Some areas see best soybean crops in years
CARMAN, Man. — Let the good weather hold.
That’s the hope of thousands of Manitoba farmers who have been blessed with better-than-average growing conditions and should reap an excellent harvest if good weather continues into September.
“Up to now it’s pretty good growing conditions,” said Jack Hofer, a Starbuck farmer.
“We’ve had enough rain. The beans are over knee-high. Everything’s nice. Everything’s green.”
Tom Menold of Carman, who was sitting a few metres away on the line of straw bales that served as seats at the Manitoba Pulse and Soybean Growers field day at the University of Manitoba’s Carman research farm, is looking at the same thing in his fields.
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“They’re looking excellent,” Menold said about his soybeans.
“They’re better than average. They look high yielding. I don’t want to call it a bin-buster, but it looks very high-yielding as long as we don’t get a hailstorm or early frost.”
That was a common feeling both at the Carman field day and during the CWB crop tour that crossed southern Manitoba looking at farmers’ fields. Wheat and soybean crops look excellent and will be both big and high quality if decent weather continues.
Few signs of disease or major bug problems were noted by the farmers in Carman and little was seen during the CWB crop tour.
“It’s looking really good. There’s not much in the way of insect pests,” said Ingrid Kristjanson, a Manitoba Agriculture adviser from Morris who was at the field day.
“In general, (crops are) really nice.”
Soybean crops in her area suffered one of the few problems spotted by the CWB tour — iron chlorosis — but Kristjanson said they were able to grow through and past that condition once spring saturation passed.
Agronomist Kristin Podolsky with the pulse and soybean association said that even though iron chlorosis was widespread this year, the crops were able to push past it “faster than usual.”
Now, with weeks of good warmth and sufficient rain in most areas, the crops are surging ahead and looking good. Dry beans look good, while soybeans have closed their crop canopies and are busily growing.
“These moderate temperatures are treating us well,” said Podolsky.
A couple of farmers on the CWB tour said Manitoba farmers were probably blessed by the heavy haze that hung over the province in early July when smoke from Saskatchewan forest fires preventing the sun from scorching crops. Most crops’ flowering stages progressed without too much intense heat.
One of the biggest challenges for farmers is downed crops caused by high wind and pounding rain. Hofer said this problem had revealed variety-to-variety differences in cereal grains.
In one field he has one variety standing and other downed in many patches.
“You can see the difference,” he said.
Dauphin farmer Ernie Sirski is crossing his fingers and hoping the good weather holds for a few more weeks.
“The (soybeans) are as good as they’ve ever been in the four years we’ve been growing them,” said Sirski. “They look really nice. I’ve never seen them look this good at this time of year.”
La Salle farmer Al Turski said the same.
“They’re great. The nicest crop of beans I’ve grown in 15 years.”
