Crop Report – for Jul. 1, 2010

SOUTHWEST REGION High rainfall amounts were reported throughout the region in the past week, with the Minnedosa area one of the hardest hit. Early seeded crops appear to be tolerating the moisture better than late seeded crops. Approximately 15-30 per cent of crop acres will not get seeded due to excessive moisture, although greenfeed may

Start Planning For Your Winter Wheat Spring Assessment

Aproper spring assessment is an important part of successful winter wheat production. And as the weather heats up, now’s the time to start putting your assessment plans into motion. Assessing the crop condition early is difficult as brown leaves do not necessarily denote winterkill and green leaves are not a guarantee of winter survival. The


Can It Be Too Early?

After a couple of late springs, western Canadian farmers are poised to start seeding early thanks to above-normal temperatures that star ted in March. Earlier-seeded crops usually yield better and with farmers planting more acres, many are anxious to get rolling. But before Manitoba farmers hit the fields, they need to think about the potential

Turkey Board Sees No Wheat Imports This Year

Turkey’s state grain board TMO does not expect to import wheat or barley this year, but will export half a million tonnes before the start of the next harvest season in June. TMO chairman Mesut Kose told Reuters in an interview on March 23 that the board has already exported 2.3 million tonnes of grain


EU Grain Sale For Aid Will Distort Market

AEuropean Union plan to sell 1.5 million tonnes of surplus grain in the coming months to help the bloc’s poor will weaken feed prices and lead to more offers for EU intervention subsidies, member states warned. The EU in November agreed to sell cereals from its grain mountain to support the needy. Unusually, the sale

Better-Quality Winter Wheat Needs To Compete

There’s a lot of medium-to low-quality wheat in the world, making it one of the most price competitive markets, according to Graham Worden, the Canadian Wheat Board’s (CWB) senior manager of technical services. Competitors include India, Russia and Ukraine and the United States produces millions of tonnes of good-quality milling winter wheat. “If we can’t


Algeria’s Grain Output Drive Starts To Pay Off

Algeria is moving to slash grain imports in coming years as the government enacts urgent reforms to stop farm yields tumbling in times of drought. The authorities were shocked into action in 2008 when the national grain harvest slumped to 2.1 million tonnes and the government scrambled for foreign cereals to feed the population of

Winter Cereals Manitoba Focused On Research

Winter Cereals Manitoba (WCM) has money in the bank and the farmer-funded organization knows exactly where it’s going: research. Two projects are already planned, but WCM chair and Birtle-area farmer Garth Butcher told the organization’s annual meeting here March 10 he wants to hear members’ priorities. WCM collected 50 cents a tonne from around 2,000


EU Grain Farmers Brace For Life Without Safety Net

European grain farmers can expect volatile prices after Brussels partially removes a safety net in May, and cannot readily switch to other crops and will have to deal with market forces as best they can. As part of a drive towards a free market, from May 31 the European Union will suspend automatic “intervention,” the

Pick Corn Hybrids That Will Mature Here In A Normal Year

A high-yielding corn crop isn’t worth much if it doesn’t mature before the first killing fall frost. That’s why days to maturity should be the first criterion when picking a hybrid, followed closely by potential yield, according to Pam de Rocquigny, a feed grains specialist with Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Initiatives. “Yield is what