Many of the readers of Agwired may not know that Manitoba, that northern Canadian province, just north of North Dakota, and on the way to Churchill and polar bears, is soybean country. Yep, not millions of acres, but ½ a million if weather conditions are right.
At a recent Bean Symposium, many farmers showed great interest in growing soybeans, but according to pulse crop specialist Bruce Brolley of Manitoba Agriculture, most are still undecided. “We had a lot of growers, but I still get the feeling many growers are kicking tires trying to decide which crops they want to grow,” said Brolley.
The soybean RoundUp Ready seed, most in short supply, growers bought last fall or at least spoke for it.
“Since the bad season in 2004, we haven’t really built up our seed stock for the new varieties and that seed stock is more limited,” said Brolley. “I think for most of the RoundUp Ready, the seed has been spoken for already.”
It’s hard to get a handle on how many soybeans growers will plant this year because of the high intentions in the last two year, but Mother Nature cut those acres both years. “You tell me what type of spring we’re going to have, and I can give you a good handle on acres,” said the pulse specialist. “We have had good intentions to seed a lot more acres than we had. Even last year, we were probably in that range of 220,000 intended; but because of Mother Nature, we only got 100,000 acres in.” He believes there’s interest for around 350,000 acres; others are saying maybe 450,000 and even more.