Western Standard - Why is the Prairie grain harvest so far behind？

00:00:00.000 If you live in the prairies in August, most of the time if you stepped outside you are

00:00:12.960 probably met with heavy rainfall, likely cowering over either in an umbrella or hood to avoid the

00:00:18.540 wet and dreary conditions. Though unlike yourselves, most grain crops do not have the same luxury,

00:00:24.780 forced to weather these bleak conditions. As a consequence, many grain harvesters are now behind

00:00:30.520 schedule. To learn more about the circumstances many grain producers find themselves in, Dr. Mathieu

00:00:37.140 Le Duc, lecturer and associate director of the Farm Technology Program at McGill University,

00:00:44.060 has joined us today. So thank you for joining us again. Well, it's my pleasure and I just want to,

00:00:50.600 i don't want to come for myself a degree i'm just you can just call me mr i don't i'm not a doctor

00:00:56.840 but that's fine okay okay sounds good i'll just call you matthieu then okay well let's get right

00:01:03.640 into it then um so what is causing this grain harvesting delay is it mostly climate related or

00:01:11.320 are there other factors involved yes in this case the main problem is the weather and what's

00:01:18.040 happening is this is kind of a three-part problem first of all it's very wet now and it's time for

00:01:24.920 harvest so it's slowing down our crops are drying down especially if we think about canola for

00:01:30.200 example that has been cut and put into windrows normally the last leg of the drying is done

00:01:37.480 in the field now with the rain falling it doesn't happen the other the other problem too is that

00:01:44.360 when the fields are wet saturated with water you just can't get in with the machines there's a risk

00:01:50.280 that the damage you'll do trying to harvest will damage your field for the years to come because

00:01:56.040 the soil will be destroyed the structure of the soil will be destroyed you'll have compaction

00:02:00.840 and just to make things a bit worse this year uh the spring was a bit wet so some of the

00:02:06.600 seeding was delayed so the crops were not super early and having this rain at this time of the

00:02:12.440 year made it worse okay so yeah not an ideal situation then um has this delayed uh grain

00:02:20.520 harvest caused like food producers potentially that are looking to you know get the grain for

00:02:27.400 their own production of some sort of food uh from other sources potentially like imports or something

00:02:34.440 well i'm not in the secret of every business but it's highly unlikely at this time because

00:02:40.520 we have to keep in mind that last year 2025 was a really good crop harvest were above average

00:02:47.080 so we started the year with a lot of grain in stocks and normally this is what we use until we

00:02:53.160 have to start using the the harvest from 2026 and the other important point is canada is a net

00:03:01.000 exporter of grain we produce way more grain than what we use so even if there's a if there was a

00:03:07.560 decrease in yield and stuff like that uh there's we are basically the producer so and if we just

00:03:14.600 take one example for example canola uh it wouldn't make a lot of sense to buy canola seeds oversee

00:03:21.320 and try to process them in the crushing plants in the prairies so for now we're lucky last year was

00:03:27.480 a good year so there's there should be enough um enough grain in reserve we may for the coming year

00:03:35.160 being shortage in some specific class of higher quality of grain because the rough conditions are

00:03:41.640 making that some of the grain are going to be downgraded in quality but once again because we

00:03:48.120 are such a big producer we're lucky domestically to uh to have lots of stocks on ends okay okay

00:03:56.360 so um just something you just said i would like to know more about uh so you said we're a big

00:04:01.640 exporter of grain and stuff uh i would assume our number one uh customers the us right uh well it

00:04:09.880 all depends uh of what crop and i'm sorry i don't have under my just close to end the net thing

00:04:17.080 because it depends on the crops and every country has specific needs our main exports are of course

00:04:25.320 wheat and canola and also lentils and the markets will because lentils is some will go to the us but

00:04:32.280 some will go also elsewhere of course a lot of processing is done there but it's really a global

00:04:38.440 commodity and right now just to give you an idea the price of wheat is expected to be a bit higher

00:04:43.800 but it's not linked directly to what's happening in the prairies it's more linked to the dry

00:04:49.000 conditions they had over in europe and the war that's still going on in ukraine so it's a bit

00:04:54.520 more complicated when the commodities are traded on the world market like that okay well okay so

00:05:00.760 you're saying it's like kind of everywhere the customers for grain but i would like to know is

00:05:05.960 the tariffs are there tariffs on grain at all would you happen to know that uh i would have to check

00:05:12.280 on that because uh i'm more um my specialty is more about how to grow crop and international

00:05:18.920 trade and to be fully honest with you with the flurries of tariffs and counter tariffs i kind

00:05:24.200 of lost track but i don't think so next question what is needed to produce an ideal grain harvest

00:05:32.680 obviously less rain but what else well it's a tree kind of a three-step process it all starts

00:05:39.800 in the spring you need good conditions so you get a good start okay so anything that goes bad that's

00:05:45.800 going to delay it and one of the problems you can have sometimes is uneven fields so fields that are

00:05:51.880 not going to start at the same time so at the spring you want dry conditions so you can get in

00:05:56.520 the field but also soon after your seeds are in the ground you want to have enough moisture so

00:06:01.480 they pop out of the ground in the summer you need enough rain because that's when the plant needs

00:06:06.680 the most water because it's filling the grain it's you know creating the flower and stuff like

00:06:11.560 that and you need warm temperature so the the crop is going to grow quickly and obviously as we

00:06:17.080 discussed at harvest you want light wind warm and dry conditions which we didn't get and what you

00:06:23.640 want absolutely to avoid at harvest is heavy rain high wind or snow all conditions are going to make

00:06:30.360 the crop what we call lodge basically it's going to fall down on the soil and it's going to be very

00:06:36.680 difficult to harvest afterwards okay so is there a ways for harvesters to avoid this like these

00:06:45.400 wet conditions is there something they you know like tarps or something i mean this is a very

00:06:49.720 large spans but no there's really nothing i mean what farmers do to prevent that because many of

00:06:56.440 them have been farming this land for generations is you have some in some case style drains in

00:07:01.800 other case it's going to be surface drainage but one of the issue with that because what you're

00:07:06.200 trying is get rid of the excess water but in some case this year in the prairies there have been

00:07:13.080 episode of heavy rain like 80 millimeters of rain in a single day or two days and in those

00:07:18.680 cases those systems are overloaded and it's difficult to justify you know to justify

00:07:25.640 enlarging everything it's a costly and timely operation takes a lot of years so that's pretty

00:07:31.240 much the only thing we can do is hope and make sure the fields are in the best condition possible

00:07:38.120 but you know at some point there's a limit and some farmers are just unlucky the downpour comes

00:07:44.600 on their farm and they spare the neighbors well was there ever a period where it was similar

00:07:53.800 conditions like it was very wet in the past well of course i'm in montreal not in the prairies i

00:08:01.560 had the chance to visit once that was a long time ago but looking at the data from weather and crops

00:08:07.960 report since i've been following that uh the last year that was very similar would be 2019 which is

00:08:14.120 not a long time ago that's a year that also we were it hard with tough conditions out east so

00:08:19.880 everybody remembers that year so uh in that case the spring was not a problem the spring was dry

00:08:26.520 but the summer was also dry so the crop kind of was slowed down in its growth so similar condition

00:08:32.360 arrive in the fall the crop is not super early and then this in 2019 started having rain right now

00:08:39.720 it's not as bad as 2019 because uh that here some crops were left in the field to be to try to be

00:08:48.280 harvested then after the winter um because we still have time so if the weather is on the side it's

00:08:55.240 it's cooperating we might be able to still get like a better result than 2019 oh okay that's

00:09:03.720 interesting so you're saying that they can wait up until the winter well well no well not they can

00:09:11.400 when you're forced okay because nobody wants to do that um some crops like out east we have lots of

00:09:17.960 corn it's going to stand up better in the snow but if you think about wheat or canola if it's still

00:09:23.240 standing in the field and you get a lot of snow it's not necessarily going to rot under the snow

00:09:28.760 but the crop is going to be all tangled and combining harvesting grain can be a very rewarding

00:09:35.880 experience but when you hit a field that is all tangled and lodged it can become the worst job on

00:09:41.400 the farm so after and think about that the grain are like it's food it's there lying in the field

00:09:48.440 so some of it's going to fall on the ground some of it's going to be consumed by pests so and the

00:09:53.800 quality of course is more likely to be affected so it's not ideal people try to do it before

00:10:01.960 okay oh good to know um do you have like i i know you can't like predict the weather or anything

00:10:08.200 but do you have an idea when potentially farmers in the prairies are going to try to harvest more

00:10:15.160 of the grain to just catch up well i don't have the latest data for alberta but looking at what

00:10:21.000 has been going on the recent update in manitoba and saskatchewan um what's going on it's they

00:10:27.160 were making some progress last week but it's very uh area dependent because what's what's happening

00:10:34.920 is just not waiting for a sunny day you need to have a couple of sunny days so that the field

00:10:39.400 dries down and one of the problem is if you just get one shower right in the middle you're back

00:10:44.840 to square one so it's really and we know you know farmers know their stuff so everybody has their

00:10:51.720 machine ready and they're just waiting for the right condition picking which field you know um

00:10:57.960 can support the machine without too much damage okay well i don't have any more questions for you

00:11:05.640 but if you would like to add anything else feel free well maybe just a couple of comments what

00:11:12.040 is really critical and as i said before i think our experienced farmers know that but the in a

00:11:17.880 situation like that the most important thing is not to move the problem uh the late harvest from

00:11:23.400 the field into storage like storing grain in in proper condition and the other thing is to be

00:11:29.400 really careful uh with dealing uh with the compaction in the field okay good to know good to

00:11:36.440 now and a very cute cat you got there right yes they always you know how it is they always try

00:11:42.120 to climb on you while you're live um okay thank you very much matthia i really appreciate you

00:11:48.440 coming on today and yeah so if you guys enjoyed this video you can subscribe to our youtube

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Western Standard - September 29, 2026

Why is the Prairie grain harvest so far behind？

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