After a tough summer for farmers across Saskatchewan, harvest has come early.
For Todd Lewis, who farms near Gray, Sask., the drought brought harvest about three weeks earlier than normal.
According to the province’s recent Crop Report, 26 per cent of the crop is now in the bin, well ahead of the five year average.
“A lot of people are harvesting their crops and finding better than expected yields, and the quality has been really good just due to the lack of rainfall on ripe crops.” Brent Flaten, with Saskatchewan Agriculture, said.
“There’s still some areas, especially in the southwest, with very poor crops. But generally, better-than-expected yields and quality considering the lack of rain.”
Lewis says his crop quality was good considering the tinder-dry conditions, but his yields paid the price.
“They certainly are down in yields, our quality is good. Our lentils averaged about 25 bushels an acre, and the durum we ended up around 40 which is below average. But with the quality and rising in prices we should see a decent return on those crops,” Lewis said.
“The canola is going to be an interesting one. We’ve never really grown canola in conditions like this. So we’re kind of anticipating a low yield in canola seed, and the canary seed certainly is stunted and it won’t be as good as it usually is.”
Lewis says the wet fall last year was a saving grace for this year’s crop.
“As wet as it was last year, we were fortunate enough to have that moisture in the bank for this spring because really we had optimum soil moisture in the spring and that’s really what grew this year’s crops,” he said.
Although dry conditions can help move harvest along, it could wreak havoc on next year’s crops.
“We’re well depleted now, and we’ll certainly need some moisture between now and next fall, whether it be snowfall or rain, we need moisture to replenish what’s been lost in the soil,” Lewis said.
Meaning many farmers are hoping for an October rain, once the crops are off the field.
“Once we get into October, we need some rain before freeze-up,” Flaten said. “And probably timely rains next year, because we don’t have much soil moisture reserves right now. So we’re going to need the moisture, but maybe it can stay away until after harvest.”
Dry conditions create safety concerns during harvest
While these dry conditions are good for harvest season, Lewis says conditions this dry can also cause safety concerns.
“It’s so dry static electricity will build up on your combine and fire can be an issue, you can have hot spots on your combine that can cause a fire,” Lewis said. “So you’ve got to be pretty vigilant about that. Everybody has got to be pretty careful that a spark doesn’t fly off something or a hot belt or whatever the case. If you get a windy day like we have today and something gets going in the field, it can spread pretty quickly.”
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