Manitoba has experienced a setback in the expansion of its soybean industry.
Agriculture officials were expecting growers to seed 380,000 acres of the crop this spring, up from 220,000 acres in 2003. It now appears farmers will sow less than half of what was expected.
Producers had finished seeding canola and wheat and were waiting for the soil to warm before planting soybeans, but four weeks of wet weather kept them off the land, reducing planting expectations to 170,000 acres, said Manitoba Agriculture pulse crop specialist Bruce Brolley.
“We had guys sneak in acres here and there whenever they could. A lot of guys even mudded beans in, but they were fighting Mother Nature every step of the way.”
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Brolley said this is the fourth crack at establishing a soybean industry in the province. The last attempt fizzled out in the 1980s. This time he thinks the crop is here to stay.
Strong prices, better inoculants and new high-yielding, cold-tolerant varieties have piqued grower interest in soybeans. Growers in the Red River Valley have been searching for a pulse crop to add to their rotations.
Until now, edible beans have been the only viable option but that crop is hard to grow and demand is limited.
Soybeans can tolerate excess water better than dry beans, which means they can normally be grown in the heavy gumbo soil that covers much of the valley. But this year, the soil is saturated and would not allow the crop to get established.
Brolley considers 2004 a temporary setback. Even so, he expects soybeans will supplant edible beans as the province’s top pulse crop this year.
That trend will continue with plantings cresting the 400,000 acre mark in the next year or two, driven in a large part by worldwide demand, he said.
“For a lot of new crops the big limitation is markets. Well, here is one new crop in Manitoba that already has an established marketplace.”
With new uses for soybeans constantly being developed and world trade estimated at 66 million tonnes this year, there is no risk of Manitoba oversupplying the marketplace like it has done in the past with edible beans.
“They spill more soybeans in South America and some of the big soybean producing states in the U.S. than Manitoba will grow,” said Brolley.
Producers who managed to get soybeans in the ground this spring also have access to a new post-emergent broadleaf herbicide.
Pursuit has been registered for soybeans at application rates similar to those recommended for peas and Clearfield canola.
Don Sissons, president of the Manitoba Pulse Growers Association, said the association has been working for three years to give the province’s soybean growers access to the same chemicals as their counterparts in Ontario and North Dakota.
“This registration is one more example of what the Manitoba Pulse Growers Association can do with producer check-off support,” he said.
