Harvest progress in Alberta reached 85 per cent complete as of Oct. 1, progressing 11 points on the week, according to the latest provincial crop report.
Harvesting in Saskatchewan is in the home stretch as warm and dry conditions for the week ended Sept. 30 saw a 12-point gain to 91 per cent complete, the provincial agriculture department reported.
The harvest in Saskatchewan advanced 13 points for the week ended Sept. 16, at 74 per cent complete, despite rain in some parts of the province. The pace of combining was eight points behind this time last year, but 11 ahead of the five-year average.
Hot and dry weather saw crop conditions decline across much of Western Canada over the past month, with the latest model-based production estimates from Statistics Canada showing downward revisions in both canola and wheat production from the August report.
Combining of major crops in Alberta progressed 23 points during the week ended Sept. 10, reaching 54 per cent, according to the province's latest weekly crop report. While dry weather helped to advance the harvest, crop yields were not meeting expectations.
Saskatchewan’s harvest was more than halfway finished at 61 per cent complete, although not as much as the 68 per cent complete from one year ago. The figure was higher than the 42 per cent reported last week, the five-year average of 50 per cent and the 10-year average of 46 per cent. The southwest region was the nearest to completion at 85 per cent while the northeast region’s harvest was only at 34 per cent.
Dry peas saw sharp reductions in Statistics Canada's report on grain stocks as of July 31. Released on Sept. 9, the StatCan report showed on-farm and commercial dry pea stocks at a combined 348,000 tonnes, down from 550,000 the previous July. The current stocks also came in below the five-year average of 398,600 tonnes.
Average prices for the majority of crops grown in the Prairies were lower this July compared to the year before, while cattle prices continued to rise, according to Statistics Canada's (StatCan) monthly farm product prices released on Sept. 10.