It’s a tale of two very different edible bean crops in Ontario and Manitoba this season. While the warm July weather has been favourable for Manitoba crops, extreme moisture in mid-June has caused a lot of water damage to Ontario beans.
“The crops are reasonable this season, but there’s quite a bit of water damage in main bean growing areas,” Brian Hall, chair of the Ontario Pulse Crop Committee, said. “There’s root rot in the crops and it’s by far the worst that I’ve seen in quite a few years.”
The severe nature of the root rot in Ontario’s edible beans is likely to affect production.
“I think the root rot is going to hold back the yield this year,” Hall said. “It’s hard to say where the averages are going to come in at this point though.”
Ontario crops are also roughly a week behind where they should be at this time of the season, due to delayed seeding in June.
“Normal planting is the end of May, early June,” Hall said. “Some beans went in the ground in early June, but rain caused a lot of planting to get delayed, so a lot of beans were put into the ground later in June. We’re a good seven to 10 days behind in growth than a normal year.”
In Manitoba, the story is much different for edible beans.
“We’re seeing fewer acres than previous seasons, but the crops are looking pretty good,” Dennis Lange, a production advisor with Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Initiatives in Altona, said. “We’ve had lots of heat recently and good growing conditions, so crops have really caught up.”
Lange said most of the crops are in the flowering stage, although the earlier planted beans are already podding.
“The crops are looking good and there’s nothing of any major concern,” he said. “There are a lot of positives out there right now.”
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