Manitoba Agronomists Gather Online For Annual Conference

Dec 18, 2020

The Manitoba Agronomists Conference took place online this week.

Provincial Pulse Specialist Dennis Lange gave a presentation on dry beans.

"We ended up with about 185,000 acres of dry beans in the province, which is up from what we've seen in previous years," he said. "Most times in the last number of years, we've been kind of averaging around the 130,000 range. Definitely a lot more beans that went into the ground this year."

Lange expects to see a few less dry bean acres next year.

"We might be in that 180,000 range, a little less than what we were seeing this year, maybe even down to maybe that 160,000 range. Time will tell. Probably the biggest reasons for that is we do have competing crops. We do have crops like peas that did really well this year. We have soybeans, yields were also much better this year. We got more moisture. A lot will depend upon a grower's rotation."

He says one of the challenges the dry bean industry has is volunteer soybeans, which can cause shipment rejections at the bean plant. Soybeans are considered a food allergen in the dry bean markets.

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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.