Harvest of Manitoba's small sunflower crop is well underway.

"It's at different stages across the province, but oilseeds are well on the way to being finished, especially on the east side of the province where it's been especially dry. Harvest has also started on confecs in all areas," says Claire Kincaid, agronomist with the National Sunflower Association of Canada.

Yields are variable.

"They're pretty good, in a range from 1500 to 2500 (pounds per acre.) So we'll have to see what insect damage is like, but it seems to be a pretty good range," she says.

Kincaid says minus the flooding in spring, conditions have been near ideal for sunflowers.

"With the heat, we almost had the ideal year for sunflowers. Some guys are finding empty seeds in the head, so that probably means it was a bit hot during flowering, but in terms of disease, the heat definitely kept that away," she says. "We've had a beautiful in terms of keeping disease down."

She notes some fields were damaged badly by strong winds last week.

"There's some pretty severe lodging in some areas, and what hasn't lodged, the heads have shelled out onto the ground, so there's some complete yield loss because of that," she says.

Sunflower acreage was extremely low this year compared with historical levels. An estimated 25-27 thousand acres of sunflowers were grown in Manitoba this year.