Agriculture Canada is forecasting increased seeded acreage of all the principal field crops grown in Canada because of a return to normal seeding conditions and a reduction in summerfallow.
Canola is forecast to again steal king wheat’s crown with 20.8 million acres, which is up two percent from last year. That is about the mid-range of private analyst estimates.
Trevor Nysetvold, owner of BioVision Seed Labs, said there was considerable debate about canola acres at the FarmTech conference in Edmonton last week. The consensus was that farmers won’t plant as much as Agriculture Canada is forecasting, he added.
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“Nine dollar new crop canola does that. It gets guys thinking about alternatives,” he said.
Wheat will see the smallest percentage increase of any of the major crops with farmers planting an estimated 19.5 million acres, up from 19.4 million last year, according to the Agriculture Canada forecast.
A four percent hike in spring wheat plantings will be mostly offset by a 33 percent decline in winter wheat, which was down because of the late harvest. Spring wheat will be up as growers reclaim land lost to flooding in western Manitoba and eastern Saskatchewan.
Barley will experience a nine percent jump to 6.4 million acres because of a return to normal seeding conditions and reduced summerfallow, said Agriculture Canada.
Bruce Carriere, owner of Discovery Seed Labs, has a tough time buying the forecast. He believes barley acreage will be flat to slightly higher because of a shortage of quality seed.
“A lot of what was grown last year was snapped up by the maltsters, and there’s not enough pedigreed seed out there to carry the acres,” he said.
Growers are expected to plant 5.8 million acres of soybeans, up four percent from last year. Carriere doesn’t know about the national number, but Saskatchewan’s soybeans acres will be way up based on the amount of samples he has seen coming through the lab.
CWB crops and weather analyst Bruce Burnett recently forecast 1.75 million acreages of Prairie soybeans, an increase of 13.6 percent.
Agriculture Canada is forecasting 5.46 million acres of durum, up 15 percent from last year because of high prices and low carry-in stocks. The CWB has a forecast of 5.6 million, up almost 18 percent.
Carriere has a big problem with those numbers. Durum seed quality is the worst he has seen in his 22 years in the business because of extensive fusarium damage and plummeting germination levels.
“I’m thinking durum acres are going to go down,” he said.
He is forecasting as much as a five percent reduction.
Burnett also noted the seed quality problem and farmer trepidation after last year’s poor harvest.
Peas will lead all pulses with nearly four million acres. It’s a four percent increase over last year because of better estimated returns than other crops. The CWB also expects a strong incease in peas.
Carriere said there is no way that is going to happen. Farmers are growing weary of fighting with aphanomyces, a new root rot disease in peas that is “pretty much province-wide.”
“I know of some areas, historically good pea growing areas, that aren’t growing any peas anymore,” he said.
He inspected one Hutterite colony field last year where half of it had been seeded to peas in 2012 and the other half hadn’t. The half that had been previously seeded to peas and had aphanomyces produced 10 bushels per acre. The other half yielded 65.
“We’re going to lose pea acres, there’s no question in my mind, no question whatsoever,” said Carriere.
Farmers are expected to plant 3.5 million acres of lentils, which is an 11 percent increase from last year because of competitive returns for the crop.
Corn will be up six percent to 3.3 million acres because of slightly higher prices and the crop filling acres that were not seeded to winter wheat.
Oat acres are forecast to rise 10 percent to 3.1 million because of competitive pricing, a return to normal seeding conditions and a decrease in summerfallow.
Flax is going to be a popular choice for growers because of attractive returns compared to cereal crops. Agriculture Canada is forecasting 1.7 million acres, up 11 percent from last year.
Bean acres will be up marginally, canaryseed plantings will expand 13 percent because of low carry-in stocks and the sunflower seed crop will be 33 percent larger because of expected strong returns.
Chickpeas and mustard are the only crops where acres will fall because of high carry-in supplies.
