The Saskatchewan Ministry of Agriculture crunched the numbers for its final crop report of 2025.
Tyce Maisch, Crops Extension Specialist with the Ministry of Agriculture's office in Moose Jaw, believes the 2025 crop production year was good as "producers are certainly happy to see that and they're just winding down their field operations this year…and enjoy a few months off here during the winter and as they're doing that planning next year's operation."
It covers average yields, crop quality, pasture conditions, topsoil moisture levels and overall growing conditions in the province.
Harvest at this point in the season is 99 per cent with the odd oilseed and chickpea crop left standing. Currently, harvest progress for mustard is 99 per cent complete, canola 98 per cent, flax 94 per cent, soybeans 87 per cent and chickpeas 91 per cent.
Growing conditions were varied around the province from some regions getting an abundance of moisture, to others getting timely rains, to others lacking.
Masich says the spring was dry to start, allowing producers to get seed in the ground in good time but inadequate moisture led to "a little bit of uneven emergence" and "uneven crop staging" later in the season.
Precipitation arrived in June in the central, northeast, and southeast regions which allowed crops to catch up in development, however the southwest and northwest remained dry.
Masich says the northwest was very dry for most of the growing season while the southwest finally received moisture in mid-July.
"And once they got rainfall, they got a whole bunch at once," he said. "It's too bad that rainfall wasn't spread earlier in the growing season, just more timely throughout the growing season. But they had lots in late July, early August, which was kind of too much at once and then it was too late for a lot of crops to really benefit yield potential."
Regarding crop damage due to pests, there wasn't much to report on a wide scale – such as the grasshopper issue the last two years – but Masich says pockets of areas dealt with Richardson Ground Squirrels, bertha armyworm, grasshoppers, and cabbage seedpod weevil.
Parts of the central, southwest, and east-central regions had cabbage seedpod weevil present in canola fields. Bertha armyworms were reported in canola crops in the east-central, northeast, and west-central regions.
For topsoil moisture levels, Masich says like the growing conditions, soil moisture was varied.
Areas along the Saskatchewan-Manitoba boundary, including Yorkton and Estevan, had the most moisture, Masich said, while adequate moisture was in the east central, northeast, and west central regions. The southwest was a bit of an outlier with dry conditions until the middle of July and the northwest was dry for much of the season.
"Over the past two months, there's been a trend where the eastern regions of the province, so the northeast, east central, and southeast all have more adequate topsoil moisture levels in those areas and then as you go west towards the Alberta border, that's where things dry off." he added.
The provincial average for crop land moisture for the year is four per cent surplus, 55 per cent adequate, 33 per cent short and eight per cent very short. For hayland, topsoil moisture is three per cent surplus, 51 per cent adequate, 36 per cent short and 10 per cent very short. For pastures, topsoil moisture is two per cent surplus, 38 per cent adequate, 45 per cent short and 15 per cent very short.
The crop report says most pastures are similar to soil moisture ratings – those in the best condition are in the east and the poorest are in the west. Provincially, three per cent of pastures are in excellent condition, 29 per cent are good, 37 per cent are fair, 21 per cent are poor and 10 per cent are in very poor condition.
Crop yields and quality in the province overall are above historical averages, especially the ten year average.
The report states for crop yields, "Winter wheat crops yielded 44.1 bushels per acre and fall rye yielded 52.6 bushels per acre. For spring cereal crops, oats yielded the highest at 94.4 bushels per acre, followed by barley with 70 bushels per acre. Hard spring wheat yielded 51.5 bushels per acre and other spring wheat yielded 55.5 bushels per acre. Durum yielded 39.4 bushels per acre and triticale yielded 25.3 bushels per acre. Additionally, canary seed yielded 1,354 pounds per acre. Pulse crops also yielded well in many areas, with field peas yielding 40.8 bushels per acre, lentils yielding 1,785.5 pounds per acre and chickpeas yielding 1,716.2 pounds per acre. Oilseed crops were the last to come off and they yielded 42.4 bushels per acre for canola, 39.6 bushels per acre for soybeans, 26.6 bushels per acre for flax and 880.1 pounds per acre for mustard."
Masich noted the southeast, east central, west central and northeast regions had the highest yields while the southwest and northwest were below average.
It's a similar story for crop quality as the report points out, "canola quality was higher than the 10-year average as crops graded 86 per cent 1 Canada (CAN), 13 per cent 2 CAN and one per cent 3 CAN. For pulses, field peas graded 41 per cent 1 CAN, 52 per cent 2 CAN and seven per cent 3 CAN while lentils graded 22 per cent 1 CAN, 59 per cent 2 CAN, 17 per cent 3 CAN and two per cent Sample. For higher acreage spring cereals, spring wheat was rated as 63 per cent 1 Canada Western (CW), 29 per cent 2 CW, six per cent 3 CW and two per cent CW Feed, while barley was rated as 27 per cent malt, 60 per cent 1 CW and 13 per cent 2 CW and Sample. "
The report also mentioned average silage yields for the province were 5.82 tons per acre, lower than the 6.37 tons per acre reported last year. The southeast had the highest silage yields while the lowest yields were in the southwest and northeast regions. Hay yields this year were lower than last year but the quality of most hay crops was rated as good to fair, with some areas having excellent hay quality.
Provincially, dryland hay yields were the following: 1.39 tons per acre for alfalfa, 1.32 tons per acre for brome hay, 1.19 tons per acre for tame hay, 1.33 tons per acre for baled forage and 2.14 tons per acre for greenfeed.
The quality of the first cut of hay was reported as 11 per cent excellent, 63 per cent good, 22 per cent fair and four per cent poor. The second cut was 24 per cent excellent, 47 per cent good, 19 per cent fair and 10 per cent poor.
Average hay prices throughout the province were the following: alfalfa is $144.72 per ton, brome is $149.44 per ton, greenfeed is $107.73 per ton, straw is $50.83 per ton and standing hay is $63.47 per ton.
When it comes to farm safety, Masich didn't hear too many reports of injuries or fires this year.
"The only thing is this fall with how dry it was, especially in western parts of the province. There was a few combine fires reported in certain areas, but other than that, I don't think anything was too damaging or anyone really got hurt, so that's definitely the most important thing."
Farmers who have crop left to combine are out there harvesting it before freeze-up. Those who are finished harvest are cleaning up the field or servicing equipment. Livestock producers continue to market cattle, move animals off the pasture and hauling bales.
