CARMAN, Man. – Canadian cereals are often measured against corn, whether it be price, feedability or as a feedstock for ethanol.
So why not grow more of it at home?
In most cases, Canadian feed barley is priced on an American Midwest corn price landed at a delivery point on the Prairies.
Livestock producers have found that corn is an excellent feed substitute when Canadian cereal prices have been high or feed quality grain is in short supply.
As well, ethanol companies, including Husky at Lloydminster, prefer to work with it because it runs their stills cleanly and reliably.
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However, corn has problems getting off to a good start in more northerly soils.
“Grain corn is ‘the cereal’ in Ontario and Quebec,” said Pam de Rocquigny, a feed grain specialist with Manitoba Agriculture.
“They feed it in B.C.’s lower mainland. It’s grown around Winkler and Carman and Lethbridge. That’s what has been the case anyway.”
Corn on the Canadian Prairies is generally known only as a southern silage or field grazing crop, but Ian Grant, who heads Pioneer Hi-Bred in Canada, said his company is working to change that.
“We think corn has a role as an alternative (grain) crop in Western Canada,” he said at the opening of Pioneer’s new research centre in Carman, which is home to Western Canada’s only grain corn breeder.
“We believe we have the ability to give prairie farmers’ another crop choice, one that will provide them a reliable, profitable crop that will (reach maturity) in 65 days (in) eight out of 10 years … but we know we’ll have to prove that.”
Promising future
Bill Niebur, who heads DuPont’s crop genetics division, including Pioneer Hi-Bred’s corn development for Western Canada, said his company is paying attention to corn’s promise on the Prairies.
“We see Western Canada as a big market for us and are investing in that opportunity by creating products that will serve the needs of the farmers here. If we didn’t believe corn would fill a need here, we wouldn’t be doing it,” he said.
Niebur, who is based in Des Moines, Iowa, but grew up 100 kilometres south of Val Marie, Sask., in Montana, said he knows how challenging it can be to grow crops on the western Prairies.
“We are addressing issues of cold tolerance, salinity and nutrient deficiency in our breeding efforts to improve all of our crops,” he said.
Dave Charne, who directs Pioneer’s research in Canada, said the company moved its short season corn breeding from Fargo, North Dakota, to Carman partly to locate its breeding staff closer to the market and partly to persuade producers that corn can be a viable crop on the Canadian Prairies.
“Our breeder here will still be able to work with (Pioneer and DuPont) researchers and genetic resources in Des Moines and around the world to pull in the genetics he needs, just as if he was in the same buildings with them,” Charne said.
“Technology means breeding can take place where the breeder can go into the plots and observe the results first- hand within their targeted marketplace.”
