The farming calendar follows a strict rhythm when it comes to seeding and harvest, but exactly when those jobs begin can vary.
Right now, it's about scouting crops, and deciding when to take them out of the ground.
"Farmers are always in harvest mode," said crops extension specialist Tyce Masich, giving a benchmark of July 20 for when breaking out the combines becomes a consideration.
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"You don't know when the crop might be ready to come off. It really depends how much rain you get, how much heat. There is lots that goes into it."
Surveying fields is a major task soon after the seed enters the ground. Once the spring crop is seeded, farmers tend to begin their evaluations of winter crops that naturally mature earlier, and Masich shared one way that producers tend to check progression.
"They will cut off a test strip. Producers refer to it as 'opening up the field'," said Masich. "They will do one pass with the combine or swather on the outside of the field to just see where the crop is at moisture wise, because it has to be at a certain percentage of moisture before it can actually come off and be stored safely," he said, as the test strips can be enough to determine if it's the right time to harvest.
Most farmers will take strips off in order of seeding, Masich referencing that right now the focus is on later seeded canola, mustard, along with wheat and durum as most of those crops still need to see noticeable filling in the heads and pods.
That leaves early harvest activity up to the winter crops.
"The winter cereals were planted last fall, so those are the ones that come off first," said Masich referencing winter wheat and fall rye. "Those will be the first crops to come off in any area really."
Pulse crops like lentils and peas planted in the early spring could join those crops headed into the bin early. Early seeded barley and spring wheat won't be far behind, and then before we know it the season will be into its final few passes.
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The quality of the crop doesn't matter if you can't get it out of the ground, as perhaps the biggest part of harvest is making sure everything is in working order.
"Getting combines ready, or swathers ready," said Masich, a farmer himself. "I know on our farm we had the mechanic out a couple days ago, just working on the combine and making sure it's all tuned up for the next couple of months."
Anyone who has spent long hours in the field like Masich knows how much better it is to work in the shop than in the field.
"There's not a lot of downtime to troubleshoot or fix things."
Harvest is currently a waiting game. The latest crop report showed the West Central region still at the starting line in terms of total harvest progress, compared to two per cent progress provincially, but that number likely shot up after some hours in the field over the weekend.