“Nothing in the report really jumped out at me but we’re in that position where it’s only 60 to 70 per cent a seeded acres report and still 30 to 40 per cent a planting intentions report,” said Ken Ball, a broker with Union Securities in Winnipeg.

“When the data was gathered, we were not anywhere close to being done seeding in some areas.”

The federal statistics agency pegged canola area at 15.825 million acres, in line with pre-report estimates. Based on conversations with growers, however, Ball thinks most canola acres that were torn up were not reseeded to canola, which would place actual acreage below Tuesday’s figure.

“Barley seems to have been the most common choice for reseeding, along with durum and some oats. We could see those numbers eventually come up,” Ball said.

Barley was pegged by StatsCan at 8.778 million acres, durum at 5.58 million and oats at 3.879 million.

Vic Lespinasse of GrainAnalyst.com said that in the time since the data was compiled by Statistics Canada, drought in western parts of the Prairies worsened and there were frosts that may have damaged some canola fields.

“These adverse weather influences were not factored into this morning’s numbers, making them subject to larger than usual revisions later in the season,” he said.

Mike Jubinville of ProFarmer Canada in Winnipeg said he does not anticipate StatsCan’s numbers having much of an impact on the futures markets because production is more about yields than acres.

“Right away the trade is going to be adjusting this acreage number due to reseeding and late planting but they’ll be more inclined to be concerned about what yield potential may be and we’re certainly off to a less than ideal start in a lot of areas,” Jubinville said.

“We’ll go back to trading on weather issues and outside market influences.”

Up from CWB

Spring wheat acreage, pegged at 17,485 million acres, was a tad higher than anticipated but the all wheat figure, at 24,932, was slightly below the March 31 estimate and less than last year’s 25.009 million acres.

“Does it have any real market influence? Probably not, but, at least on spring wheat, it was a bit higher than what the Canadian Wheat Board was projecting a week and a half ago,” he said.

Jubinville noted StatsCan’s figure for the area seeded to dry peas was on the low side. Acreage was pegged at 3.745 million acres compared to 4.205 million in the March 31 StatsCan report and 3.995 million acres seeded last spring.

“Historically, 3.745 million pea acres would be pretty large but we have to consider that considerable pea acres are located in the drought areas.”

There again, the acreage numbers are an issue but yields will be more important, Jubinville said.

Pea inventories could eventually tighten but whether that impacts prices will depend on what export demand is, he added.

As for barley and oats, the fact that both acreage numbers were on the low side reflects the reality of what their prices and return potential were at the time of the survey, Jubinville said.

There are currently ample supplies of both grains, but the figures suggest that a tightening supply situation could evolve in the second half of the 2009-10 crop year provided usage remains comparable to what it has been this year, he said.

None of the numbers in the report were unreasonable or particularly shocking, said Brian Wittal, owner of Pro Com Marketing Ltd. in Alberta.

“The key thing now is going to be yield estimates over the next two months and how weather evolves,” he said.

The fact that barley acreage came in lower than StatCan’s March 31 number is not surprising given they way prices looked in the spring and the outlook from the feed industry, Wittal thought.

“Under the current conditions, though, with dryness in some areas and guys not being able to put animals out to pasture and hay crops looking poor, that will certainly support barley prices going forward, beyond the short term,” Wittal said.

By the numbers: Statistics Canada’s report

(Statistics Canada, June 23) — Prairie farmers increased acreage planted in spring wheat this year, while the acreage for most feed grains declined. Ontario and Quebec farmers reported that the area planted to soybeans reached a new high.

The June Farm Survey, Statistics Canada’s largest area survey, was conducted between May 25 and June 3, covering 25,000 Canadian farmers. As of June 3, Prairie farmers reported that planting was virtually complete, with unseeded pockets remaining in mainly northern areas and in the Red River Valley regions of Manitoba affected by the spring floods.

Seeding conditions were variable across the Canadian Prairies, ranging from cool and dry in western areas to cool and excessively wet in eastern regions.

In Ontario and Quebec, planting was mostly complete, although cool, damp weather hampered progress.

Area for spring wheat up

Prairie farmers reported planting 17.1 million acres of spring wheat, up 7.3 per cent or 1.2 million acres from 2008.

Wheat area increased in all three Prairie provinces. In Manitoba, farmers planted 13.8 per cent more spring wheat, followed by Saskatchewan at 7.1 per cent and Alberta at 4.6 per cent.

Mixed results for oilseeds

Prairie farmers reported that the area seeded to canola amounted to 15.7 million acres, down two per cent or 325,000 acres from the record set in 2008.

Farmers in all three Prairie provinces seeded less canola, with the largest decline in Alberta (down 250,000 acres). The area seeded to canola had grown steadily from 2006 to 2008.

Flaxseed area on the Prairies increased 10.3 per cent to 1.7 million acres. This was the second consecutive annual increase.

Farmers in all three Prairie provinces reported an increase in the area seeded to flaxseed.

Barley area falls

Total barley area on the Prairies fell 545,000 acres from 2008 to 8.2 million acres. This was the smallest area seeded to barley since 1967.

Barley acreage fell in all three Prairie provinces, with the largest decline of 250,000 acres reported in Saskatchewan.

New high for soybean area

Soybean seeded area rose to a new high in both Ontario and Quebec. The acreage in Ontario rose 14.3 per cent or 300,000 acres to 2.4 million acres, while in Quebec, farmers reported a 4.3 per cent increase to 598,000 acres.

The post Reseeding seen changing StatsCan numbers appeared first on Farmtario.

Keystone Processors Ltd. opened March 10 at the old Maple Leaf Foods facility on Marion Street in Winnipeg. It is currently processing beef for Manitoba retailers such as De Luca’s Specialty Foods, Winnipeg Old Country Sausage and Selkirk Butcher Shop.

As a provincially inspected plant, Keystone is currently only licenced to sell within Manitoba. The company hopes to become federally inspected by 2011 at the earliest, which would allow it to ship out-of-province within Canada as well as abroad.

Until that happens, though, some existing Manitoba packers and processors say they are losing business to Keystone Processors.

Their “beef” is not with Keystone Processors per se, but with the funding the plant received from the Manitoba Cattle Enhancement Council and the provincial government.

The MCEC was created in 2006 by Manitoba’s provincial government and was given a mandate to expand the province’s beef processing industry. The council collects a refundable $2 per head checkoff on all cattle produced and sold in Manitoba. The money that is not refunded is matched dollar-for-dollar by the provincial government.

So far the MCEC has invested $2.4 million in Keystone and has committed another $3 million towards the construction of the federally-inspected plant.

Pat Haywood owns BJ Packers, a provincially inspected meat packing facility at Beasejour, Man. that employs a dozen workers. He has spent his entire career in the meat packing/processing business.

As Haywood sees it, until Keystone Processors becomes federally inspected, the MCEC is funding a company that is competing directly in the small local market against existing independent companies such as his own.

“I’m not against the MCEC. I think they’re doing a good job but I think they’re going about it the wrong way,” Haywood said.

The addition of another provincially inspected plant, funded by a producers’ checkoff levy, is not beneficial for Manitoba producers if other local packers are forced out of business, especially is Keystone Processors is unsuccessful in the long-term, Haywood said.

“Devastation”

Robert Jowett, who has operated Country Meat and Sausage at Blumenort, north of Steinbach, since 2000, shares similar concerns about Keystone’s impact on the market while it awaits federal approval and funds.

“It looks like Keystone will go federal in two years but in that time they will cripple the existing plants and then when they go federal, they’ll leave all of this devastation behind them,” Jowett said.

Whether Keystone is taking away clients from existing companies or not, it’s the principle of what happened that has made some people angry.

“This plant starts up and goes into direct competition with some of the existing plants and processors and they’re subsidized by the government. If they would have gone about it the right way no one would have cared,” Jowett said.

“We need money to go toward helping provincial plants enter a different market where they supply products currently being imported. This requires a federal licence rather than moving the deck chairs around in the province. Then we will be helping the local farmers who are investing in MCEC,” he said.

MCEC executive director Kate Butler said the council stands behind its support for Keystone Processors.

When the MCEC was created, Butler said the province’s existing packers and processors were invited to a meeting where they were briefed about the opportunities that MCEC could provide, including funding assistance to become federally-approved.

Keystone Processors was “the only one that stepped up to the plate,” said Butler.

The existing plants were given the same opportunity to receive MCEC’s assistance but when many of them were contacted they indicated they were fine or said they were not interested in taking on that effort, she said.

Also, MCEC’s financial support for Keystone moved ahead when it did because the old Maple Leaf plant had come up for sale with a transferable environmental licence that would have expired had the plant sat empty.

“If it went for too long as an empty plant the entire process was going to have to begin again for the environmental licencing, which would be costly and potentially prohibitive if we had to go that far,” Butler explained.

The MCEC recognizes the “delicate” situation everyone is in and agrees that Keystone needs to become federally inspected as soon as possible, Butler said.

To that end, the federal government has been given Keystone’s business plan to review as part of the company’s effort to secure the millions of dollars it will need to go federal, she explained.

The funds sought are part of the $50 million earmarked in the Conservative’s government’s February budget for Canadian slaughter capacity.

The MCEC expects Keystone’s business plan to receive a favourable view.

However, only last week did the federal government provide parameters for its funding program and the MCEC had already invested in Keystone before federal funding was announced in 2009.

Before that, plans were in place to access federal funding through a number of different programs, Butler said.

“Securing funding would not have been so dramatic and clean but by hook and crook we planned to piece together the federal component,” she said.

“Interim plan”

Kelly Penner, Keystone Processors’ president, said it is a misperception that the company is going head to head with existing processors.

A small percentage of the business the company does overlaps with that other companies, he concedes. However, a large portion of their work is to supply distributers that had previously been buying Alberta, not Manitoba, beef.

Penner said he is sensitive to the situation that has developed but emphasized that Keystone Processors does not want to be a provincial plant.

“This is just an interim plan. (The existing packers and processors) need to be lobbying the federal government to make sure we get this plant up and running. We need government funds to get this complete or we’re going to continue to do what we’re doing,” Penner said.

The willingness of the provincial and federal governments to step up and provide what Keystone’s business plans require will determine how long they are limited to selling with Manitoba’s small market, said Penner.

“So to say exactly when we’ll go federal? I can’t until they commit the required funds,” he said before adding that 2011 is still the goal.

The post Not all cheering for new Man. beef plant appeared first on Farmtario.

The South Australian Farmers Federation (SAFF) on May 22 voiced its opposition to the merger of the Canadian and Australian agri-businesses on the basis that Viterra’s bid was neither high enough nor in the best interests of growers.

Viterra offered ABB Grain between A$9 and A$9.50 per share in a non-binding bid that includes cash, stock and dividends.

The influential Australian farm group may hold sway over the 46 per cent of ABB Grain shareholders who are or were producers. In order to move ahead, Viterra’s bid requires approval from 75 per cent of ABB shareholders. The shareholders would also need to overturn a 15 per cent shareholder cap clause in its constitution.

In the interest of competition and efficiency, SAFF grains council chairman urged ABB Grain shareholders not to allow the removal of the current 15 per cent cap on voting shares unless “fundamental changes” take place.

SAFF called for the sale of the port at Port Adelaide Outer Harbour, the availability of information concerning stocks, sales, shipping and warehousing, an independent operation of the shipping stem and monitoring of port pricing.

Asked to respond to SAFF’s comments, a spokesperson for Regina-based Viterra noted ABB’s board of directors, which includes four Australian growers, unanimously recommended that ABB shareholders vote in favour of the proposal.

“We believe our offer provides significant value to ABB shareholders including a substantial premium on their shares, the establishment of a centre of excellence for malting barley and malting research in Adelaide and an investment in grower education and training to enhance farm business management skills, marketing expertise and best practices among Australian growers,” the Viterra spokesperson said.

As for SAFF’s concerns about port practices and access, “Regulatory matters concerning port access are unrelated to this transaction. Our focus is on combining two great companies,” the Viterra spokesperson said.

The post Viterra defends ABB merger, cites gains for farmers appeared first on Farmtario.

As of May 29, old-crop edible green pea prices (delivered to elevator) in Western Canada ranged from $8.50 to $9 a bushel, while old-crop yellow edible pea prices ranged from $6 to $6.23 a bushel, according to prices collected by Prairie Ag Hotwire.

Bids for new-crop green peas (delivered to elevator) ranged from $6.50 to $7.25 a bushel and from $5.66 to $5.74 a bushel for new-crop yellow peas.

The lower new-crop pea price still reflects initial ideas that supplies in the 2009-10 crop year would be ample in part because of large ending stocks, said Les Aubin, manager of country operations for Walker Seeds at Tisdale, Sask.

The trade is already beginning to think though, that the carryout from this year’s pea crop could be considerably smaller than originally anticipated.

“I think everybody has accepted that the carryout will be smaller but the question now is what the amount will be come August,” said Aubin.

Export demand through March, April and May has been steadier than many expected and as a result Aubin believed carry-out could fall into the 500,000- to 600,000-tonne level, as opposed to initial estimates of one million tonnes.

“That is basically a third of a crop, which is huge. Now we’re thinking much lower and that makes a big difference,” he said.

However, the ability of new-crop pea prices to move higher is being curbed by sluggish demand, Aubin said. Pulse companies are not in a hurry to forward book a lot of 2009-10 pea supplies until they are more certain as to how the pea crop in Western Canada will develop.

Prairie-wide, the pea crop is 95 to 100 per cent seeded. Some fields may require re-seeding where germination failed, but that should be less than five per cent of the total crop, Aubin estimated.

For old-crop prices, yellow peas are unlikely to move much below current values but the same may not hold for green peas.

“There is currently a spread of roughly $1.50 a bushel between old- and new-crop prices and I see that narrowing to maybe 50 cents or so as summer nears. Prices eventually have to be the same, or who is going to buy old supplies if they wait a month for new-crop peas?” Aubin said.

The post Pea carryout seen smaller than expected appeared first on Farmtario.

As of May 29, old-crop edible green pea prices (delivered to elevator) in Western Canada ranged from $8.50 to $9 a bushel, while old-crop yellow edible pea prices ranged from $6 to $6.23 a bushel, according to prices collected by Prairie Ag Hotwire.

Bids for new-crop green peas (delivered to elevator) ranged from $6.50 to $7.25 a bushel and from $5.66 to $5.74 a bushel for new-crop yellow peas.

The lower new-crop pea price still reflects initial ideas that supplies in the 2009-10 crop year would be ample in part because of large ending stocks, said Les Aubin, manager of country operations for Walker Seeds at Tisdale, Sask.

The trade is already beginning to think though, that the carryout from this year’s pea crop could be considerably smaller than originally anticipated.

“I think everybody has accepted that the carryout will be smaller but the question now is what the amount will be come August,” said Aubin.

Export demand through March, April and May has been steadier than many expected and as a result Aubin believed carry-out could fall into the 500,000- to 600,000-tonne level, as opposed to initial estimates of one million tonnes.

“That is basically a third of a crop, which is huge. Now we’re thinking much lower and that makes a big difference,” he said.

However, the ability of new-crop pea prices to move higher is being curbed by sluggish demand, Aubin said. Pulse companies are not in a hurry to forward book a lot of 2009-10 pea supplies until they are more certain as to how the pea crop in Western Canada will develop.

Prairie-wide, the pea crop is 95 to 100 per cent seeded. Some fields may require re-seeding where germination failed, but that should be less than five per cent of the total crop, Aubin estimated.

For old-crop prices, yellow peas are unlikely to move much below current values but the same may not hold for green peas.

“There is currently a spread of roughly $1.50 a bushel between old- and new-crop prices and I see that narrowing to maybe 50 cents or so as summer nears. Prices eventually have to be the same, or who is going to buy old supplies if they wait a month for new-crop peas?” Aubin said.

The post Pea carryout seen smaller than expected appeared first on Farmtario.

A Statistics Canada report released in February showed low farm inventories of cattle in Canada, which the government agency said reflected market uncertainty and rising input costs.

The report confirmed a continuation of a long-term downward trend in Canadian cattle numbers. Canadian cattle inventories fell to 13.2 million head, down 5.1 per cent from Jan. 1, 2008, with smaller dairy and beef herd sizes reported.

On the beef side specifically, herds declined in all four major beef producing provinces (Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario) and showed no signs on rebuilding, as indicated by lower cow and heifer numbers.

“I think for the beef herd we’re almost to the end of the downturn in herd size,” said Martin Unrau, vice-chair of foreign trade for the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association.

Unrau, a cattle producer from MacGregor, Man., estimates there will be roughly one more year of herd shrinking before the numbers begin to grow again.

The normal expand-contract cattle cycle is “alive and well” but the size of the Canadian beef herd was artificially inflated after 2003, when the discovery of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in an Alberta cow shut Canadian cattle out of many international markets, said Unrau.

At that time, the market became so depressed that producers were forced to hang onto cattle until prices rebounded enough to make a decent return.

“Consumer response”

The current herd liquidation only really took off in the past 24 to 28 months, around the time when the U.S. border reopened to cattle over 30 months old (OTMs) and the market improved, he said.

It’s difficult to estimate the level to which the Canadian herd size will shrink, given the number of factors that influence producers’ decisions to hold onto or sell their cattle, said Brenna Grant, a research analyst with Calgary-based CanFax.

“One of the major factors this year is that we already have producers in Alberta talking about drought, which would impact water availability for cows. The other thing is consumer response. There was a bid drop in demand in 2008 and until we see some market improvement it is hard to say what will happen,” Grant said.

When the Canadian beef herd does begin to expand, Unrau thinks the industry will have changed. There will be fewer producers and on average they will be older.

“Over the last six years we haven’t really seen any young people come into the industry so what we’ve got is an older population. At one point, the average age was 56, which tells you the industry has changed,” Unrau said.

He believes, however, there are young producers waiting in the wings.

“When you talk to young people, they say they’re going to try and get in. So, things will turn around, it is just a matter of getting to that point,” Unrau said.

“When the numbers start climbing again, it will reflect optimism among younger producers that the worst has passed.”

The post Cattle liquidation seen nearing completion appeared first on Farmtario.

“It’s not going to be a record year but overall we’re generally pleased so far,” Jake Davidson, executive director of Winter Cereals Canada at Minnedosa, Man., said May 22.

“There are people who are getting crop insurance coverage on some of their fields but overall I think the winter wheat crop is as good as could have been expected given the winter, the spring and the flooding we saw,” he said.

South of Winnipeg, where a lot of winter wheat is typically grown, there will be acres lost due to the flooding in the Red River Valley. Higher-than-normal winter wheat acreage in Alberta, however, will partially offset those losses, he said.

Snow cover through the winter was good and soil temperatures remained decent but the lack of heat so far this spring is slowing the development of the crop.

“We’ll probably lose a little bit of production due to the lack of heat because that is what gets winter wheat development going before the weeds start growing like crazy,” Davidson said.

There needs to be less fluctuation between day- and night-time temperatures, and daytime temperatures need to hit the 18° to 20°C range, he said.

Prairie winter wheat is looking a “little rougher” than normal also because much of the crop was seeded into barley and pea stubble rather than canola stubble, which is preferred for its good snow-catching properties, Davidson said.

Winter wheat yields are expected to be mainly average but total western Canadian production will be down due to a significant drop in seeded area in the fall.

According to Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada forecasts dated April 24, the amount of winter wheat area seeded in Western Canada in the fall declined 18.1 per cent, from 1.52 million acres in 2008-09 to 1.245 million acres.

The amount of winter wheat that will be harvested in Western Canada this summer was pegged by AAFC at 1.098 million acres, down from 1.34 million acres in 2008/09.

Western Canadian production was forecast at 1.488 million tonnes compared to 1.982 million tonnes for the 2008-09 marketing year.

Looking ahead to the fall, there are already concerns about timely winter wheat seeding in the fall, Davidson said.

“If spring seeding is delayed and we continue to have cool weather our stubble crops will be late coming off and we’ll run into the problem that we’re not going to get our crops in the ground in some areas,” he said.

However, if producers in flooded Manitoba areas are not able to seed this spring, they will be able to get a winter crop in early and that could offset problems in other areas, Davidson added.

The post Prairies expect reasonable winter wheat yields appeared first on Farmtario.

This year’s winterkill rate is expected to range from 10 to 12 per cent of the total crop, which is higher than the average rate of three to five per cent, Shapton said.

That means that of the roughly 950,000 winter wheat acres seeded in Ontario in the fall, anywhere from 800,000 to 850,000 acres will be harvested this summer.

A tough spring and poor seeding conditions in the fall are expected to bring yields back in line with five-year averages of 75 to 76 bushels an acre, compared with 80-plus-bushel yields in the last couple of years, Shapton said.

The winter wheat crop is roughly 10 to 14 days behind normal development due to a lack of warm weather.

“We didn’t have the heat and things are behind. It’s past the middle of May and we should have wheat up to our knees or higher by now but we’re a long ways from that,” Shapton said.

That said, temperatures in Ontario have climbed recently and the winter wheat crop is expected to catch-up.

“In a few days, there could be a whole different story as far as the crop’s development goes,” Shapton said.

The province’s winter wheat production was pegged by Shapton around 1.75 million tonnes, the majority of which is soft red winter wheat. Hard red winter wheat accounts for roughly five per cent and hard white winter wheat for roughly five to seven per cent of the total.

There will be plenty of soft red winter wheat in Ontario to export and market, Shapton said.

“We’ll still have the third- or fourth-largest crop we’ve ever had. Long-term provincial averages are probably around 750,000 acres and we’re still at 850,000. We’re down significantly from 1.25 (million acres) last year but still well above average,” he said.

The post Ont. winter wheat behind normal pace, so far appeared first on Farmtario.

“If you include shipments from all of the ports, Canadian canola seed shipments reached roughly 913,000 tonnes in April, with 860,000 tonnes leaving off the West Coast alone,” said a senior trade source from a major Canadian agriculture company.

That compares to an average monthly shipment pace of 400,000 to 500,000 tonnes and the previous record in October 2008 at nearly 700,000 tonnes, he said.

While the source expects canola shipments to remain strong for the last three months of the 2008-09 crop year, the tonnage will likely slip “a tad,” he said.

“If you look at the vessel lineup out of Vancouver, there are seven boats already lined up for China but we probably won’t see that in June and July,” the source said.

The reason is partly that China begins to harvest its own rapeseed crop in May but also partly due to logistical constraints within Canada. Logistics through June and July are quite full and there is not a lot of capacity left after that, the source said.

“There are definitely cargoes on the books to China for that period but I don’t think that we’ll see as many. We might some more Mexican business and possibly something to Dubai because I don’t think there is anything lined up for Dubai in May,” the source said.

The canola carryout in Canada this year could be a lot smaller than people expected even last month, given the way exporters have been drawing down stocks, he added.

Lach Coburn, West Coast manager for Cargill Ltd., agreed another record month like April is unlikely.

“We’re still going to have a pretty good shipments in May, June and July, but it will be hard to hold that pace. To hold that pace, you would take the canola carryout pretty quickly,” Coburn said.

April’s record pace of over 900,000 tonnes deserves applaud, Coburn said. Logistically, things moved very well from a number of major Canadian ports due to less congestions from other commodities.

Also, “the canola yields (in Canada) last year were tremendous and it was great that the market was there to take it,” Coburn said.

In Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s April 30 supply/demand report, 2008-09 Canadian canola exports were forecast at seven million tonnes. That compares to 5.66 million tonnes of exports during the 2007-08 crop year and the 6.5 million tonnes forecast for 2009-10.

The post Canola exports’ record April pace seen slowing appeared first on Farmtario.

As of May 5, the amount of flooded Manitoba farmland had retreated from its April 24 peak of 86,400 hectares to 64,600 ha, a Statistics Canada report released May 11 showed.

As of the April 24 peak, the province’s flooded area had covered 61 per cent of the 142,000 ha of farm land covered by Manitoba’s 1997 “flood of the century,” the government agency said.

“There is still quite a bit of land that is still underwater or where the water just came off, so those guys are nowhere near thinking about getting onto the land,” said Ivan Sabourin, president of Roy Legumex at St. Jean Baptiste, about 35 km north of the U.S. border in the Red River Valley.

Floodwaters in the area are receding more slowly than they have compared with other floods, Sabourin said.

A second crest at Fargo, N.D. three weeks ago meant there was still a lot of water that needed to flow upstream through the area and “we sure felt that delay,” he said.

Sabourin is not worried, though, about crops in the surrounding area.

“There might be a few changed decisions as to what the guys are going to plant but as far as yields go, post-floods, crops always have a decent year that year for whatever reason,” he said.

No panic

There’s no reason at this point for the province’s canola growers to worry about seeding, said Anastasia Kubinec, oilseed specialist for Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Initiatives at Carman.

The seeding deadline for canola this spring, as determined by Manitoba’s AgriInsurance branch based on historical results, is June 10 for the northern half of the province and June 15 for the southern section, where flooding was worst.

“If producers can get canola into the ground before those dates, they will probably be OK. They may not get stellar yields but they will do OK provided the rest of the growing season co-operates,” she said.

“If this were June 10, there would be reason to panic, but not yet.”

Bruce Burnett, director of weather and crop surveillance for the Canadian Wheat Board in Winnipeg, said spring wheat seeding in the eastern half of Manitoba has been really slow as the soil is still quite wet.

In those areas of the Red River Valley that drained first, there has been limited seeding activity. Those sections are drying out, however, and provided there are reasonable drying conditions, seeding activity should pick up there this week, Burnett said.

Wheat seeding in low-lying areas close to the Red River is still a week to two weeks away, he estimated.

“I generally consider this week to be the optimum week for wheat planting in parts of Manitoba but there is no reason to panic. We have this week and then there are still a couple weeks left in May, so I don’t think anybody is pushing the panic button on this,” Burnett said.

Wheat seeding in the drier western half of the province, west of Portage La Prairie, is coming along well. Producers there were able to make good progress over the past week and some have half of their wheat seeding completed, Burnett said.

Localized flooding of farmland was seen in western Manitoba when the Souris and Assiniboine rivers, tributaries of the Red, overflowed their banks.

The post Seeding window still open on flooded Man. fields appeared first on Farmtario.