Saskatchewan farmers take advantage of warm, dry weather as harvest nears halfway point

MELFORT, Sask. – A stretch of hot dry weather all over the province meant farmers were able to make great progress with their harvest.

Forty-two per cent of the crop has been harvested across the province, up from 23 per cent last week.

The southwest region continues to lead with 83 per cent of the crop now combined. The west-central has 61 per cent of their crop harvested, the southeast 33 per cent, the northwest 28 per cent, the east-central 27 per cent and the northeast 21 per cent.

Crops that were not ready for harvest have quickly ripened after a stretch of warm and dry days.

While wind helps with the drying process too much wind can blow swaths around fields, shelling out very ripe crops, leading to yield reductions.

Other reported crop damage came from disease. There has been a slight increase of ergot fungus in their cereal fields this year due to the increase in precipitation received during the crop flowering stage.

The currently estimated averages of crop yields are 43 bushels per acre for hard red spring wheat, 30 bushels per acre for durum, 34 bushels per acre for canola, 34 bushels per acre for field peas, and 1,174 pounds per acre for lentils. Those numbers will be adjusted as more combining is completed in north east and east central region.