Corn Growers Looking To Rebound After Difficult 2019

The Manitoba Corn Growers Association (MCGA) gathered in Winnipeg earlier this month at CropConnect for the group's Annual General Meeting.

 

President Dennis Thiessen says last year was one of the toughest years in recent memory.

 

"In my 20 years of growing corn, I've never seen anything so difficult," he commented. "Probably the most challenging I saw was the guys trying to take corn silage off. They already had suffered from short alfalfa crops and the damage that was done to the fields was astronomical, really. We'll see some of that affected in the next crops from those fields."

 

He commented further on the 2020 season.

 

"We have a lot of crop residue out there. It will take a little while to dry the fields and to get on there and plant other crops. It will be a challenging spring for farmers, whether it's corn or any other crop. Weather will dictate our success in 2020 but we're always optimistic that things will work out. I remember 2016 was very wet, yet 2017 was a very nice spring and we got everything planted and the crops did well in 2017. We remain hopeful."

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.