Harvest delayed due to wet growing season

Harvest is lagging this season as the majority of southwest Manitoba has received above normal precipitation.

The Manitoba Crop Report last week stated that harvest completion sat at two per cent as of Aug. 24 in the southwest region. The progress came in lower than the past two years, which saw nine per cent, and six per cent at the same time.

Dean Toews, a farmer near MacGregor, said his farm is about two to three weeks delayed on harvest this year — with wet weather being one of the factors.

“The crops just stayed greener because they kept on feeding because there was adequate moisture,” he said. “I think the rains that we got kind of kept the maturity delayed a bit.”

Rye, barley, wheat, edible beans and soybeans are lagging this year — however, it’s “not extreme,” and he said he has encountered much later harvests in the past.

Large areas of southwest Manitoba saw more than 300 millimetres of precipitation since May 1 — with climate normals sitting from 211 mm to 328 mm.

Toews said heat and humidity in July made for an “unbelievable” amount of growth in his corn crop, recovering from a slow start during the cool month of June.

“Only because we had the had the heat and the moisture combination, that corn recovered.”

Carly Chatham, a wheat farmer near Killarney, said a hailstorm in July set back her crop’s development. As a result, she is looking ahead to a delayed harvest this year, she said.

“I would say, (we were) delayed by about two weeks,” Chatham said on Aug. 26. “For our wheat that was heavily affected, it probably won’t hit maturity for another, I’m thinking like three weeks.”

Chatham said that while the area avoided most of the heavy rains that Westman received this season, the hailstorm landed at a bad stage of growth.

“The timing of hail, that’s kind of what mattered the most,” she said. “It was right at the beginning of a lot of the crops’ reproductive stages, and so the impact of that was that it killed the main growing point.”

While precipitation has had some negative impacts, Trevor Hadwen, an agriclimate specialist for Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, said farmers are reporting great conditions for soil health and crop yield in the southwest region because of precipitation.

The department collects monthly survey data through its Agroclimate Impact Reporter.

“Some of the producers that we’ve seen recently in that area have talked about really good growing conditions throughout the year, optimal soil moisture,” Hadwen said. “We do have good water supply in that region for livestock, we do have good soil moisture for crop production, good yield potential there.”

He said farmers are looking for a really good year in the region.

Western Manitoba has been “wet” for the past three months — during the growing season — however, over six months precipitation has been about normal, he said.

According to the Manitoba Crop Report, favourable weather conditions held in the middle of August, allowing for desiccation, swathing and harvesting. However, “high humidity and cooler daytime and evening temperatures are keeping some crops green,” and some grain is being harvested while slightly damp and is being dried or aerated.

Toews said that it would be an added expense to run a grain dryer to dry out crop harvested while it was damp.

The report also showed that winter wheat, fall rye, spring wheat, barley, and field peas were all behind pace with last year’s crop completion in southwest Manitoba. Field peas were notably at 15 per cent completion this year compared to 80 per cent last year, and 65 per cent the year before.