Farmers are working on bringing in the harvest as the weather cooperates.
Last week's hot, dry weather also brought its share of thunderstorm activity with strong winds and hail which caused some lodging in crops. The Nipawin area had the most rainfall, with 42 mm, followed by the North Battleford and Consul areas with 30 mm and 28 mm, respectively. A number of other areas around the province are also seeing some scattered showers.
The Ministry of Agriculture's weekly crop report shows 12 per cent of the provincial crop has been combined; the majority of that is in the south west where 23 per cent of the crop is off. The southeast is at 14 per cent, the east central is at 11 per cent, the west central region is at six per cent, with harvest just starting to get underway in the north.
Crops Extension Specialist Tyce Masich says harvest is a little bit behind in most areas of the province this year.
"I expect with some warm, dry conditions going forward and we'll see harvest start to pick up. In terms of where most crops have been harvested, it's been in the southern region. So the southeast and the southwest. Producers are working to take off the winter cereals, pulse crops and then they're into the spring cereal crops as well. On top of harvest, producers are swathing and desiccating canola crops as well."
Producers are primarily focused on combining winter cereal and pulse crops. Over half of winter cereals are in the bin with harvest progress for winter wheat at 70 per cent and fall rye at 66 per cent. There was also a notable increase in harvested pulse acres from last week, with 45 per cent of peas and 35 per cent of lentils now complete. Producers are starting to harvest spring cereals with triticale, barley and durum progress sitting at 42 per cent, 17 per cent and 13 per cent, respectively. The first acres of spring wheat, oats and chickpeas are coming off, but progress is minimal at this point.
Masich says crop quality is quite variable depending on the area.
"The best quality is in the east-central and the southeast parts of the province. The west-central, and southwest parts of the province had quite a bit of rain at the end of July and into early August, which I think took a toll on quality in those areas. So quality is a little bit lower in some of those Western regions."
According to the weekly crop report winter wheat grades are 23 per cent 1 Canada Western (CW), 65 per cent 2 CW, 11 per cent 3 CW and one per cent CW Feed. Winter wheat quality this year is lower than the 10-year average of 54 per cent 1 CW, 32 per cent 2 CW, nine per cent 3 CW and five per cent CW Feed. For fall rye, grades are 30 per cent 1 CW, 56 per cent 2 CW, 13 per cent 3 CW and one per cent sample. Like winter wheat, fall rye quality this year is lower than the 10-year average.
Regional Crop Report updates can be found here.