With sunflower harvest underway, growers are finding out what kind of impact the wet weather had on the crop.

"We feel we have a better crop disease-wise than last year, but basically all the samples so far have had head rot in them," says Ben Friesen of Keystone Grain. "Most of them are coming in with head rot and some sclerotinia, but we're hoping we can keep them in the marketable range."

He says yields have been somewhat disappointing. "Sad to say they're a little bit lower than what we were hoping for. There have been yields in the 800-1000 pound range, although in the Treherne-area I've heard some 1800 to 1900 pound yields also," he says. He explains one factor in the reduced yields is the combination of stem rot infection with strong winds over the last few weeks. "We've had a lot of sunflowers blowing over, and consequently the yields have been down."

As for harvest progress, he says producers in the south-central and south-east parts of the province are around 70 percent complete. "Further west they're a little further behind, so western Manitoba is just getting going good right now," he says.

Meanwhile, Friesen says the market for confectionary sunflowers continues to be slow. "Right now we're anticipating sales to start happening, but they have been slow compared to all the other commodities in the industry."

~ Friday, October 22, 2010 ~