An agronomy extension specialist with the Manitoba Crop Alliance is optimistic about this year's corn crop.

"Corn is still looking really nice," said Morgan Cott. "It's moving along. I'm seeing this week, at least the fields that I've been checking are in the dough stage. A little further behind than we want obviously, nothing's changing there or going to change. I did see a couple cobs that had a little bit of a dent starting, so that's really positive. It means that moisture is being used up and starch is filling so hopefully that is sort of a quicker process than normal, but the heat's helping. So good news there."

She commented on the recent weather.

"The corn is enjoying the heat and the moisture is certainly helping because I've seen a few fields that have showed slight drought symptoms...The only issue that I'm having with the weather right now is because it gets so hot and then the nights get so cool that the heat unit accumulation is not as great as I think we expect it to be. When temperatures go below ten at night, which isn't very often, but they get low enough, and then they go above 30 in the daytime, then those periods we're not accumulating anything. We just want to keep it that sweet medium area between 10 and 30, nothing more, nothing less to accumulate and get the crop moving."

Cott also gave an update on sunflowers.

"They're generally at the R6 stage so the heads are filled as much as they're going to be. Generally, heads are filling right to the centre. I haven't seen too many issues with heads not being pollinated all the way through, so that's really positive. We don't need to worry so much about insects right now, but definitely keep an eye on them. We're seeing aphids be very apparent in sunflowers right now, so getting a few phone calls on that because you'll basically turn the leaf over and the entire leaf surface is covered with aphids but fortunately with sunflowers, that is not an economical issue. Just something to keep in mind when you're looking in sunflowers. Generally, just keep an eye on insect and disease pressures, just so that you know it's there and what you're dealing with. Overall, I think it's quite positive with sunflowers so far."

Flax is another crop that Cott focuses on.

"Flax also looks really great. The flax crop is generally quite thick, it's maturing nicely. We're starting to get some brown bowls develop, so it's drying up and overall really good. I haven't seen too many disease issues yet."

Cott is currently conducting a flax disease survey and is looking for fields to scout.