Early harvest begins

Aug 04, 2023

Producers should leave adequate sample strips for adjusters to assess crop damage as harvest begins in the southern regions of Saskatchewan and Alberta, according to the Canadian Crop Hail Association.

CCHA member companies are investigating more than 646 claims of crop damage from storms that occurred July 10-16

Companies contributing to this report are Rain and Hail Insurance Service, Palliser Insurance, Agriculture Financial Services Corporation and Manitoba Agricultural Services Corporation,

CCHA President Scott McQueen, of Palliser Insurance, said claim activity remains low throughout the western provinces.

“Harvest is starting to roll in some of the southern regions of Saskatchewan and Alberta,” he said. “We ask producers to leave strips if adjusters haven’t been out to assess their damage. All companies are getting to claims on a timely matter so new storms won’t push adjusters behind.”

High levels of heat and low moisture continue to burden crops in many areas across the prairies, said Tyson Ryhorchuk of Rain and Hail Insurance Service.

Here’s a look at storm damage across the region.

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Video: Seeing the Whole Season: How Continuous Crop Modeling Is Changing Breeding

Plant breeding has long been shaped by snapshots. A walk through a plot. A single set of notes. A yield check at the end of the season. But crops do not grow in moments. They change every day.

In this conversation, Gary Nijak of AerialPLOT explains how continuous crop modeling is changing the way breeders see, measure, and select plants by capturing growth, stress, and recovery across the entire season, not just at isolated points in time.

Nijak breaks down why point-in-time observations can miss critical performance signals, how repeated, season-long data collection removes the human bottleneck in breeding, and what becomes possible when every plot is treated as a living data set. He also explores how continuous modeling allows breeding programs to move beyond vague descriptors and toward measurable, repeatable insights that connect directly to on-farm outcomes.

This conversation explores:

• What continuous crop modeling is and how it works

• Why traditional field observations fall short over a full growing season

• How scale and repeated measurement change breeding decisions

• What “digital twins” of plots mean for selection and performance

• Why data, not hardware, is driving the next shift in breeding innovation As data-driven breeding moves from research into real-world programs, this discussion offers a clear look at how seeing the whole season is reshaping value for breeders, seed companies, and farmers, and why this may be only the beginning.