BY: Brian Innes, Executive Director, Soy Canada
Since joining Soy Canada I’ve come to appreciate that all soybeans are not equal. While two beans can look very similar in the field, they can perform very differently for our customers.
For Manitoba, diversity in bean quality for both soy food manufacturing and for crushing has become much more important to growers over the past two decades.
Put simply, some beans are worth more to our customers than others. For growers, it means that some varieties help us get more value from customers while others create a bad reputation that can lead to discounts.
But how do you tell which variety brings value and which lowers value? And how do you measure quality?
These questions are at the heart of why the Manitoba soy variety trials are now integrated into the renewed Canadian Soy Quality Program and our northern soy quality efforts.
By integrating the variety trials into our quality work, we’re driving value through data. We’re using the samples from across the province to create credible data that’s meaningful to customers so they make purchasing decisions based on performance rather than perception.
What’s the connection between variety trials and value?
Canada’s Renewed Soy Quality Program
As food-grade soybeans have expanded in Manitoba it’s become more important to showcase how varieties grown in the province will perform for manufacturers of soy foods like tofu and soy milk. Since 2022, the quality characteristics for all food-grade varieties in the Manitoba variety trials have been measured. But Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s (AAFC) closure of their soy quality program in early 2024 created doubts about how this unique testing would continue – it was the only Canadian testing facility analyzing how soybean varieties perform for soy food manufacturing.
Thankfully, we found a solution. Canada’s Soy Quality Program has been renewed and is now administered by the Canadian Grain Commission in Winnipeg. Through industry leadership, the support of AAFC, the Grain Commission and grower organizations like Manitoba Pulse & Soybean Growers (MPSG), world-class quality testing continues to be performed on varieties entered in Manitoba variety trials.
Seed developers entering varieties in the trials benefit from having independent data on the quality characteristics important to soy food manufacturers. This helps seed developers commercialize varieties that our customers value sooner, so growers can have new varieties that perform better in their fields sooner as well.
Digging into Northern Soy Quality
Growing soybeans further north than almost anywhere on the planet comes with unique challenges. One of these challenges has been the reputation that northern-grown soy has developed – a reputation for lower value soybeans as measured by lower crude protein.
With the last Northern Soybean Summit held in late 2023, we’ve come to understand the diversity of views on northern soy quality – while there are significant discounts at export position, the animals consuming northern soy on the prairies don’t seem to notice much of a difference. But one thing was clear, there’s a lack of data to demonstrate to feed formulators how northern soy produced in Manitoba will perform in feed rations.
The data and research capacity created with the help of the variety trials has been important to understand where we are and where we need to be.
Building on research supported by MPSG at the University of Manitoba that assessed protein levels for varieties entered in the trials, we’re taking the next step to look at factors that affect animal performance. While crude protein tends to be lower in northern soy, digestibility, critical amino acid values and energy values are often higher and contribute significantly to how animals perform.
To combat the current perception of northern soy centered on discounts, we’ve identified that we need credible data explaining the feeding value seen by animals. The variety trials remain a key source of annual samples to draw upon for future analysis, helping us know how varieties differ and how regionality affects quality factors.