Pulse weekly outlook: Saskatchewan’s pulse harvest seen as average

MarketsFarm — As the harvest in Saskatchewan wraps up for 2022, pulse specialist Dale Risula said pulse crops were quite good this year — a definite improvement over last year’s drought-stricken production.

“Overall for the province we will likely see average production this year, although some areas suffered pretty badly,” Risula said.

He said there were still faba beans being combined in northeastern Saskatchewan. Also, he said the eastern half of the province had better yields for pulses compared to the western half.

In coming out of 2021’s drought, wet conditions were prevalent in eastern Saskatchewan, as well as southern Manitoba, due to abundant snowfall and heavy spring rains. However, the western side struggled with much drier conditions, although not as severe as a year ago.

He noted there weren’t a lot of diseases plaguing Saskatchewan’s pulse crops this year.

The Saskatchewan crop report stated that as of last Wednesday, 99 per cent of the province’s lentils and peas had been harvested, with 94 per cent of chickpeas combined. Compared to 2021, that’s roughly a week behind the year-ago pace.

For 2022-23, Statistics Canada projected Saskatchewan to reap about 136,800 tonnes of chickpeas, jumping 121 per cent from last year. Lentils are expected to be nearly 2.3 million tonnes, rising 60 per cent and dry peas at 1.85 million tonnes, up more than 65 per cent.

— Glen Hallick reports for MarketsFarm from Winnipeg.