Manitoba farmers planted just over a million acres of soybeans last year.
Dennis Lange, pulse specialist with Manitoba Agriculture, gave his outlook for this upcoming growing season.
"There's been some renewed interest in growing soybeans again. Some interest in growing more conventional soybeans. As far as acres go, my early projections are somewhere in that 1.4 million acre range and to go along with that we've seen some strong new crop prices as well and that has really perked some interest for some growers."
Manitoba farmers seeded about 185,000 acres of dry beans last year.
"Moving forward prices are still pretty attractive but I think from what I've been hearing from some growers we might see a slight decrease in acres moving forward just because of land requirements and other commodities having some strong prices," said Lange. "I'm thinking we're probably going to be similar to what we were in previous years, in that 150,000 - 160,000 range. Still lots of interest there, but growers like to put it on their best ground so sometimes things get moved around a little bit."
About 146,000 acres of peas were seeded in 2020.
"Moving forward, early projection right now are probably going to be somewhere around that 200,000 acre mark, again mostly in the western side of the province," commented Lange. "There are some regions in the Red River Valley that got excess moisture last year so peas might be off the table for them. There's lots of interest in peas, prices are good for going into 2021."
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