The Fields of Promise - End of July

FTLComm - Tisdale - July 30, 2000

The picture above was taken late afternoon Saturday as a monster cloud made its way toward Manitoba mercifully missing Hudson Bay. The cool weather of June had been expected to produce low yields of Canola but from both this picture and the one on the right there are lots of pods on this years crop. I had assumed that like most crops Canola would be enjoying the heat of the past few days but I was straightened out on that one this morning when it was explained to me that Canola thrives on cool weather when it comes to filling out the pods. Larger seeds develop in cool temperatures and this picture clearly shows a host of pods ready for filling.

Many fields around Tisdale look like this, only weeks away from harvest. These lush large headed crops are turning gold as the hot summer days are quickly finished a crop year that began relatively early. Farmers have been looking over their fields doing spot checks as they worry about the unseen damage created by that unusual frost, or near frost that surprised us all just over a week ago. Many report that they can already see the damage that was done while others point out that it will until harvest that they will be able to determine the level of damage done to the filling crops by those very

low and in some areas, freezing temperatures. Frost damage in the immediate Tisdale area is expected to be rare but just to the East there were many areas that were exposed to temperatures below freezing for several hours. This picture certainly demonstrates the abundance of this crop with very large heads and advanced maturity as this crop a few miles North of town will not be long until swathers move into this field to knock it down. It would seem that the low cost and super tough red spring wheat will be the winner this year once again. Prices for wheat seem to be steadily showing stability

though farmers would like to see some rise. This year's wheat crop will be definitely average and in many cases equal to last year and the year before when exceptionally high years were produced in this part of Saskatchewan. As you can see in the picture below this outstanding crop is starting show a golden tinge as it moves rapidly toward maturity. Today's modest mid twenties temperatures are a welcomed relief from the low thirties of the last few days.