Farmscape for July 17, 2013

A weather and crop specialist with CWB reports difficult planting conditions last fall combined with this year's late spring have taken a toll on winter cereal crops produced in western Canada.
Following record winter wheat production in 2012 dry weather last fall prompted farmers in western Canada to reduce the number of acres seeded to winter cereal crops last fall.
Bruce Burnett, a weather and crop specialist with CWB, reports the less than ideal weather conditions have taken a toll on survivability and slowed winter cereal crop development.

Clip-Bruce Burnett-CWB:
The winter wheat crops, because of the poor establishment and conditions last fall, really did not have a great survivability this winter.
We saw fairly large abandonment.
Having said that, still, the crops that did survive are looking good.
The only difference being is that, in terms of growth stage, because of the late spring, we really don't have a big difference between the winter cereal crops and the early seeded spring wheat crops when you're looking at winter wheat and spring wheat so the usual spread of two to three weeks difference between those two crops is now more like a week in terms of the amount of difference between the growth stages of the two crops.

Burnett notes the winter cereal crops and some of the early seeded spring crops are now heading.
He says, depending on how much heat we get, that would push the start of this year's harvest into late August while the later seeded spring crops will be harvested well into September so there will be a wide range of harvest dates.
For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

       *Farmscape is a presentation of Sask Pork and Manitoba Pork Council