for reduced yield potentials across much of the province.
Saskatchewan Agriculture's weekly crop report, released Thursday, shows this year's harvest has reached 25 percent complete across the province.
Tyce Masich, a crops extension specialist with Saskatchewan Agriculture, says the southwest leads the way at 44 percent complete, followed by the southeast at 28 percent complete, the east central region at 25 percent complete, west central Saskatchewan at 15 percent complete, the northeast at 12 percent complete and the northwest at seven percent complete.
Quote-Tyce Masich-Saskatchewan Agriculture:
In the central and south areas of the province fall seeded cereal crops lead the way in harvest progress as most of those crops are starting to wrap up with harvest.
Crops like peas and lentils are also coming off at a pretty good rate too.
They're anywhere from 60 percent complete all the way up to 85-86 percent complete for those crops.
Spring seeded cereals and canola are anywhere from 10 percent to 30 percent complete depending on which area of the province you're in.
The only information I have on yields currently are coming from the west central and the northwest areas of the province.
I had a couple of producers comment on what they're seeing for yields and what they are seeing is that the yields are lower than expected this year and that's mainly due to the hot and dry conditions we had the month of July during that critical crop growth period.
I'm going to assume it's the same situation in southwest Saskatchewan as they had a very hot and dry July which definitely didn't help crop yields for them.
In some areas that received more moisture, like maybe out east, yield potential is a bit better.
They're still pretty early in their harvest so it remains to be seen what yield potential looks like in the eastern part of Saskatchewan.
Masich says quite a few producers received rain, which will slow harvest progress.
He says, as long as there's no further rain delays, we can expect the harvest to move forward over the next week.
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