Early harvest across the southwest, and the first yield reports beat the gloom
Durum is coming off two weeks ahead of normal, and the early weighed loads are running above the July estimates that had the trade braced.
SWIFT CURRENT — The first durum of the season crossed scales in the southwest this week, two weeks ahead of the ten-year normal, and the early weights are the story: loads grading better and yielding higher than the July crop report that had the trade braced for a short year.
Two weeks of heat finished the crop fast, which cuts both ways — thinner kernels in the driest corners, but harvest weather that lets operators take it off dry and skip the aeration bill.
Elevator companies moved first: harvest-delivery premiums in the southwest widened this week, a sign the line companies want bushels early for fall vessel positions out of Vancouver and Thunder Bay.
The wire will carry the provincial crop reports as the newsrooms on this beat file them — credited, and linked at the headline.
