Wet Harvest Damage: Sprouted Wheat, Bleached Lentils

Canadian Grain Commission inspectors in Winnipeg are finding sprouted spring wheat and bleached, shriveled red lentils after an unusually wet September, Reuters reports.

Saskatchewan's main growing areas got more than three times normal precipitation, and one Saskatchewan farmer told Reuters he is drying 90% of his harvested wheat versus about 10% in a normal year.

Official government and industry estimates reflecting the damage are not expected until mid-November.

Source: Reuters via CP24

Reuters dropped by the Canadian Grain Commission in Winnipeg and found inspectors poring over spring wheat samples with sprouting, likely bumping that grain out of food grade, plus red lentils that came out of September bleached and shrivelled.

Farmers spent September through early October weeks behind schedule. By Sept. 21, Saskatchewan's harvest was 41% done, below the 82% five-year average. Most folks have since wrapped up, but the crop in the bin is a downgrade from the top-quality prospect sitting in the field at the end of August.

Manitoba's Eric McLean thought he had great wheat and oats in August. Now he figures a few fields are write-offs, and he had a crop insurance adjuster due within the hour when Reuters called.

Saskatchewan's Cory Loessin finished harvest Oct. 7 and is now burning propane to dry 90% of his wheat. In a normal year, it's about 10%.

September is supposed to be the driest stretch of the season, the one month on the Prairies you can actually count on. This year it called in wet for three straight weeks. Saskatchewan's main growing areas got more than three times normal precipitation.

That came on top of early-summer rain that had already sparked fungal disease. So the crop was dealing with baggage before September even showed up.

Statistics Canada's September estimate pegged canola at 22.05 million tonnes, built on a 41.8 bu./ac. average across 23.2 million harvested acres. That number came from modelling and satellite data. Translation: StatCan swiped right based on the photos.

Provincial crop reports are 4 to 8 percent lower. Saskatchewan's report says 40 bu./ac. Pod drop shaved about 5 bushels off some fields around North Battleford, and some canola east of the Battlefords near Humboldt still wasn't in the bin in mid-October, according to The Western Producer.

The chair of SaskOilseeds told Grainews most crops in his west-central Saskatchewan region ran 40 to 43 bu./ac. The words farmers keep reaching for: decent, OK, fair to middling. Which is the agronomic version of "he's got a great personality."

This is a grade story, not just a yield story. Sprouting and bleaching don't show up on the yield monitor. They show up on the settlement slip, which is a much worse place to find out.

Drying is a real line item this fall. If you're in Loessin's shoes, the propane bill belongs in the 2026 numbers, not buried under "misc."

If you've got McLean-style fields, get the adjuster out before anything gets worked down. Paper beats memory every time.

Hold the canola estimate loosely. Domestic demand is expected to hit a record 14.4 million tonnes this crop year, so if the crop comes in smaller, the Western Producer notes it comes out of exports and carryout. Official numbers don't land until mid-November.

Canadian tractor sales fell 15.1% in September, to 1,626 units from 1,916 a year earlier, per the Association of Equipment Manufacturers' monthly Flash Report.

Combine sales dropped 37.6% to just 78 units. For the whole country. In harvest month. That's fewer new combines than some dealer lots have parking spots.

Big iron took the worst of it. Four-wheel-drive tractors fell 18.5% in September and are down more than 25% year to date. Through nine months, total tractors sit at 14,970 units (down 9.6%) and combines at 1,266 (down 10%).

Not every bar is red. 100-plus horsepower two-wheel-drive tractors are essentially flat year to date, and overall sales remain above some past industry slowdowns. AEM's Curt Blades said the figures show how tough the ag market is right now, while hoping for more certainty and a farm-economy recovery.

Saskatoon's ClearCost closed a Series A led by SaskWorks Venture Fund, with Motiv Ventures in the round. The dollar figure wasn't disclosed, because of course it wasn't.

A rebuilt version of the platform relaunches in January 2027. It's an app-based marketplace for bulk fertilizer with trust-based payments, transparent freight pricing, and vetting of who you're actually dealing with. Sellers don't get paid until the product moves.

CEO Keith Busch's pitch boils down to this: fertilizer trades in the dark, and it deserves a better venue. He says the company is regulated in Canada as a payment service provider.

Fun bit of origin story: the company was founded in 2024, and its seed money came from 18 Saskatchewan farms.

On Wednesday, Oct. 14, a grain elevator being demolished in Davidson came down onto a power line and knocked out electricity to the town and neighbouring communities, according to CTV News Regina as reported by Farms.com. Power has since been restored. No word on which company was running the demo.

For decades, that elevator quietly took in everyone's grain. On the way out, it took the power too. Even the elevators are ghosting people now.

The bigger picture: grain handling consolidation and big high-throughput terminals have been retiring the old wooden landmarks for years, so demolitions are getting common. Most of them just go out with less drama.

Over in Preeceville and Kamsack, ahead of Small Business Week, local leaders say economic development now means keeping the businesses and services they already have, not chasing a boom.

Preeceville's headaches are high construction costs and aging buildings. Kamsack's is a shortage of usable commercial space. Bright spots: recent openings, ownership changes, and investments by Cote First Nation.

So what? The hardware store, the insurance office, and the parts counter in town are farm infrastructure too. Lose them and every breakdown comes with an extra hour of highway.