Rain Expected To Slow Corn Harvest

Up until this point, Manitoba's corn harvest has been moving along quickly.

Morgan Cott is an agronomy extension specialist with the Manitoba Crop Alliance.

"The grain that's coming off is looking pretty good," she said. "It looks like we have heavy bushel weights this year for whatever reason. There's some areas that are a little bit lighter but generally I'm hearing about heavier bushel weights, which actually we think may have been a result of those late August rains perhaps. Plants that have just grabbed everything they could get at that time and filled the grain above what normal bushel weight is."

Cott notes the rain over the weekend didn't really slow harvest early in the week, however the moisture that's expected over the next few days will have a greater impact in terms of slowing down progress.

She says corn yields have been really variable, with some reports coming in better than expected.

The sunflower harvest is also moving along quickly.

"Some producers insist on getting their sunflowers done before corn and some insist on doing it afterwards, so it's just a matter of timing for both of those, if they have both crops. Yields have been really great, not record, but there's some fields that have gone record for that producer...Yields are really great for 2021," explained Cott.