Crops continue to mature and farmers are getting ready for a busy harvest.

The weekly crop report indicates cooler days and dry weather arrived this past week, favouring an extended canola flowering period. No damaging winds or hail caused crop injury in the region in the past seven days, and a band from Hamiota to Carberry saw rains up to 15 mm.

Scott Perkin farms near Elgin and he says his crops look good. ”We’re in an area that didn’t get too much rain early on. Obviously we were late starting on the seeding but the crops look good. Crops are behind but they’re making up time. We’ve had some warmer nights so they working to catch up.”

Perkin says his harvest will be 10 to 14 days behind when harvest on his farm would normally start.

A few locations are in need of rain, where crops on well drained, sandy soils are showing minor water deficiency symptoms and have remained dry for the past several weeks.

Scott Perkin says crops have really filled in. “Row crops stuff you can’t see between the rows crops like oats are completely filled in and even the gaps where you had to go around the wet spot have filled in to so the crops really branched out” said Perkin.

Farmers would like the rain to taper off to allow for a smooth harvest.

“A rain in the next week or two would do the crop a lot of good. Soybeans could use an August rain, corn would fill out more and even late crops like canola that’s podding now could use the rain. At the same time crops like peas, barley and early wheat have used up all the moisture they need to use up.”

“We just have to get that crop in the bin. Everyone hopes and prays we have a successful harvest” said Scott Perkin.