Glacier FarmMedia | MarketsFarm – While 2024-25 pulse crops only wrapped up harvesting about a month ago, more farmers in Manitoba are already looking ahead to add pulses and soybeans to next year’s rotation.
Laura Schmidt, Manitoba Pulse and Soybean Growers’s production specialist for the western half of the province, said more farmers are considering seeding for food-grade soybeans as well as more niche crops such as faba beans.
“We haven’t seen a ton of production of (faba beans), but they are another pulse option to work in the rotation which we’ve seen interest pick up in,” Schmidt said. “Dry beans is the other one where we’re seeing that bigger spike in interest, that expansion in Western Canada, (to go) with peas that stay consistent (in seeded area) year after year.”
One of the reasons farmers may be switching to pulses is the crop health benefits.
“There are a lot of advantages in terms of capturing that nitrogen fixation benefit that these crops offer,” she added.
Citing crop insurance data, Schmidt said Manitoba grew 1.3 million acres of soybeans in 2024-25, down 17 per cent from the previous year. Of those acres, 30,000 were conventional food-grade soybeans. There were also 180,000 acres of peas, an eight per cent increase, as well as 183,000 dry bean acres, up 28 per cent from 2023. Pinto and black bean varieties increased the most in terms of acres.
“Navy bean production has been decreasing over the last four years and are trickling down, while pinto and black beans have been climbing,” Schmidt added. “We’re expanding dry bean production into western Manitoba and more northern growing regions and the shorter-season black bean variety is really filling in that expansion.”
Despite a cool, wet start to the growing season and a hot, dry, windy summer, Schmidt said she was “pleasantly surprised” with crop yields. Soybeans ranged from 35 to 65 bushels per acre at an average of 40 bu./ac. Peas ranged from 30 to 85 bu./ac. with an average of 45, while dry beans yielded between 500 to 3,000 pounds per acre at an average of 1,800.
