Weyburn and area farmers were able to make good progress harvesting their crops in the past week, and now have about 90 per cent of the crop in the bin, according to Saskatchewan Agriculture and Food.

That's right on par with the rest of the province and ahead of the five-year average. A year ago at this time, only 50-60 per cent of the harvest was finished.

Dry, warm weather helped to advance combining operations, as only a few millimetres of precipitation were reported. That warm weather has since disappeared and been replaced with freezing temperatures in the early morning and evening.

The frost will make taking off the remaining ten per cent of the crop more difficult, and could threaten the quality of the remaining crop.

Remaining in the fields are sunflowers, flax, chickpeas, oats and canary seed, along with some spring wheat and durum.

Some of the sunflower, chickpea and field pea crop in southeastern Saskatchewan has not yet ripened.

A small survey of elevator managers around the district shows most farmers are nearing the completion of the harvest, although some are further behind than others.

In the Ogema area Sask. Wheat Pool assistant manager Jason Lambert says only about 80 per cent of the crop is in the bin.

"It's been long and dragged on because of poor weather conditions," he said, adding some flax is remaining in the fields as well as durum that was hailed out and has since rebounded with a second growth.

Most of the durum that has come in is grading in the bottom three grades, while spring wheat is grading No. 2 or 3.

The effects of fog, rain and humidity the first week in September have been showing up in spring wheat, durum and barley samples in the past few weeks. Sprouting and mildew continue to cause downgrading of crops, with quality looking poorer in south central and southeastern areas compared to the southwest.

"Sprouting is the big thing - it's downgrading everything with the exception of flax," said Dennis Kovacs, manager for the UGG elevator in Stoughton.

Kovacs says before the rain, most of the crop was grading at least No. 2; afterward much of the grain is feed quality.

He adds fall planting is taking place in the Stoughton area.

Throughout the southeast, much of the winter wheat, fall rye and other fall crop acres are in the ground.

Fall canola is another option for producers, but several elevator managers report none has been planted in their area yet, although some interest has been expressed.

With the dry conditions, a good soaking rain would be welcomed by many farmers before freeze up. Cattle producers are also reporting problems with water supplies.

Other fall work underway includes rock picking, spraying, baling and summerfallowing.