Wheat quality is outstanding: specialist

Friday, July 29, 2011

by SUSAN MANN

Wheat yields in Ontario’s crop this year are slightly below average but quality is outstanding with almost no fusarium being reported.

“I think at the end of the day we’re going to come in slightly below average but we aren’t going to fall off the map, I hope, the way that it looked like at the beginning of harvest,” says agriculture ministry cereal specialist Peter Johnson, noting he’s hopeful yields will only be five per cent below 80 bushels per acre.

Johnson says that’s his best estimate currently. It will take quite a few record yields to “balance off all the tough yields that are out there.” But he’s concerned there are more poor fields than good ones and that’s why the yield will be below average.

He’s optimistic Ontario’s average yield comes in at 78 bushels per acre and he’s hopeful it won’t be below 75 bushels per acre.

About quality, Johnson says for the most part growers are reporting high test weights and some of the highest falling numbers in his recollection. In addition, he hasn’t had any calls from growers reporting fusarium.

The wheat harvest is 75 per cent completed and there continues to be a tremendous variation in crop with some growers reporting they have the worst one in 50 years to others saying it’s the best they’ve ever harvested.

The areas where wheat didn’t do well were in Essex, south Lambton and the Niagara Peninsula and they’re relatively large acreage areas for the crop. “There are certainly more tough fields out there than I would like to have,” he says, noting the fields with really good yields are in north Middlesex and Huron counties.

There is more dwarf bunt disease in the crop in the snowbelt region than Johnson would like to see. “We’ll manage it but it’s going to take some effort to manage it.”

Johnson says the longer the snow sticks around the greater the chance is of getting dwarf bunt, which is caused by the fungus Tilletia controversa and can reduce yields. This past year snow arrived Dec. 4 in the snowbelt regions and stayed around deep and heavy until the end of March, beginning of April. BF