world’s biggest crops. By market clout, they’re two of the world’s most heavily muscled. And the two seem to go together like peanut butter and jelly.
They’re each one-half of the corn-soybean rotation that dominates huge chunks of North America from Quebec through the U. S. Midwest, wrapping around the southern Great Lakes region and then pushing westward into the heartland states of Illinois and Iowa.
On the very fringes of this corn-soybean belt are some Manitoba farmers who are approaching the crops differently on the fertile plains of the Red River Valley.
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Here they’re using corn and soybeans not so much as a a new rotation to replace the old, but as a supplement to existing established rotations, says Ontario transplant John Heard, a soils specialist with the Manitoba government. That can mean growers need both solid-seeding equipment and row-crop equipment.
“It’s a great place to be a machinery salesman,” says Heard with a chuckle.
On the other hand it may also account for some of the success of these cropping alternatives, human nature being what it is. The longtime corn growers in the area love growing corn, Heard says, and not necessarily for economic reasons.
“It’s a bit sexier, it requires a different line of equipment,” Heard says. “Some of this passion rubs off, it’s not always the biggest money-maker on the farm.”
There’s also the issue of growing corn on heavy clay soil where it can get waterlogged, says another individual who’s widely known as a tireless promoter of soybeans in the region. Bruce Brolley, the province’s pulse crop specialist says corn and soybeans don’t always meet in the rotation.
“Not to say it’s never done, but generally you’ll see corn on the lighter soils and soybeans on the heavier soils,” Brolley says.
It’s entirely a question of infrastructure, economics and crop agronomics, Brolley explains. Farmers in the Red River Valley don’t generally have the tile drainage that their cousins in southern Ontario enjoy, making land selection more important.
