Producers hoping for fair weather

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 24/08/2022 (1461 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Producers in Westman are hoping for a few more weeks of warm, dry weather, and many are focusing on straight cutting rather than swathing their crops to prevent moisture-related issues for this year’s harvest.

Tuesday’s provincial crop report, released by Manitoba Agriculture, noted that last week’s weather brought a combination of high humidity and very sunny days. Rainfall ranged from trace amounts from Reston and Deloraine, both located southwest of Brandon, to up to 50 millimetres in the Oakburn area, which is 149 kilometres northwest of Brandon.

The report also mentioned some hail damage that was reported south of Virden, 77 kilometres west of Brandon, which affected spring wheat.

One Virden-area farmer told the Sun that, thankfully, the hail did not fall on his crops.

Doug Heaman, who operates Clearview Acres Ltd. with his family, said that right now his crops, which include wheat, barley, oats, peas, soybeans, flax, canola and hemp, are looking good.

“But they’re not in the bin yet, and we’re still a week or two away before we start our harvest.”

The province’s report said that cooler, wetter weather is in the forecast for the remainder of August, but Heaman is hoping that this will change and that the remaining weeks before harvest will be filled with sunshine and dry weather.

“Plus 25, no dew in the morning,” Heaman said, describing the conditions he would like to see.

Despite the fact that canola was “slow to get going,” with Heaman explaining that his crop didn’t do much growing until the early summer rains came to an end, it’s doing well now.

“We still need a few weeks before the frost to make sure it’s going to look good.”

The province’s crop report also stated that the cooler, wetter forecasted weather has some farms reconsidering swathing, where the crop is left to lay on the ground until it’s gathered up, in favour of straight cutting, where farmers harvest the crop while it’s still standing.

On Heaman’s farm, the crops are straight-cut and then put through a grain dryer.

“We’ve been doing that for a number of years now, and we think it’s better because then you get the crop in the bin and aren’t laying it on the ground.”

Making the switch from swathing to straight cutting is something that Keystone Agricultural Producers president Bill Campbell said is a trend that he’s seeing a lot of.

“It’s one of the harvest management techniques that Manitoba has been utilizing to ensure that we get maximum production, high quality and safe storage for crops with regards to moisture levels,” Campbell told the Sun by phone. “If we harvest with higher moisture levels, then the harvested crop is subject to spoilage and then it becomes less valuable when we market it, so there’s a lot of progressive management techniques with regards to straight cutting and with regards to dryers … and moisture monitors in bins.”

It’s all part of an evolution toward better ways of dealing with environmental factors that Campbell has noticed over the last few years, something that is of particular importance after this year’s unpredictable weather.

“With the moisture levels that we’ve had this year, there’s going to be uneven ripening of the crop, and so when we use these pre-harvest management techniques [like] straight cutting and aeration, it allows us to cope with those conditions to the best of our ability, versus swathing and laying [the crop] on the ground and having it vulnerable to pre-harvest conditions like sprout and spoilage and degrading.”

The crop report also stated that for southwest Manitoba, pasture and hay crops have been “outstanding” and first grass cut is nearly complete, while second-cut alfalfa is approximately half done.

» mleybourne@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @miraleybourne