Canada: Cereal quality in trouble

The quality of Canada’s early-harvested cereal crops is disappointing, according to industry officials and analysts.

“The growers that we’re talking to about cereal harvest (mostly barley and durum in Alberta and western Saskatchewan at this point) are saying that yields are average but that quality is not great,” Johnston’s Grain said in the Aug. 20 edition of its daily email newsletter.

“Lots of guys are getting barley in the 42 to 46 pound per bushel range and we’re hearing durum bushel weights that are ranging from 50 to 58 lb.”

MarketsFarm analyst Bruce Burnett said that’s not good. Barley samples should be in the 48-50 lb. range and durum should be more than 60 lb.

He said there is no question that the early-harvested, drought-damaged crops have problems.

He is primarily worried about malt barley because that crop is particularly vulnerable to heat damage.

“It’s going to be an issue, especially for the malt industry, because you’re desiring plump kernels,” said Burnett.

“In the malting industry, they don’t like to malt skinny, thin kernels.”

The quality damage was caused by the heat-blast in late July and early August.

“The crop finished off dry and hot, and especially the early-harvested stuff, it did not provide enough material to fill the heads fully,” he said.

Peter Watts, executive director of the Canadian Malting Barley Technical Centre, said early-harvested samples have “very high” protein levels and lighter test weights than usual.

“That’s definitely one of the themes this year, is lighter crops in some areas,” he said.

That is often the case with early samples because they tend to come from the driest regions of the Prairies, but it is more pronounced this year.

“I have heard from enough different parts of the Prairies that it does seem like there’s a bit of a trend this year for lighter test weight barley and that’s obviously a little concerning,” said Watts.

But he also believes that the hot weather benefitted crops in central and eastern Saskatchewan and Manitoba where there was a better moisture profile.

“I’m hoping that we’ll have a good supply of malt barley this year,” he said.

“I’m not super concerned right now.”

Burnett said durum is the other crop he is worried about because it is grown in the part of the western Prairies where it was especially hot and dry.

The early-harvested spring wheat likely suffered the same fate with light test weights and lower yields, but that bodes well for another important quality factor for wheat.

“The protein levels of those drought-affected crops will be high, there’s no question about it,” he said.

Canada will likely harvest a spring wheat crop with higher protein levels than the long-term average but lower than the past couple of years.

Burnett expects to see some “pretty excellent” quality in the cereal crops in the central and northern regions of the Prairies, but he is worried about the quality implications of any potential harvest rainfall.

“If the later-harvest gets hit with some other degrading factors, certainly that could lead to a less-than-average quality year, but we’re not there yet,” he said.

Johnston’s is in the same camp.

“We suspect that crop weights will increase as harvest progresses east of Regina and Saskatoon and especially into Manitoba, where I am told that crops look fantastic this year,” the broker stated in its newsletter.

Tags: durum, quality, harvest, barley, Canada, drought, yields, crop, cereal crops