2024 Harvest Wrap-up!

After another long crop season in the fields, most Saskatchewan farmers are wrapping up harvest for 2024, if they haven’t already. This year brought with it a unique set of challenges for farmers depending on their location, ranging from flooding, dry soils, insect pressure, disease, hail, late summer heat, and harvest rains delaying operations. Here in West central Saskatchewan where my family and I farm, we enjoyed early spring moisture and few damaging storms. Still, July’s hot and dry weather kept us from seeing the crop yields we have been hoping for throughout the recent dry years. This week’s blog looks at the challenges farmers faced this growing season and how harvest is progressing across the province.

Moisture Challenges

After the last few years of extremely dry conditions across the Prairies, Saskatchewan farmers were pleased to enjoy some spring rains. Although these led to seeding delays in many cases, most farmers were not quick to complain about spring moisture. These rains led to good germination and promising crops in many areas. Yet even with the spring rains, the extremely dry soils from previous drought years soaked up the rain quickly. Many farmers faced the familiar dry conditions they have become accustomed to.

By the end of July, crop conditions for the majority of cereal, canola, and pulse crops were being reported as “Good”. But as hot and dry conditions extended beyond July and into August, the promise of an above-average season started to fade for many farmers, especially in the southern and western regions. While the early moisture contributed to excellent plant growth, pods on canola plants and kernels on wheat and barley crops began showing signs of stress.

Other Challenges

The summer did indeed turn out to be hot and dry, with weather patterns Prairie farmers are quite familiar with, yet we still saw our fair share of damaging storms across the province. Environment and Climate Change Canada reports that 17 tornados touched down in Saskatchewan this year, with seven of these occurring in one day. Thankfully, these tornadoes did not cause much damage.Hail storms were also a common challenge for farmers across the province this summer, which kept hail insurance adjustors busier than normal. Municipal hail insurance reported that by the end of June, they had received about 50% more claims than in a typical year. For many fields, the storms led to 100% losses as the pelting hail decimated the crops, with a few cases reporting hail nearly the size of baseballs.Throughout the winter, talk of looming grasshopper problems after multiple hot and dry years was common. The spring moisture and cooler temperatures of 2024 helped to delay the emergence of these pests this spring, but as the heat set in in July, large, healthy grasshopper populations could be seen in many regions across the Prairies. Thankfully, their slow emergence this spring allowed crops to grow big enough before the grasshoppers set in that feeding did not have a major impact on yield. However, some areas, such as Southwest Saskatchewan, saw grasshopper activity requiring insecticide applications to protect crops, a common issue in Prairie agriculture.

Harvest

As in previous years, Saskatchewan farmers overcame the host of challenges that 2024 brought with it to get their crops in the bin. As of September 30, 91% of the provincial crop is in the bin, which is above the five-year average for this time of year. The Southwest region has 99% of the harvest complete, while the Northwest and Northeast regions have the most crop left out with 85% and 81% of the harvest complete, respectively. Despite the early moisture and excellent crops seen in the early summer months, the lack of late summer rains and the surge in temperatures, especially in the critical flowering period of many crops, left many farmers disappointed in their final yields.

As harvest wraps up and farmers are putting away equipment, tackling fall field work such as post-harvest chemical or fertilizer applications, and gearing up for winter, the challenge of marketing grain becomes a priority. International issues such as the risk of a rail strike in August, potential port strike in September, the potential implementation of Chinese tariffs on Canadian canola exports, and the basic fluctuations in crop supply and demand impact both market volatility and farmers’ ability to move their grain. With most farmers seeing lower crop yields than anticipated based on early conditions, receiving profitable prices for their grain becomes even more important. For now, Saskatchewan farmers are thankful to have another crop season in the books and most of the grain safely stored prior to the first snowfall.