Harvest Begins on the Prairies

The Ragtag Daily Prompt this morning was HARVEST

For me this was a very timely prompt. Yesterday on our way to Saskatoon we passed the first field being combined in this area. A combine was chomping its way through a field of lentils. An article in the Western Producer includes a good picture of a field of lentils being harvested. And here’s another from Simpson Seeds.

Low-growing and dusty to harvest, this rusty-gold crop is a common sight in these parts. Farmers tell me lentils do best when somewhat stressed and growing conditions here — the hot, dry summers — are great at giving crops stress. 🙂

Lentils were unheard of here on the prairies when I was a girl, but now Canada is the world’s leading producer and exporter of lentils, and farmers here in Saskatchewan are producing 95% of the lentils harvested. Lentils.org, one information site, says: “Canada only began growing lentils in the 1970’s – now there are over 5,000 active lentil farmers in Canada.”