The 2021 estimates come from a StatCan survey of 3,133 Manitoba farmers conducted from October 8 to November 12.

Spring wheat

Total spring wheat production fell 29.2 per cent to 3.7 million tonnes in 2021. Farmers reported a decline in harvested area, down 9.2 per cent to 2.8 million acres, while average yield decreased 22.1 per cent to 47.9 bushels per acre.

Canola

Harvested acres dedicated to canola increased 0.3 per cent compared with 2020 to 3.4 million acres, while average yield fell 28.3 per cent to 29.7 bushels per acre. As a result, production of canola fell 28.2 per cent to 2.3 million tonnes in 2021.

Corn for grain

Average corn for grain yield in Manitoba fell 21.8 per cent in 2021 to 95.5 bushels per acre, while harvested area decreased 1.0 per cent to 363,800 acres. Consequently, production was down 22.6 per cent to 882,639 tonnes.

Soybeans

Harvested acres dedicated to soybeans increased 14.1 per cent compared with 2020 to 1.3 million acres, while average yield fell 27.3 per cent to 27.1 bushels per acre. As a result, production of soybeans fell 17.1 per cent to 963,764 tonnes in 2021.

Dry beans

Total dry bean production fell 45.1 per cent to 109,436 tonnes in 2021. Farmers reported a decline in harvested area, down 7.6 per cent to 188,400 acres, while average yield decreased 40.7 per cent to 12.8 hundredweight per acre.

Barley

Average barley yield in Manitoba fell 31.4 per cent in 2021 to 54.8 bushels per acre, while harvested area decreased 8.2 per cent to 362,000 acres. Consequently, production was down 37.1 per cent to 431,591 tonnes.

Oats

Harvested acres dedicated to oats decreased 14.6 per cent compared with 2020 to 555,000 acres, while average yield fell 36.8 per cent to 70.4 bushels per acre. As a result, production of oats fell 46.0 per cent to 602,724 tonnes in 2021.

Sunflower seeds

Total sunflower seed production fell 20.2 per cent to 72,901 tonnes in 2021. Farmers reported a decline in harvested area, down 10.7 per cent to 86,700 acres, while average yield decreased 10.7 per cent to 1,854 pounds per acre.

StatCan noted that percentage changes were calculated using data prior to rounding and there are tables on the Statistics Canada website with more precise values.

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“April is really going to tell the tale,” said Gregg Fotheringham, president of the National Sunflower Association of Canada. “If we see spring come in April when it’s supposed to come, I think we’re going to see a lot of sunflower acres back in the southwest, which we desperately need.”

Just over 85,000 acres of sunflowers were planted in Manitoba last year, about 30 per cent of those were confectionery. However, in the mid-2000s, acres peaked at roughly 190,000 and the association would like to see at least 100,000 acres planted this spring.

Fotheringham said poor weather conditions in the southwest really stymied growth last season.

“As a board we are shooting for that 100,000 mark… we fell short last year, but we felt that was attainable. So we’re still on the cusp, and we’re wondering what Mother Nature is going to give us between now and the first of May,” said Fotheringham, following the association’s annual general meeting at CropConnect in Winnipeg.

“We certainly went into the fall wet. But we haven’t had a lot of snowfall this winter, so lets hope that continues, and that we just have an early spring with no rain events. That’s what we need.”

A smaller crop also means getting new products and research to sunflower producers can be difficult — fewer research dollars and a reduced market for suppliers make attaining good information a bit of a battle, Fotheringham said. But he added that research is ongoing and that advances are being made, even on issues like sclerotinia. All of which makes the crop easier to produce.

“We’ve got more tools available to us than we did five years ago, that’s for sure,” he said.

And sunflowers continue to be in demand.

“There’s very favourable prices right now, in particular in the oilseed market, I’m hearing some 24 cents a pound for oil, I’m hearing 28 cents a pound for confects, those are very good prices at this time of year, and I think our processors still have acres available, so it pencils out very well,” Fotheringham said, encouraging farmers to see if the crop fits with their rotation.

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The four pests can affect sunflower yield and quality, especially in confectionery sunflowers where the seed is sold for human consumption.

“You have to be in the crop looking at what’s going on before you know what the issues really are and if it’s time to do something about them,” Kubinec said during an MAFRD webinar July 30.

Sunflower rust

Sunflower rust was bad in 2008 and 2009, she said. There was some in 2010 and pockets in 2013.

Sunflower rust is specific to sunflowers and cyclical so it can be reduced through crop rotation.

Farmers should try to find out the crop and disease history in fields adjacent to their sunflower fields. The fungal disease overwinters in sunflower residue. Spores can be produced and infect nearby sunflower fields.

Sunflowers are most at risk at the early- to mid-bloom stage, Kubinec said.

Infected leaves have cinnamon-coloured spots. The infection will start on the lower leaves, but can move up.

“The critical time when rust can affect the plant is at R4, where the head is still somewhat closed but you can see the odd little ray petal, to the end of R5 when your flowering and pollination have occurred,” Kubinec said.

“If you are seeing it on the lower leaves keep a close eye on it as it moves up.

“You’re not wanting to pull the trigger (and apply a fungicide) until the top four leaves are affected.”

A fungicide should be applied when only about one per cent of the leaves are infected.

Skip spraying if the top leaves are infected at R6 stage when the ray petals are starting to wilt off the head. The crop has advanced enough that the disease won’t have much effect on yield, she said.

• From Crop Chatter: Sunflower staging and guessing maturity

Head rot

Sclerotinia head rot — the same fungal disease that attacks canola — is often a problem because there’s so much inoculum around. Even if a susceptible crop such as sunflowers or canola haven’t been grown in a field for several years, disease ascospores can easily migrate from other nearby fields, causing infections if humidity is high in the crop.

In 2012, a fungicide was registered for control of the disease in sunflowers, but like in canola, it must be applied before the crop is infected.

Farmers need to assess the risk to their crop and whether the crop is worth protecting, Kubinec said. Factors to consider include whether susceptible crops were grown in recent years in that field or nearby and if the crop canopy is humid.

Head rot ascospores need moist conditions as well as sunflower pollen to feed on, Kubinec said. That’s why a fungicide needs to be applied before a lot of pollen is produced.

“If you’re spraying for head rot at R3 it’s probably a bit too early,” she said. “If your flowers are already done pollinating it’s probably a little too late. What we do target is that R5.1 to 5.2.”

MAFRD has a sclerotinia assessment tool for canola and hopes to soon post one for sunflowers on its website, Kubinec said.

Sunflowers staging varies a lot this year. Kubinec said two weeks ago fields she had seen varied from R3 to R5.5.

“Where you really do want to pull the trigger specifically for that head rot fungicide application is when 50 to 80 per cent of that field is at R5.1 to R5.2,” she said. “Any earlier you’re probably not having a lot of that pollen and later will be too late.”

Insects

Controlling head-attacking insects is critical in confectionery sunflowers, Kubinec said.

The farmer first needs to accurately identify insects he or she sees in their crop. Some insects are beneficial because they attack harmful insects.

The economic threshold for controlling lygus bugs in confectionery sunflowers with an insecticide is one insect per nine sunflower heads, Kubinec said.

The ideal crop stage for control is between R4 and R5.1. That’s earlier than ideal for sclerotinia control, but the two sprays can be applied then, Kubinec said. The farmer just needs to decide which pest poses the most risk — lygus or sclerotinia.

Farmers should spray sunflowers to control the banded sunflower moth when there are at least two per head. (The adult moth lays its eggs on the sunflower and it’s larvae feeding on the seed that does the damage.)

The moth is whitish to brown in colour with a distinct black to dark-brown triangle on its back. They will be more prevalent on the edges of the field.

“Try to time your scouting at dusk or dawn,” Kubinec said.

They are more active when it’s cooler.

The ideal crop stage to control the adult moth is R4 to R5.1.

“That’s when you’ll want to be keeping track of those insects,” she said.

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Scott Chalmers, a diversification technician with Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Initiatives, told producers at the annual Special Crops Symposium in Winnipeg that plant is a possible cover crop for sunflowers.

“It’s used classically as an organic plow-down,” he said. “Organic guys would grow this super-robust, green crop that fixes nitrogen and then plow it under — that would be their fertilizer the next year.”

Chalmers thinks the same qualities that make hairy vetch a solid choice for green manure also make it ideal for use as a cover crop in an intercropped system.

Field tests were begun last season using hairy vetch with sunflowers, but the final results were a bit inconclusive.

“The birds ate the results,” said the technician.

But before the birds cut the party short, Chalmers said researchers were able to collect SPAD readings from the test plots, which identify the amount of chlorophyll in a plant’s leaves.

“We measured sunflower leaves to see if there was a difference between having hairy vetch in the plot with it or not, turns out there wasn’t a difference, so that is good news,” he said.

That means the wiry legume isn’t competing with the sunflower for energy, said Chalmers, adding more work still needs to be done to determine what, if any, effect the practice has on sunflower yield.

More test plots are planned for 2013.

The researcher’s hypothesis is that not only does vetch squeeze out weeds at the crucial six-leaf stage of development in a sunflower’s life, it may also help reduce input costs for subsequent crops.

In more southern climates, some farmers are using hairy vetch with corn for just that reason.

“Corn is a very high-input crop, and if you just plant corn, and then you plant, say, wheat the next year, your wheat will be starved of nitrogen,” said Chalmers. “But if you have a legume component in there, your balance for the next year is offset.”

In fact it was the high cost of fertilizer in 2007 and 2008 that led him to the idea of using hairy vetch in the first place. The technician asked the University of Manitoba for some seed to try out and he quickly became hooked on hairy.

“I guess that’s when I fell in love with the crop,” he said. “We planted it and it was just robust and prolific, and a very unusual legume.”

Now he’s moved beyond just looking at the winding, climbing plant as a nitrogen fixer, Chalmers also sees an opportunity for the production of domestic hairy vetch seeds.

Currently, almost all seed comes from the United States, and price ranges between $2 and $3 per pound. That adds up considering it can take up to 35 pounds of seed per acre to achieve ground cover.

But if you’re looking to use hairy vetch for grazing, after it’s run its course as a cover crop, seeds are the last thing a producer wants.

“That seed can cause poisoning in livestock,” he said. But given that vetch is usually planted in the fall to achieve seed production, that shouldn’t be an issue for a crop that’s planted in the spring as a cover crop.

Grazing also takes care of residue, while adding additional nitrogen to the field via the livestock.

Chalmers notes the research into hairy vetch and sunflowers is still in the early stages, but said he wanted to get producers looking ahead to new possibilities, and other crop options.

“I want them to kind of open up their minds to how we can improve what we’re doing now, with some of the natural systems out there,” he said. “Maybe we have become too focused on the monocrop culture.”

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Producers should always be on the lookout for sclerotinia and rust, Holly Derksen said at the recent Manitoba Special Crops Symposium.

“When we do have a wet year, those are ones to watch for,” said Derksen, a plant pathologist with Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Initiatives.

Scouting for rust is especially important because it’s a disease that can be treated.

“Rust is not generally a huge issue, but it is one we actually have fungicides for,” she said.

If rust appears on the upper four leaves of a sunflower with a one per cent or greater severity at any point before petals start to fall off, it’s time to spray, Derksen said.

“I don’t think it happens very often where we get to the stage where disease is that high, but it’s something growers can look for,” she said. “Because like most diseases, by the time you see it, it’s too late.”

Unlike other crops affected by rust, sunflowers don’t need to wait for spores to blow into an area for infection to occur. Sunflower rust can complete its entire life cycle on the sunflower plant, infecting each year if there’s not proper rotation.

Sclerotinia

A more serious threat to sunflowers in Manitoba is sclerotinia.

“Sclerotinia is our biggest yield robber in terms of diseases in sunflowers,” Derksen said.

The fungal disease can cause head rot, as well as basal and mid-stock rot, and thrives in damp conditions.

“If the last two years were any indication, the drier years are definitely very beneficial for sunflower growers, because we don’t have a lot of control options for a lot of our diseases in sunflowers,” said Derksen. “When it’s a wet year, sunflower guys can get pretty hard hit and not be able to do much about it.”

Two fungicides for sunflower head rot did hit the market two years ago, but without a bad sclerotinia year to test them out on, Derksen said most producers have yet to make use of them.

“But we’re not going to have dry years every year, so eventually we will be able to really test these fungicides and see how they perform,” she said.

However, sprayed fungicides won’t help producers treat basal rot. Derksen said that requires a different mentality and a long-term plan.

Biofungicides, which attack the disease in the soil and deactivate it before it can attack the plant, need to be applied in off years before a sunflower crop is planted to be effective, she said.

But in order to know what your land needs next year, the pathologist said it’s important to keep a close eye on what your crop is doing this year, and which diseases are affecting it.

“Don’t just go out and scout once, go out and continually scout,” she said. “I know sometimes later in the year you’re past the point where you can do anything about it… but it’s still important for your future management, things like rotation and tillage.”

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“It’s getting to be more of an issue every year,” Bud Pittenger told producers during the annual Special Crops Symposium in Winnipeg.

“The sunflowers are drying down so much faster nowadays … there is a lot of header loss at the combine.”

Lower U.S. production has pushed up prices, increasing the incentive to reduce harvest losses, said Pittenger.

“One thing you can do, is to try and combine them a little on the wetter side,” said the veteran sunflower grower. “With higher moisture content you get less shatter.”

That trick helps in another way, too, said Marcel Vallotton, who farms southeast of Brandon.

“I usually do them a little wetter anyways because of the birds,” he said. “If I can, I try to get to them before the birds do.”

Devin Toews uses a regular header with pans attached to reduce losses, but it’s not always the perfect fit for his 600 acres of confection sunflowers.

“It’s an issue, whether it’s feeding problems, or losses, there are always issues when it comes to harvesting,” said the Portage la Prairie-area farmer.

“Every year is a little different, the last couple of years have been a little tougher.”

Using a regular all-crop header with pans is more affordable than the alternative — investing in a specialized sunflower header for his combine, he said.

Harvest losses can range from six to 30 per cent, said Pittenger, who works for Sheyenne Tooling & Manufacturing, which makes sunflower headers.

Investing in specialized equipment is “a balancing act” that requires each producer to look at their operation and decide what course of action is best for them.

Harvesting seeds when their moisture content is higher also has associated costs, said producers at the symposium.

After harvesting his 500 to 600 acres of confection sunflowers each year, Vallotton uses a dryer to avoid excess moisture in the bin and prevent spoilage.

No matter how dry seeds are at harvest, you still want to take care during the storage period, said Luke Remillard.

“This fall was an exceptional fall, most of the crop went in dry to overdry,” he said. “But it never hurts to take a look now and then, or pull a load or turn it. But so far so good.”

He said sunflower farmers also need to exercise caution in the spring.

“Take that cold air out of there and bring them back to a sort of normal outside temperature,” he advised.

Buyers of confection sunflowers are very particular about the presence of fungus and spoilage issues, said Remillard.

Despite the challenges of growing sunflowers, yields have been high this year, with 2012 growing conditions benefiting the crop.

“Sunflowers thrive in the dry, warm weather,” said Toews. “We’ve really done well with them in the dry years for sure. They tap down and they don’t wilt up like corn, canola or wheat. They’re green all year.”

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“Yields are coming really good this year,” said Denis Touzin of Keystone Grain. “They like heat, and we had the heat.”

With an unusually dry fall making a pre-Thanksgiving harvest possible for the first time in years, early reports are pegging yields at 2,500 to 3,200 pounds for confectionery types with good test weights and few disease issues. About 90,000 acres of sunflowers were seeded this spring, nearly triple the 2011 acreage.

With roots reaching down five to seven feet, the crop was able to tap the generous amounts of subsoil moisture left over from last year’s deluge, said Touzin.

However, the bumper crop is weighing on prices, said Mike Durand of Deloraine-based Nestibo Agra, which has been buying black oil varieties.

“Yesterday I was at 28.5 (cents per pound), today I’m at 27,” he said.

Confectionery types, or “stripes,” are paying 27 for “round” and 28 for “long” shelled types, he added.

Of course, a good year for sunflowers is also a good year for blackbirds.

“There’s nothing worse than having your crop a month away from being put in the bin and it just being completely stolen,” said Claire Kincaid, a Wawanesa-based agronomist with the National Sunflower Association of Canada.

At Westman Agricultural Diversification Organization test plots near Melita, swarms of blackbirds had flown away with a good portion of the data from a plot trial consisting of 10 confectionery and 10 black oil varieties.

“In a couple of days the trial was cleaned out,” Kincaid said. “I don’t know how they flew away, they ate so much seed.”

Scare cannons only work for a few days before the birds become accustomed to them. Mowing cattail-filled potholes when they dry out “can help,” said Kincaid, because they are nesting sites for blackbirds.

Blackbird losses are of particular concern because they are not insurable.

The sunflower industry group is lobbying for emergency use of various products registered south of the border. Avipel, a non-lethal, cracked corn-based bait that causes digestive discomfort for birds has shown some efficacy, said Kincaid.

Some of the WADO plots showed signs of sclerotinia damage, a common pathogen that also infects canola. The soil-borne infection can travel up the root to the stalk creating a lesion that surrounds the stem and choking off the flow of nutrients, which results in plants flopping over and reducing seed weight. Sclerotia may continue to grow as black lumps in the stem, return to the soil and cause problems in subsequent canola crops, Kincaid noted.

However, spraying to prevent sclerotinia in sunflowers is problematic because it can attack the roots, leaves and heads.

Weed control is another issue, and herbicide-tolerant sunflower hybrids using Clearfield and Express technology are being developed to control grass and broadleaf weeds in-crop, said Fred Parnow of Seeds2000, a Minnesota-based company working on both oil and confection varieties.

“The other thing that’s really big in Canada is downy mildew resistance,” said Parnow.

Even test plots never seeded to sunflowers have shown very heavy downy mildew infection in certain varieties, said Day, who advises growers to consider resistant hybrids, especially in the southwest part of the province.

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Separate sunflower friend from foe before spraying, a provincial government entomologist reminded producers at the annual Special Crops Symposium.

“Ground beetles can destroy as much as 40 per cent of the sunflower beetles’ larvae over the winter, they’re important … and significant,” said John Gavloski. “It’s good to have them.”

The humble ground beetle, also known as the carabid beetle, isn’t alone in its culinary tastes. At least five species of parasitic wasps also feed on the larvae of sunflower pests, noted Gavloski.

And despite its name, the minute pirate bug is also one of the good bugs. It attacks and feeds on instar eggs as well as some larvae.

But the banded sunflower moth, sunflower beetle, lygus bugs, midge and red sunflower seed weevil continue to require vigilance, said the entomologist.

“Sunflower midge may be increasing, or it could be, depending on the weather,” said Gavloski. “They like early moist soil, so another wet spring could make it an issue.”

The banded sunflower moth may also increase in the coming year, although trap levels varied from field to field in 2011, he said. However, seed weevils remain at low levels in most areas of the province and aren’t expected to be a major issue in 2012.

Late planting can reduce the amount of damage caused by the banded sunflower moth, but there is a trade-off because damage by red sunflower seed weevil is slowed by early planting, Gavloski said.

“So you need to consider what is the biggest risk in your area and plan ahead,” he said.

What type of sunflower you grow is also a factor. Gavloski noted 10 to 12 weevils per plant is the threshold for treating oilseeds, compared to one to two per plant for confection seeds.

As with all pesticides, farmers need to take the honeybee population into account.

“Sunflowers will self-pollinate to some degree, but if you have a good honeybee population you will have a higher yield,” said Gavloski.

He added that using less toxic pesticides should be considered, noting less toxic doesn’t necessarily mean less effective.

The entomologist also suggested producers spray late in the evening when fewer pollinators are out.

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“It’s kind of at a stalemate to a certain degree for prices despite what little sunflower is out there,” said Roger Kissick, sunflower analyst with Linear Grain.

Grant Fehr, of Keystone Grain, said the slow North American birdseed market this winter, along with soft demand in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, due to the large sunflower crops in Eastern Europe, have weighed on sunflower cash bids.

Short-term demand for Canadian sunflower will continue to be slow. Argentina’s harvest is expected to start in three weeks, which will weigh on prices, and advance the global supply, Fehr said.

However, despite the weak demand, prices have managed to hold steady. Restricted supply, along with reluctant sellers, have been supportive towards values, Kissick said.

With tight supply and reluctant sellers keeping sunflower cash bids solid, drought concerns in Argentina could advance prices later in the year, Fehr said.

The potential for new export business in the emerging Pacific Rim markets, including China, was also seen adding to the firmness in Canadian sunflower values.

As sunflower producers look for new export business, total Canadian area is expected to increase. Farmers are expected to plant around 90,000 acres in the spring of 2012, said Claire Kincaid, agronomist with the National Sunflower Association of Canada. That’s more than double last year’s 42,000 acres that were seeded across Canada, she said.

Kissick said that if the dry weather seen so far this winter continues into the spring, the area seeded to sunflowers would increase even more, given that sunflowers were more resistant to dry conditions than alternative crops.

Confectionery sunflower seed varieties make up roughly 75 per cent of Canada’s sunflower production, while the oilseed varieties account for 25 per cent.

The oil sunflower seed types have been bringing 33 cents per pound in the spot market, while confectionery sunflowers have been bringing 30 cents per pound, according to Prairie Ag Hotwire data.

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The size and quality of Manitoba s sunflower crop is still very much up in the air, but the sheer lack of acres planted this spring will keep supplies on the tight side and should underpin the domestic market.

Manitoba accounts for nearly all of Canada s sunflower production, and the provincial crop is currently estimated at only 16,400 tonnes by Statistics Canada, which compares with 67,500 tonnes a year ago. Wet conditions in the spring were said to have limited how many acres of the long season crop were able to go in the ground.

Widespread frost the morning of Sept. 14 and 15 likely caused only minimal damage to the few sunflower fields in the province, many crops were thought to be quite mature, according to a Manitobabased sunflower dealer.

It s a wait and see game right now, said the dealer. He expected the harvest to begin in another three to four weeks, depending on the weather.

From a marketing standpoint, prices in southern Manitoba are strong at 35 cents per pound for confectionery and up to 40 cents per pound for oilseed sunflowers, according to the dealer. While the spread between the two varieties typically favours confectionery seed, the relative tightness in the oilseed market was accounting for the relative strength there.

The lack of domestic supplies was limiting the activity in the market, and could lead to a slow export program.

China, Argentina, and Hungary all have large crops, which will make it hard to export North American supplies, said the dealer.

With the U.S. also planting fewer sunflower acres, North American supplies will be on the tight side going forward, which should be supportive for prices. However, stocks will still be larger than the domestic demand, which means those supplies going to the export market will likely see prices come under pressure given the larger product ion elsewhere.

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