OCTOBER 9, 2024
- Growing Season Overview
- Soybean and Pulse Acres and Varieties
- 2024 On-Farm Network Trials
Growing Season Overview
Cool, wet conditions prevailed during May and June in Manitoba, resulting in delayed seeding and slow crop growth at the start of the season. By the end of May, the majority of the province had received more than 150% of normal rainfall. Some areas, like Eden, had even received more than 300% of normal rainfall. The Northwest region experienced a truly challenging spring, with many unseeded acres by crop insurance deadlines.
With all this rain, cropping plans needed to change on a dime and this showcased the flexibility of soybeans. Seeding dates for this crop are flexible throughout the month of May and respectable yields can still be achieved into June. In terms of rotation planning, in many fields we can often get away with soybeans-on-soybeans in a pinch, largely since our more challenging soybean diseases aren’t known to occur at great levels in Manitoba. We don’t want to do this every year, but when plans need to change, soybeans have that flexibility.
Saturated soil conditions and tight seeding timelines meant that rolling operations were tough to sneak in for many soybean and dry bean fields. By the time many folks pulled into their fields with the roller, they noticed those beans were starting to poke through and were at the susceptible hook stage for breakage. This meant some non-stony fields went unrolled and, in those fields where stones necessitate rolling, post-emergent rolling operations were carefully timed to hit V1 on a hot day when plants were flexible.
These cool, wet conditions were followed by high winds that caused severe sandblasting damage in some regions, leading to reseeding in some dry bean and soybean fields. Fields that weren’t reseeded experienced some maturity delays but otherwise regrew and branched to fill in gaps in the plant stand.
The combination of winds, cool temperatures and saturated soils created challenging conditions for timely herbicide applications. Applications made in windy conditions resulted in off-target movement of herbicides to neighbouring fields in some areas. Saturated soils prevented field access in portions of several fields and cool temperatures meant weeds were growing slowly, limiting herbicide uptake and activity. Despite these weather conditions working against us, many were pleasantly surprised with how effective weed control worked out on their farms this year. The benefits of an effective pre-plant or pre-emergent herbicide program really shined.
For peas, prolonged saturated conditions in several fields resulted in rampant root rot infections by late June. This was especially apparent on fields with a history of peas. Aphanomyces root rot testing was encouraged to help plan for future rotations.
Pea leaf weevils are relatively new insect pest in Manitoba that expanded their range once again this year. Now, pea leaf weevils have been confirmed as far east as Stonewall. Thankfully, their populations appeared to decrease this year in the heaviest hit regions in the Northwest.
In late June and early July as soybeans reached V2-V3, IDC symptoms were common to spot in many fields with crop yellowing visible from the road. Excess soil moisture is one of the conditions, along with soil carbonates, soluble salts and nitrate levels that contribute to IDC development. Most fields grew through IDC by V6, with symptoms persisting longer in susceptible varieties.
Temperatures increased in mid-July, and accumulated growing degree days caught up to normal for most of the province. Humid conditions persisted within the crop canopy and diseases began to flourish in areas that received more moisture.
Mycosphaerella blight continued to be the most common foliar disease observed in field peas. White mould was common to find at low levels in most dry bean fields, even those that received timely fungicide applications. In soybeans, Phytophthora root rot symptoms were common to spot in many headlands and low-lying areas of fields with soybean history.
In early- to mid-August, foliar diseases were common in soybeans. At R3-R4 stages, septoria brown spot was the most common foliar disease (present in 97% of fields), followed by bacterial blight (89% of fields), downy mildew (25% of fields) and frogeye leaf spot (20% of fields). At these early reproductive stages, stem diseases were low. The same fields were surveyed again at R6-R7 stages and stem diseases picked up as plants continued to develop. The most common stem disease at this later timing was white mould, present in 34% of soybean fields surveyed and infecting 6% of plants within those fields, on average. This was closely followed by northern stem canker, which was found in 32% of fields, infecting 5% of plants in those fields, on average.
Insect pests remained low overall, with control occurring in a few sporadic fields across the province for the most part. The most common pulse insect concern this year were pea aphids, which exceeded thresholds and overwhelmed natural enemies like lady beetles, green lacewing larvae and hoverfly larvae, among others, in some areas. There were also pockets of above-threshold soybean aphids that occurred in August.
Pea harvest began in mid-August and was hampered by winds that resulted in severe lodging in several fields. Fields were harvested slowly, and yield and quality were overall positive with yield reports ranging from 30 to 85 bu/ac.
Dry bean harvest began in early September. Some fields that were undercut were caught in mid-September rains. Those windrows took a long time to dry out and quality was affected with pintos darkening in the swath and sprouting occurring in some fields. Standing crop quality remained positive, with harvest continuing in the third week of September. Yield reports have ranged from 1,700 to 3,000 lbs/ac.
Soybean harvest began in late September. Following mid-September rains, the weather turned hot, dry and windy and soybean crop moisture began to drop below 10% at the end of September. Yields have been quite positive, with reports ranging from 35 to 65 bu/ac across Manitoba.
Soybean and Pulse Acres and Varieties
Soybeans
Soybean acres have continued to swing over the last five years in Manitoba. In 2024, 1.3 million soybean acres were seeded, a decrease of roughly 260,000 acres (-17%) from 2023. The majority of soybean acres seeded are herbicide-tolerant, with conventional soybeans contributing to roughly 2% of total soybean acres in 2024.
Long-season varieties DKB006-80 and S007-A2XS were the top two varieties grown in 2024, responsible for 10% and 7.3% of soybean acres, respectively. This was followed by the mid-season variety P006A37X (6.3%), and the very early-season varieties S001-D8X (5.9%) and S003-R5X (5.4%). Interesting to note, of the top five soybeans grown in Manitoba in 2024, four of the five have major gene resistance for Phytophthora, all containing Rps 1c, and only one of the top five varieties boasts SCN resistance. 
Regarding conventional soybeans, the top varieties grown were Liska (8,800 acres or 0.7% of total soybean production) and Hana (6,500 acres, 0.5% of total acres).
Dry Beans
Dry bean acres increased again this year with roughly 183,000 acres seeded in 2024, increasing by 40,000 acres (+28%) from 2023. Pinto and black market classes are largely responsible for this increase with navy beans decreasing for the fourth year in a row. Cranberry, kidney and other coloured market classes (combination of pinks, yellows and great northerns) have an annual acreage of about 4,000 acres each and that has been consistent since 2020.
Top pinto varieties in 2024 were Vibrant (50% of acres), Windbreaker (27%), SV6139GR (8%) and Mystic (8%). CDC Blackstrap and Eclipse were neck-and-neck on top black varieties grown, each capturing 40% of the black bean market share, followed by BL Black Tails (19% of acres). T9905 remained the top navy variety grown, accounting for 72% of 2024 acres, followed by AAC Argosy (15%) and AAC Shock (11%).
Field Peas
Field pea acres have been fairly consistent over the last three years with 178,000 acres seeded in 2024. Yellow peas were the dominant market class, accounting for roughly 172,000 of those acres. Green pea production was around 3,700 acres, followed by forage peas (2,200 acres) and maple peas (840 acres).
AAC Chrome, 
AAC Carver and CDC Lewochko have dominated yellow pea market share over the last three years. AAC Chrome, registered in 2017, accounted for 35% of pea acres in 2024, followed by AAC Carver, (registered in 2014, 20% of 2024 acres) and CDC Lewochko (registered in 2018, 16% of 2024 acres).
For green peas, CDC Spruce and CDC Forest were the top varieties, each accounting for 0.8% of total pea acres.
Faba Beans
Annual faba bean acres have ranged from nearly 7,000 acres to below 500 acres over the last five years, with 1,400 acres seeded in 2024. In the previous five-year period (2015-2019), faba bean acres averaged 8,200 acres. Dry conditions over the last few growing seasons have limited the success of this crop since faba beans are large moisture users. In 2024, varieties grown were Allison (71% of acres), bin-run (16%), Navi (10%) and Snowbird (3%).
MPSG’s On-Farm Network in 2024
In 2024, MPSG’s On-Farm Network hosted 61 on-farm trials with interested farmers. Trial harvest is well underway with pea and dry bean harvest complete and less than a handful of soybean trials left in the field.
Due to humid growing conditions, fungicide trials were popular this year, with four soybean fungicide trials, eight pea fungicide trials and four dry bean fungicide trials across the province. At four of these trials, weather stations were also added to better capture environmental conditions influencing disease development.
Results are in the process of being analyzed and full trial reports are expected to be available later this fall.
