Sunflower harvest in Manitoba isn't too far away, with some fields having been desiccated last weekend.

While weather has been variable across the province, some areas have experienced a lot of late season moisture.

National Sunflower Association of Canada agronomist Troy Turner says this excess rain likely won't affect yields, although it could heighten disease pressure.

"Sclerotinia head rot might start to set in a little more. But mind you, with (the rain), we've had decent winds and some sunshine afterwards, so it's going to depend on the environmental factors of disease development as to how that happens," Turner says.

Turner also says now is the time that blackbirds are most active in damaging sunflowers. However, he says growers have few options to combat them.

"At this point, we don't have anything we can physically put on the sunflowers to repel (blackbirds) or anything like that," he says. "Some growers are using things like canons, scare tactics like large shining flags, some are using eagle decoys, things like that. They say it helps, but I think you need to do a combination of a lot of that stuff at this time of year."

He says it's a good idea to desiccate and get the crops off the field before the birds can do too much damage.