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Production
Estimates and Crop Assessment Division |
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Production
Estimates and Crop Assessment Division |
September 13, 2002
Canadian wheat production is forecast to be 15.4 million tons in 2002, down nearly 5.2 million from last year. This is the second year of drought on the prairie, and production has sunk well below the average of 26.4 million tons from the years 1996-2000. Barley production is forecast to be 7.9 million tons, nearly 3.0 million tons less than last year. This is also well below the average from 1996-2000, when nearly 13.7 million tons of barley were harvested annually. Since this is the second year of drought, pastures have been severely affected, and many barley producers elected to abandon or bale their crop for silage (livestock feed) rather than attempt to thresh it for grain. Even in a typical year, over 10 percent of the seeded barley area is baled; this year, the amount is closer to 30 percent.
The composite image below shows the widespread dryness on the Canadian prairie. This year, vegetation (including pasture) is much more sparse than in a normal year. The image was created from daily satellite data collected during mid-August, typically a time of peak vegetation. Two of the few areas that appear to have normal vegetation are southern Alberta, the irrigated winter wheat-growing region, and southern Saskatchewan, the main area for growing spring durum wheat. As expected, crops in these areas have fared better than on other parts of the prairie. To create this map, satellite data from this year were compared to a "normal" year (based on two decades of data), to show the difference in vegetation. The sensor was NOAA-15, and the pixel resolution has been modified to 4km.
The effects of this year's drought can also be observed at the field level, using high-resolution Landsat7 satellite imagery. Click on the points below to see fields in the provinces of Alberta (Galahad), Saskatchewan (Hamlin, Hepburn, Tyner, and Kelvington), and Manitoba (Decker). Comparisons with imagery from a previous year have been shown when appropriate.
