Healthy crop yields were the most significant highlights of 2024, says Manitoba Agriculture's Applied Research Specialist with WADO, Scott Chalmers in the Melita area.
"Here at WADO we had some of our best yields ever," shares Chalmers. "I've been here for 17 years and by far 2024 was the record for us in the plots, and I think it had a lot to do with getting the rains at the right time. Some of our yields were quite dominating, I would say."
For the southwest corner of the province, Chalmers says they documented 19 regular rainfalls each over 1/2 inch during the regular growing season.
"Finally, we got a year where it was in our favor. That really added up to a decent amount of rain," he says. "We were actually just below average coincidentally, but the rains happened at the right time."
Chalmers says their test plot spring yields were 85 bu/acre. "I don't know if I've ever seen that personally in the past. Winter wheat was around 100 and oats were anywhere from a 120 all the way up to 200 bu/acre. Farmers were also surprised with spring wheat yields," he adds. "I think almost the wheat was paying the bills this year instead of canola."
Farmers were hoping for a great crop of canola in 2024 and all the conditions pointed to a bumper crop with timely rains to support it. However, verticillium, blackleg and sclerotinia stem rot added to challenges. In addition to these, cabbage seed pod weevils from the west were seen in some crops.
He says the corn crops were fairly decent until two major windstorms caused significant damage to specific varieties of corn. Some of the WADO varieties were running 120 to about 153. "But I did hear of some higher yields than that from some farmers."
The second major windstorm really hammered some of the corn varieties dropping up to 30% of the cobs.
Please listen to more with Scott Chalmers on the challenges on the corn and canola crops of 2024.
The WADO sunflower test plots would have done better if it weren't for the birds that took their toll on yield. "We would have had a fantastic yield, and were estimating high 2000's," he explains, "even 2800 pounds to the acre but the birds dropped that pretty badly. We also saw quite a bit of verticillium wilt and sunflower midge. Sunflower midge seems to be a growing concern for me."
Flax test plots yielded high 40's to mid-50's depending on treatments they were applying on their test plots. "I know some farmers in the area had been talking about a decent flax crop that they had, and the prices are reasonable at this time."
Peas were running in the high 60's bu/acre with virtually no root rot in their Melita plots, "but we sure did in Reston where we have a disease nursery going, doing some specific research there."
Soybeans averaged 55-65 bu/acre at WADO. "And dry beans were quite amazing," explains Chalmers. "They really liked that intermittent rainfall with the heat. We were running around late 2000's to almost 3000 pounds/acre. It really depended on the type of bean that we were growing and the management regime going on."
"But I would caution farmers getting into the dry beans that they better have a pretty good herbicide package for those herbicide-resistant weeds that are troublesome," he adds. "This is certainly something to watch out for in 2025."
Chalmers says the 2024 crop of dry beans surprised him the most.
"The more we work with them the better we are at growing them it seems. We've been trying different inoculants, inoculants combined with fertilizer practices, and we've been kind of finding a sweet spot, where applying just about 35 pounds of nitrogen per acre combined with an inoculant has been really working out good for us. Getting them weed free at the right times really works out, and making sure seed date is on time, not early or late, just that sweet spot after May long weekend."
Winter 2024-2025:
Looking at the end of the year, Chalmers says we had some good fall moisture going into the winter months, and nice temperatures made for a fairly nice winter crop establishment if you're in the rye or winter wheat business, he says. "The end of December and into January it has been relatively normal as far as temperatures for this time of year."
"But I think it's going to be slightly colder than normal," he adds, "According to the NOAA forecast in the States we're going to be seeing below normal temperatures for January, February and March and Environment Canada concurs with that. But we may see normal to above normal precipitation so at least the snow cover is there to protect those crops, and I'm sure everything will be fine going into April."
Chalmers says where we are lacking in the depth of snow, we do have the moisture in place to support the winter crop. "As long as we have a few inches of cover," he adds. "What really matters is that snow in March that bumps up against spring and boosts our soil moisture at the right time."