Province Releases Soybean Maturity Zone Map

Soybeans are being grown in areas of the province only once dreamed of.

It's all thanks to the development early maturing varieties.

Manitoba Agriculture Pulse Specialist Dennis Lange says that back in the year 2000, there were only two mid-season varieties available, while in 2016 there were over 65 varieties tested in provincial trials.

"If you look at what growers are actually growing, within our top 10 varieties there's only two long-season varieties," he explained. "The rest of the varieties are early to mid-season. What it's showing us is that there's a move towards early maturing and that's really helped expand the acres in Manitoba."

Lange says soybean acres in Manitoba have expanded from about 20,000 in the year 2000, to over 1.6 million acres grown in 2016. That number could reach 2 million acres this growing season.

He adds in 2015 almost 40 per cent of soybeans were grown in the western part of the province and that number keeps increasing.

To help growers choose a soybean variety, Manitoba Agriculture has published a soybean maturity zone map which can be found in the 2017 issue of Seed Manitoba.