Weather Key To Western Canadian Crop Quality

CANADA - The Canadian Wheat Board says weather patterns during the remainder of the growing season will determine the quality of this year's crops, according to Bruce Cochrane.

25 June 2010

2 minute read

North America

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An estimated 10 to 12 million acres of cropland in western Canada are expected to remain unseeded this year as a result of extremely wet spring weather conditions.

With the exception of a few portions of northwestern Alberta, which have received near normal precipitation, most parts of the prairies are reporting a minimum of 200 per cent above normal precipitation over the past month.

Canadian Wheat Board weather and crop analyst Stuart McMillan says fewer acres of all the major crops have been planted this year and there is fear that crop quality will also be negatively impacted.

Stuart McMillan-Canadian Wheat Board

This is the lowest wheat area in close to 40 years.

We'll have at least some of the lowest canola acreages in at least the past five years.

We'll see reductions in every single crop.

I think though the impact will be most significant in wheat, perhaps then followed by barley and then oats in terms of overall production drops.

I've seen some people predicting that we'll see as much as 25 per cent of all the wheat will end up coming off as feed quality.

To me that issue of quality will be determined as we get into July and August.

If we moved into a slightly more normal weather pattern in July there is the chance that crops will continue to develop normally.

If we had a hot finish similar to last year we could see some excellent quality in the crops that have been seeded.

If we continue to have the cool wet weather that we've seen so far to date, absolutely we would see more proportions falling into the lower quality and lower grades but I believe personally it's a little premature at this point.

Mr McMillan says he had hoped for a window to allow remaining fields to be seeded but as that's not occurred his only hope now is that farmers will get some half decent weather for those crops that did get into the ground.