Better weather boosts Canada's wheat, canola crops more than expected

Canada produced more wheat and canola than expected, as dry weather gave way to crucial rains later in summer, Statistics Canada said on Friday in its final 2015 crop report. After the report, traders drove down ICE Canada January canola futures 1 percent. The market had expected Statistics Canada to raise its estimate, but the government agency's figure easily topped even the highest trade guess in an earlier poll.
Statscan, using a farmer survey, estimated canola production at 17.2 million tonnes, sharply higher than Statscan's previous estimate for 14.3 million and the average trade guess of 15.6 million tonnes. The harvest was 5 percent larger than last year's output and the second-biggest ever. "The canola number is a shock," said Lawrence Klusa, senior market coach with AgriTrend, adding that it also points to larger supplies at July 31, the end of the crop marketing year. The average canola yield jumped 8 percent year over year to 38 bushels per acre, the second highest on record, despite dry conditions in Saskatchewan and Alberta that by late July had produced noticeably shorter than usual plants.