Farmscape for September 29, 2023

Saskatchewan Agriculture reports with harvest nearing completion crop yields and quality have been close to the five and ten-year averages.
Saskatchewan Agriculture released its weekly crop report yesterday.
McKenzie Hladun, a crop extension specialist with Saskatchewan Agriculture, says this past week many producers wrapped up their harvesting operations and 91 percent of the provincial crop is in the bin, ahead of our five- and ten-year averages of 73 percent.

Quote-McKenzie Hladun-Saskatchewan Agriculture:
What we are seeing is that yields are where our five or ten-year averages are, which is quite nice to see and we're also seeing, quality wise, we're also continuing on that 10-year average as well which is also very nice to see.
Of course, this is variable and the variability all depends on where you are in the province and how much rain you got during those yield determining periods and also that grain filling period.
That being said, any areas that received later moisture are seeing an increase in sooty molds being present in their harvested crop.
Off course sooty molds are only a quality concern if conditions are bad enough.
However, we haven't heard of sooty molds decreasing grades quite yet.
Our crop damage throughout the year has been consistently caused by both grasshoppers and our drought conditions.
We have heard that grasshoppers have been quite competitive with this year's crop and that damage is definitely there from those grasshoppers both in their grain filling stage and those closer to harvesting stage simply die with increasing pod shattering or losing grain within their grain heads.
Grasshoppers haven't been an issue throughout the entire year.
As well we are seeing those dry conditions are affecting those grain filling stages within crops under drought stress and that is decreasing both yields and quality due to lack of grain filling and also an overall lack of head filling as well.

Hladun says regionally, the southwest and west central regions are sitting at 98 and 97 percent of the crops off respectively followed by the northwest at 90 percent complete, the southeast at 89 percent, the northeast at 88 percent and the east central region at 82 percent complete.
She notes many livestock producers are reporting water supply shortages, particularly in the southwest and west central regions and are anticipating them to get worse.
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Bruce Cochrane.

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