Combines have been rolling for a couple weeks now with harvest 2017 well underway.

Alberta Agriculture and Forestry released their crop report for the week of August 15, and Southern Alberta is leading the way with a quarter of their crops in the bin.

As a province, six percent of crops are in the bins, up from the 5-year average of three percent. There was no surprises with four percent of crops swathed, which is in line with the 5-year average for this time of year.

In Southern Alberta, 33 percent of crops range from good to excellent condition, which is down 35 percent from last year.

They also reported, cattle producers may have to start feeding earlier than normal due to pastures not recovering from heat stress.

In the Central regions, most areas received 5 mm of rain, which helped to fill the late seeded crops. Only 1.1 percent of crops in this region are either combined or swathed.

North West Regions, including Edmonton and Area, hadn't started harvest as of August 15, and 48 percent of their pasture conditions rated as being in excellent condition.

31 percent of dry peas in the Province and 10 percent of Alberta's barley have been combined.


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