Top Crop Manager

News Agronomy
Crop report: Alberta gets moisture, spring wheat flowers in Manitoba

July 20, 2022  By Top Crop Manager


The latest crop report shows improvements in Saskatchewan and Alberta. However, Manitoba continues to be hit with challenges from excess rainfall and extreme weather.

Manitoba

After a difficult seeding season, general crop condition in Manitoba is currently much better than in 2021, according to the report for the week ending July 19. Crop condition varies widely within regions and local districts. Fungicide use is much more common than in recent years due to the density of crop canopy, abundance of rain and dew and risk of disease development. Weed control has also been better in-crop this year, despite herbicide product and application challenges. However, weed escapes are not uncommon, and wild oats are popping above crop canopy in some cases.

Because of the spring and early summer’s late seeding, that combination of late-seeded crops and rapid mid-summer crop development might create a shorter harvest window. Farmers and agronomists are encourage to use the Keep it Clean spray-to-swath calculator to know the pre-harvest interval for products applied to their crop.

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Spring wheat has been flowering much of the previous weeks, and conditions are best south of the TransCanada highway, although Fusarium head blight risk maps showed moderate to high risk across the provinces. Barley crops range from penultimate leaf to headed out, depending on seeding date. Oat crops range from flag leaf to panicle emergence. Corn crops have grown rapidly and range from V12 to early tasseling stage. Fall rye is in the hard dough stage, and winter wheat is still at soft dough. Oilseeds such as canola are much less consistent across the province, with only 15 per cent of canola in excellent condition (45 per cent of canola crops are in good condition). Recent warm weather has resulted in rapid development for pulses, although some soybean aphids have been reported. | READ MORE

Saskatchewan

Progress on crops continues in Saskatchewan thanks to warm temperatures and rainfall in many areas. As of the week ending July 11, few crops are currently ahead of previous years for development – only 15 per cent of fall cereals, five per cent of spring cereals, four per cent of oilseeds and five per cent of pulse crops are ahead for development. Oilseeds are the most reportedly behind on development, with 45 per cent of crops being behind. Provincially, 64 per cent of the fall cereals, 58 per cent of the spring cereals, 51 per cent of the oilseed crops and 72 per cent of the pulse crops are at their normal stages of development for this time of year. Excess moisture is blamed for crops that are behind the normal stage of development.

Topsoil moisture has remained relatively stable compared to last week. Cropland topsoil moisture is rated as four per cent surplus, 69 per cent adequate, 23 per cent short and four per cent very poor. Hay and pasture land is rated as five per cent surplus, 68 per cent adequate, 22 per cent short and five per cent very short.

Rain and humid conditions in some areas have slowed haying operations, but haying has started or will start soon throughout the province. Livestock producers now have 16 per cent of the hay crop cut while eight per cent has been baled or put into silage. Hay quality is rated as 19 per cent excellent, 62 per cent good, 17 per cent fair and two per cent poor.

Crop damage this past week was due to extremely dry conditions, grasshoppers, gophers, flooding, strong winds, hail and lodging. Many producers are applying fungicides and are haying as conditions allow. |READ MORE

Alberta

As of the week ended July 12, 75 per cent of major crops are rated as good or excellent. Again, the south region has the fewest crops in good or excellent conditions, with 63.9 per cent of all crops and 61.4 per cent of major crops in good or excellent condition. Indeed, crop development in the region is described as “slightly behind normal,” with 82 per cent of canola and 85 per cent of dry peas in flower and one per cent of canola and seven per cent of dry peas in the podding stage. Fall seed crops are in the mil developing stage.

On the other hand, conditions are best in the North East region, with 82 per cent of all crops as good or excellent. Fungicide spraying is underway, and gophers infestation is becoming a concern in some areas. Also, some hail damage has been reported in some counties. The Central, Peace and North West regions are all in the high seventies for good and excellent crops.

Since the beginning of seeding, lack of precipitation has been a concern for the province. However, precipitation improved over the month of June. Surface soil moisture is currently rated as 82 per cent good, excellent or excessive, which is nearly double from the beginning of the season. Subsurface soil moisture is only eight per cent poor and 27 per cent fair, and 65 per cent good, excellent or excessive. |READ MORE

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