AgWired

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.

Siemens Says

What do growing forages and BSE have in common you may ask? When the BSE crisis hit the Canadian cattle industry in 2003, most watched cattle producers struggle, what to do with their cattle, in some cases almost worthless. However, the effects of that crisis reached out to almost every segment selling into that industry.

“BSE certainly reduced our sales because the cattle producers didn’t have much income and so they weren’t buying very much seed,” Dave Dyck of Dyck Forages and Grass at Elie, Manitoba. “The last year, particularly in Manitoba and southern Saskatchewan, the wet spring dropped our retail sales even more.”

However, things are looking up. Dyck says there’s more interest this spring than last year at this time.
“I expected that, because we have some pent up demand to reseed some fields and put in some new hay and pasture fields,” he said. “Moreover, there are some improvements in the price of cattle. The cattle producers are probably feeling a little more encouraged to spend some extra money on some seed.”

However, the cattle industry in Canada will feel the effects of the U.S. closing the border to Canadian cattle for a long time. Keeping the border closed to live cattle over 30 months of age keeps a lid on the prices producers get for those animals.

Siemens Says