Weather interrupting harvest, but yields “exceptional” says Rycroft producer

Some Peace Country farmers have managed to keep combining lately, even with snow and rain at times.
 
Rycroft producer Nick Sekulic says he has been harvesting continuously for around 10 days and he is close to half-done.
 
“The weather has not been favourable for an expedient harvest. Typically, by now, we’re getting close to wrapping up or wrapped up or maybe left with just some canola. We just finished harvesting peas (about) 10 days ago. The snow has definitely affected us with respect to it lodging a lot of our crops. We’re grateful we’re getting the crop off. The crop is quite good, in fact, some of the best yields we’ve ever had in some of our crop.”
 
He adds the wet summer helped boost yields.
 
“We’ve never had as good of yields in our cereal crops. Our pea crop was, for us, one of the best yields we’ve ever had. It wasn’t easy to get it, because it was very wet. On some of our land, we had up to five inches of rain in September. Fortunately, we had equipment that would let us harvest it. We’re going to have some repairs to do in the field in terms of ruts. What did not work in our favour, I believe, was the smoke and haze we had late summer, which I believe delayed maturity.” 
 
The quality of this year’s crop seems to be good as well, adds Sekulic.  
 
“The peas were excellent quality. We grow a lot of seed. We’ve got the (test) results back on our harvest and our seed is exceptional germination and vigor. We do have reasonably good quality in our wheat and seed wheat. We’re still awaiting (test) results. There was a touch of bran frost on some of our wheat. I know that a lot of people are harvesting what is being called by the elevators as feed right now in our area. Those ratings can change as the marketing season progresses. The bushel weight on the wheat is good, over 60 pounds, (that) tells me the frost did not do severe damage.”
 
Sekulic says the hope now is for good weather for October and into November.
 
“Let’s hope the weather holds. There is a lot of stress and pressure out there on farmers to get this crop off. Hopefully, Mother Nature works them and they stay safe and we don’t get any injuries.”