Canada Markets

Alberta Agriculture's most recent crop report, as of Sept. 19, estimated 65% of the provincial harvest of major crops is complete, up 20.9 percentage points from the previous week and above the five-year average for major crops calculated at 49.8%.

Provincial inspectors note better-than-expected yields coming off the field, with the provincial yield estimate revised 1.1 bushels per acre (bpa) higher for spring wheat, 2.4 bpa higher for barley, 1.1 bpa higher for oats, 1.9 bpa higher for canola and 0.4 bpa higher for dry peas. Note that these estimates are based on dryland acres only.

When production potential is calculated based on Statistics Canada's harvested acre estimate for the province, Statistics Canada's estimates for the province based on August model data points to even higher production for spring wheat, barley and canola. Spring wheat production would be 1.134 million metric tons (mmt) higher based on official estimates, canola production would be 356,113 metric tons (mt) higher and barley production would be a more modest 80,360 mt higher.

At the same time, Alberta's yield estimates are 4.8 bpa lower for oats and 8 bpa lower for peas than the most recent provincial estimate, resulting in a lower production of 33,646 mt for oats and 267,799 mt lower for peas.

During the past three years, Alberta's provincial estimates are lower than Statistics Canada's current table values for all crops except for peas. Of the four crops where the national yield exceeds the provincial yield estimate, the range is a modest 0.3 bpa increase on average for canola to 4.3 bpa for spring wheat. On average, Statistics Canada's official dry pea estimate is just 1 bpa lower than the provincial estimate during the past three years.

Cliff Jamieson can be reached at cliff.jamieson@dtn.com

Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @Cliff Jamieson

Cliff Jamieson can be reached at cliff.jamieson@dtn.com

Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @Cliff Jamieson

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