Dry conditions and grasshopper damage throughout the growing season are expected to result in a below-average crop on the Prairies.

Bruce Burnett,  the Director of Markets and Weather Information at Glacier Farm Media says the worst conditions are in the southwest and west-central parts of Saskatchewan, as well as southeast and east-central Alberta.

He says conditions look better across Saskatchewan’s northern grainbelt in the east-central regions, and in parts of Manitoba, but yields in those areas will still be lower than average.

Based on his recent crop tour, he says, canola will likely see a prairie-wide average yield of 33 bushels an acre, which would work out to about 16.5 million tonnes of total production, down from the 18 to 20 million tonnes of production originally forecast for Canada. 

"This means that canola is going to be relatively tight this year. Not as bad as 2021, when we were down 12 to 13 million tonnes, but certainly still a substantial drop in production. And with all of the crushing facilities that we have, we need all of the canola that we can get."

Spring wheat is grown in most areas across Canada and with the northern areas getting some rains, Burnett says we're going to see a pickup in the yields there. 

Despite that spring wheat production is still forecast to be down a little bit over 10 per cent this year. 

Spring wheat has experienced the same stressful conditions as other crops in the southern and central growing areas of the prairies, where production potentials are still very low.

He estimates spring wheat will see a prairie-wide average of 44 bushels an acre, down from last year's average of 53 bushels an acre, but higher than the 2021 drought yield of 37 bushels an acre.

The hardest hit crop is likely durum, which is grown in what is the driest areas of the Prairies, right now.

Burnett says with total durum production is expected to be around 4.1 million tonnes this year.

"We were anticipating early on when the crop was planted this spring that we would see production anywhere between five and five and a half million tonnes this year. So that's very significant. Especially in the world durum market because we are the primary suppliers of durum to the world."