CNS Canada — Snow cover is rapidly disappearing across Western Canada, but it will still be a few weeks until the extent of any damage to winter wheat across the Prairies is fully known.
“It’s still wait-and-see,” said analyst Bruce Burnett of Winnipeg grain firm CWB.
The crop won’t start re-growing until the overnight temperatures hold consistently above freezing, he noted.
“It’s an early warm-up, but will it be sustained through the end of the month?” he asked, noting producers will soon start monitoring for any winterkill when the fields start to green up.
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While the winter was relatively mild across most of Western Canada, Burnett estimated it would be about two to three weeks before there is a clearer picture on how the crop overwintered.
There is also always a concern at this time of year that an early warm period could still be followed by colder, damaging temperatures.
“The +15 C forecast, for a weekend in the middle of March, might be misleading for what there will be in late March/early April,” Burnett added.
Farmers in the three Prairie Provinces seeded 665,000 acres of winter wheat in the fall of 2014, which compares with 1.13 million seeded the previous year.
— Phil Franz-Warkentin writes for Commodity News Service Canada, a Winnipeg company specializing in grain and commodity market reporting.
