Glacier FarmMedia – Planted dry bean acres in Manitoba are expected to increase for 2024/25. While Statistics Canada projected the Keystone Province to see 201,000 acres, a specialist with Manitoba Agriculture said those acres are likely to be a little bit below the StatCan estimate.
Dennis Lange, industry development pulses specialist, said dry bean producers seeded about 145,000 acres in 2023/24. For 2024/25 he said that should increase to just short of 200,000 acres.
“The increases are going to be in pinto and black beans mainly,” he added.
Dry beans yields in 2023/24 were quite good Lange said, but below the record yields in 2022/23. Nevertheless that decent harvest last year led farmers to make plans to plant more dry beans.
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Lange said current soil conditions in Manitoba’s dry bean growing areas are presently not a major concern as planting takes place most often from mid to late May.
“The better the ‘moistureness’ we have in the topsoil, the more ideal planting conditions we are going to have,” he commented.
Should the soil be on the dry side, Lange said the farmers will seed a little deeper, meaning the beans would then take a bit longer to emerge.
Manitoba dry bean prices increased this week, according to Prairie Ag Hotwire. As of Apr. 16, pinto beans had the largest gain, moving up eight cents at 61.5 to 65 cents per pound. Dark and light kidney beans rose 6.3 cents at 56 to 58.8 cents/lb. and black beans were up two cents at 57.3 to 60.5 cents/lb. The other dry bean varieties – navy, cranberry, great northern, and small red – incurred smaller upticks of 0.5 to 0.8 of a cent.
Prairie Ag Hotwire did not report any dry bean prices for other provinces.
— Glen Hallick reports for MarketsFarm from Winnipeg.
