As harvesting of early-seeded crop is underway this week throughout the Weyburn district, heat and insects are taking their toll, particularly on late-seeded crops.

The past week continued to be hot and dry, with no end in sight this week as temperatures hover in the mid to high 30s. A large thunderstorm system moved through the area on Friday, and the Saskatchewan Municipal Hail and Crop Insurance began receiving many reports on Monday and Tuesday.

As of Tuesday morning, claims of hail damage were coming from the RMs of Weyburn, Brokenshell, Norton and Key West, including the Ogema area; Lomond, Laurier and The Gap to the south of Weyburn, and some from Fillmore and Wellington RMs to the north, said Murray Owterson, adding it will take about a week for all the claims to come in before he will have a true idea of the extent of damages.

The period from Aug. 7-9 was busy with thunderstorms, he added, as a total of 70 RMs or a quarter of all RMs in the province reported hail damages.

Dan Sidloski, interviewed by cell phone from his combine, said the early harvested crops weren't as bad as he thought they would be, but the later-seeded crops will certainly be below-average in quality and yield.

So far, the Weyburn-area farmer has done his peas and durum, and noted the peas yielded about half of what he would normally get, around 20 bushels to the acre.

He is currently combining some of his durum, and said the early-seeded variety surprised him at how well it did, around 26 bushels per acre, but noted the later-seeded durum won't be that good. "From here on, it's going to go down," he said.

Asked if grasshoppers were a factor in his harvest operations, he said his field near Ralph had very few grasshoppers in it, while his peas six miles to the north had many grasshoppers infesting them. With the heat forcing many cereal crops to mature early, Sidloski said any rain received now would not benefit any crops, and indeed would lead to deterioration of the crops being harvested. The conditions are so dry right now, he noted he combined until 2 a.m. Sunday night without any dew moisture slowing him down at all. As he's straight-cutting his crops, he said even if there is some dew he can go right through it.

Sask. Agriculture and Food released its pre-harvest crop production estimates, and predict farmers will harvest about 20 million tonnes of grains, oilseeds and specialty crops this year, which is about 84 per cent of the 10-year average. The Canadian Wheat Board, meanwhile, just reduced its initial harvest forecast, saying wheat and durum will total 20.3 million tonnes across the prairies, down by three million tonnes from their initial estimate released in early June.

To the south of Weyburn in the Tribune district, farmer David Pattyson just finished combining his canola crop, and said with the heat and the grasshoppers, he only got a yield of about five bushels an acre from it.

"Pretty much for all the crops, the heat and dry weather have taken their toll on them. There are some pockets that received the odd shower that will do not too badly, but the majority of the crop is going to be well below average," said Pattyson.

He agreed with Sidloski in saying that any rain that comes now would have little to no benefit for any crops, except later-producing crops like sunflowers.

"Right now people are looking for good harvest weather," he said.

A different insect making its presence felt right now are sawflies in spring wheat crops, said Pattyson, which have done extensive damage in some fields.

"With the quite hot weather and windy days like (Monday), cereal crops are advancing rather rapidly. Some of the early-seeded cereals, people will be doing something them in the next week or two," he said.

Extension agrologist Colin Beaulieu agreed that general harvest operations are fast approaching in the southeast, suggesting by next week harvest will be fully underway.

Most of what is being harvested now includes peas, winter wheat, fall rye, along with some canola, lentils and mustard.

Beaulieu also noted sawfly damage is being reported in spring wheat crops, and said the only measure farmers can take is to do an early swath of those fields to avoid allowing the sawflies to cut off the stems and have the heads fall on the ground.

Hay and pasture lands are in desperate need of moisture, he added, which will put pressure on cattle producers who need the grazing land as they hold on to their calves while the feedlots try and whittle down the backlog caused by the border closures. With the U.S. and Mexico partially lifting restrictions, some of the backlog will now be able to start moving out.