(Resource News International) An early harvest across Western Canada means many farmers are already seeding their winter wheat for next
year. While actual acres still remain to be seen, good prices and
the large planting window point towards another large crop, said
an industry official.
Western Canadian farmers recently harvested 1.5 million
tonnes of winter wheat on 1.1 million acres, according to
Statistics Canada data. The production was up considerably from
940,000 tonnes in 2006, when farmers had only planted 650,000 acres
to the crop.
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Jake Davidson, executive manager of Winter Cereals Canada,
said the demand for winter wheat seed was quite good this year,
with some producers running into problems locating seed supplies.
Strong prices, coupled with the fact that winter wheat
yielded better than spring wheat in 2007, have producers
interested in growing the crop, he said.
Davidson said farmers usually wait to buy their winter wheat
seed until they know they’ll have enough time to get it in the
ground before winter. “With the harvest as advanced as it is,
they are planting already,” he said.
Davidson was unsure how many acres would actually go in the
ground, but expected plantings would likely be similar to 2006.
“Overall, we’re looking forward to another good year,” he said
adding that Saskatchewan in particular could see more winter
wheat acres go in on that land that was never planted in the
spring due to wet conditions.
In order to see more winter wheat acres in Canada, Davidson
said work needed to be done on developing better cold-tolerant
varieties so that the crop could be seeded later. “If we can seed
later, we can increase the crop significantly,” said Davidson.
