A northern Saskatchewan wild rice marketer estimates 10% of this year’s harvest recently blew away.
Lynn Riese owns Riese’s Canadian Lake Wild Rice.
Riese says wild rice producers usually get about five picks per harvest — but about half of the first one was lost to strong winds.
“We get about 20% of it at a crack, and this time the wind got a lot of that. So, maybe we got 10% of it off before — so we lost 10%. And I’m talking about 10% of about 2 millon to 2.5 million pounds that would have been blown off by the wind there.”
Riese says he is hearing reports of wild rice lost to wind throughout the province’s north.