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By Curtis Galbraith
Agriculture

Below-average yields for some Peace Region farmers in this year’s harvest

Oct 28, 2022 | 6:00 AM

A Sexsmith farmer who also serves as chair of the Alberta Wheat Commission says yields for this year’s harvest were down from average.

Greg Sears adds at the same time people are happy with how things went.

“It was a pretty low-stress, relatively low-cost harvest. Not a lot of grain drying if any. (It was) fairly good on equipment which sort of offsets the reduced yields.

Sears says a lot of areas, especially in the south Peace, had below-average yields this year.

He adds the same dry weather that led to lower yields also led to better crop quality.

“Pretty much everything is going to be in the top grades.”

“Certainly, all of our wheat is Number 1 quality that I’ve seen. The barley, although protein might be a little higher than what we would like, is still grading very well. I think a lot of the barley will make malt quality as well.”

Sexsmith producer Kurt Balderston says they were one rain away from having bumper crops.

“We went six weeks without any moisture and (had) another hot summer. It was OK, but definitely a little bit below average.”

“I guess we should be thankful we did get a crop at all with how little rain we got.”

Balderston says he has farmed for 40 years and there are cycles of being too wet for a few years followed by being too dry, something that evens out over a long period of time.

He does say farming year-to-year can be a challenge.

The provincial government says in a news release that province-wide, yields were 10 per cent above the five-year average.

The province also says quality for spring wheat, canola, and dry peas was above the five-year average, with malt and feed barley and on par with averages over the same time. Quality for durham and oats were below the five-year average province-wide.

by Curtis Galbraith