What was shaping up to be a good yield for Alberta farmers came, at least temporarily, to an abrupt halt when snow blanketed the province over the Thanksgiving weekend. "It was looking really good, but it's all wet now," says Glen Stankievech who runs a mixed farm near Trochu. With 60 per cent of his canola and barley still on the field, Stankievech had to call an end to his harvest Friday morning  when the build up of heavy, wet snow made it impossible to continue. "The trucks were consistently getting stuck. So finally it just got (to be) too much snow and we had to quit." "Normally we're done by Sept. 5," said Stankievech, adding that nothing can be done until the fields dry up. Humphrey Banack with the Alberta Federation of Agriculture says he estimates between 60 and 70 per cent of the harvest is complete, and he's hoping for a good stretch of warmer dry weather to get the harvest back on. "If we can get back out and harvest this crop and put it into the bin, the losses will be significantly less than if it has to overwinter," said Banack, who farms near the hamlet of Round Hill, southeast of Edmonton, along with his son and his brother. He said if crops stay on the field over the winter, the quality will drop, and so will the amount of revenue farmers will be able to earn. Stankievech estimates his barley crop will fetch about half the amount it's worth now, if it can't be taken off the field until the spring. "A pay cut of half is huge," he said, pointing out it won't be a total loss as he should be able to use the barley in the spring to feed his cattle. While Banack is grateful for the downtime over the holiday weekend, he would have rather been out finishing the harvest. He's hopeful a change in the weather will bring a successful end to the harvest. "Not to have to work over Thanksgiving weekend and visit with my family and friends was a bonus, but looking out the window to see it snowing steadily was really a challenge to truly enjoy Thanksgiving." According to the most recent Alberta Crop Report published by Alberta Agriculture on Oct. 4, 2016, crop quality in the province was already starting to decline due to the extended harvest season.     Source - http://www.cbc.ca