There's no question about it. Soybean acres will increase again this spring if moisture conditions allow.

"They're very popular right now. Prices are going up and up, so there will be a lot of people contracting again this year," says Brian Jack, Farm Production Advisor with Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Initiatives. "Seed sales are very strong. I would expect it to be a fairly good year again."

Some people in the industry have been suggesting that soybean acres could hit 800 thousand, a major jump from the 510 thousand acres that Statistics Canada says were harvested in 2010.

Jack is part of a team of MAFRI staff working to compile data on the best practices for growing soybeans in Manitoba. He says the wet weather last summer hampered the information coming from their trials.

"Right now we've only got the one year of data so we're not yet able to do a lot of discussion on what guys should be seeding, what plant populations should, or what row width they should be using," he says. "But we are seeing some trends. Planters have better survivability compared with air-seeders. With air-seeders we see more clumping of the seed, or more spaces within the field."

"What we're looking for is some variety within what producers are doing, and if they are doing some variety, then we'd like to know and maybe monitor it with them, just to get more data," says Jack. "We always get some guinea pigs it seems and that's good because then we get more data, to for example say, yes we can start planting earlier than we have in the past."

He says they hope to collect more information this summer.

"We have lots of data out of Ontario where they've been growing soybeans for quite a number of years. So now we want to see what's going on in Manitoba, and what things like plant population and row width should be for our growers."

~ Thursday, February 17, 2011 ~