Nicole Taylor
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
The World-Spectator
Harvest in Southeast Saskatchewan and Southwest Manitoba is done. A lack of extreme heat this summer and timely rains led to one of the nicest crops in years, with farmers bringing in lots of bushels, although their enthusiasm for the crop was somewhat tempered by low grain and oilseed prices.
“We seeded canola, wheat, and oats in the Atwater, Bangor and Stockholm area,” says Blake Duchek. “Yield-wise all the crops were above average. We had most of our wheat done before the first significant rain in September. We only had a couple of days left and the rest (of the crop that came off) was down-graded after the rain. Those crops had gone down to a number three. The other crops weren’t affected by the weather. It was one of our best years that we’ve had in the last 20 years.
“We had 12 to 13 inches of rain over our farm, and a cooler summer. The canola kept blooming longer, and the crop was actually a bit later than usual because it didn’t want to ripen up and die off. Overall, a cooler growing season and lots of moisture at the right time contributed to a nice crop. The moisture spaced out nice and evenly, instead of having six inches all at once which doesn’t help.”
Duchek says they wrapped up harvest over two weeks ago before the first snow that hit the Esterhazy region on the Thanksgiving weekend.
Mark McCorriston has land north, west and east of Moosomin.
He says he saw big yields this year, making for one of the nicest crops in their farm’s growing history.
“It was one of the better yielding crops that I have ever grown to date, and that includes barley, wheat, and canola,” he says. “The yield was excellent and the quality of the wheat that was taken off before the rain was all Number 1 and it weighed up good and it was excellent before that week and half of rain.
“Everything was good on the grain side of things except for the actual price of grain. Canola is as low as it was 10 years ago, same with wheat.
“When I took over from my dad and started farming in 2014 and on my own, that’s what I was selling wheat for, the same as I am today. It’s $6.50 a bushel. It’s kind of disappointing even though I had the best yield of wheat crop that I’ve had to date. I’ve made way more money in the past off growing two-thirds less of a crop and selling it for a fair price.
“So it is bitter sweet. We’ve got all these bushels, but it’s not worth what it should be.
“Everything has changed so much. Post Covid the price of fuel is basically one-and-a-half times, parts are probably three times what they once were 10 years ago.
“Everything has gone up except for the price of grain. I’m grateful that we have all these bushels, but still it doesn’t really look that great on the spreadsheet.
“The number one factor is the spat with China over the electric vehicles. I’m not sure how many people even want electric vehicles in Canada, but I would assume only a small percentage of them would want Chinese built ones and it’s effecting every farmer in Western Canada because canola is probably the number one crop in everyone’s rotation that they focus on, and it’s like we’re selling canola for $20 a bushel or $18, which is tolerable, not breaking the bank, but now it’s marketing canola at $13 or $13.50. Again I feel really bad for other parts of the province that didn’t grow the bushels because that’s what’s going to keep up us carrying onto next year, because we had an excellent crop. But if we didn’t have that, then we would be dire in straits for sure.”
Like other farmers, McCorriston credits more temperate summer weather and timely rains with the excellent crops.
“We did get one big shot of rain and it affected some of my crops in the Rocanville area because it is so flat. So we had a few drowned out spots, but overall we got enough rain instead of an abundance of rain where it pools and drowns out areas. Nothing hurts your yield and your overall profit more than seeding the crop, taking care of the crop and then investing anywhere from $400 to $450 into it and then it drowns out and you get zero in return. So a lot of it was just timely rains and also not to much rain.
“In our farm’s history—my dad started here in ‘76—I think canola possibly wasn’t the highest I have ever grown, but wheat and barley were record setters for the McCorriston farm forever.
“The sad part is doing some penciling and trying to figure it out. Wheat is looking at $6.75 to break even at best even with each bushel and then it’s a lot of extra work too.
“You got all this grain and I really feel bad for the guys that did get feed grain after that rain. The spread on feed from Number 1 isn’t as big as it has been in the past, so it’s the loss of weight that really effects it because you have that much more product to equal a bushel.
“This could have potentially been a home run year and now it’s looking like just enough to keep you in the swing for another year.”
Craig Roy farms near Moosomin, and said that the yield his crops gave was above average, but the low grain prices brought the profit down to that of an average year.
“The prices have pretty much been down across the board. The wheat has been in a slump for quite a while, and that’s when the China tariffs hit, so that really took the shine off of canola prices,” he said.
“What’s hurting the wheat is that there really hasn’t been any major production problems. The U.S. had a good crop, many other countries had an above average crop. So right now, even thought it can change really quickly, there’s an abundance of wheat on the market. It had risen a bit because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, so that caused a bit of a wheat spike. Now that that’s kind of cooled off and Russia is exporting again, the price has slid back down.”
Prices aside, Roy says that the crop this year had ideal growing conditions all throughout the season.
“We seeded in real good conditions, we got some good June rain, and we had subsoil moisture in July and August when it did get dry. The crop was able to hang on through the hotter, drier weather. A lot of the cereals were off when the rainy weather hit, so there was some downgrading, but about three quarters of the cereal crop was off. It affected canola but not quite like it does the cereal grains.”
He says that this year’s crop was one of the best in terms of yield he’s ever had.
“We’ve had years with more production, but this year would definitely rank in the top 10. You can never really align high production with high prices, though, but that’s the way it is. Take a look at coffee, there are some issues with the raw commodity, so the prices go up. As for the tariffs, the government has to do something to offset the losses that some farmers are going to be facing, or be able to fix some of those relations.
“If you asked me to sum up the year in one word, I would say average. Production was above, prices were below, so it all kind of evens out.”
