Sunflower farming in Ontario

Aug 13, 2025
By Andrew Joseph
Assistant Editor, North American Content, Farms.com

It doesn’t matter where they are grown—sunflower heads turn to follow the sun. Image by Pablo Valerio from Pixabay.

While Manitoba dominates sunflower production in Canada—accounting for about 90 percent of the national output (https://oggardenonline.com/where-in-canada-are-sunflowers-grown.html)—Ontario is home to a growing number of sunflower farms.

These farms are often smaller in scale and serve both commercial and agritourism purposes.

There are at least 13 notable sunflower farms across Ontario, including Davis Family Farm and Campbell’s Cross Farm, both in Caledon, and The Sunflower Farm in Beaverton.

These Ontario farms not only grow sunflowers for seed and oil but also host seasonal festivals, yoga sessions, and photography events, drawing thousands of visitors each summer.

Sunflowers thrive in Ontario’s warm, sunny summers and well-drained soils. The growing process typically begins in mid- to late-May, when seeds are planted directly into the soil after the last frost.

Growing Process (per www.elenasgarden.ca/Growing-Sunflowers-Guide):

Planting: seeds are sown in full sun, spaced to allow for airflow and root development;
Watering: While sunflowers are drought-tolerant, they benefit from weekly watering during dry spells;
Fertilizing: Organic fertilizers are applied every two to three weeks to support rapid growth;
Pollination: Sunflowers attract bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds, which help pollinate nearby crops.

By mid-summer, sunflowers can reach heights of 150 to 180 cm (five to six feet). The flower heads follow the sun during the day—a phenomenon known as heliotropism—until they mature and begin to droop downward.

Harvesting Sunflowers
Harvest time for sunflowers typically occurs from late September to October, depending on the variety and weather conditions. Farmers look for signs of maturity such as drooping flower heads, yellowing or browning petals, and full, firm seeds.

Depending on the size of the operation, there are two options for harvesting available: manual and mechanical.

Manual harvest is typically performed for small-scale or garden operations, where the heads are cut from the stalk and seeds are rubbed out by hand. Larger farms use combines equipped with sunflower headers to efficiently harvest and separate seeds.

To prevent bird damage and seed loss, some farmers use desiccants to dry the crop uniformly before harvest.

Sunflowers grown in Canada are used for:

Cold-pressed sunflower oil;
Roasted snack seeds—evidence can be found at any kid’s baseball game;
Birdseed blends;
Baking ingredients;
Ornamental bouquets.

Canada produces both oilseed and confectionery varieties, with most exports going to the United States (about 80 percent) and smaller volumes to the Middle East and Europe, according to Diverse Fields Crop Cluster (DFCC) (www.dfcc.ca/sunflower).

Sunflowers in the Global Market
Globally, sunflower production is dominated by countries like Ukraine, Russia, and the European Union, which together produce over 50 million metric tons annually, said the DFCC.

Canada, according to www.datapandas.org, ranks 38th globally in sunflower oil production, with an annual output of approximately 19,400 metric tons, placing it well behind major producers like Ukraine (4.4 million metric tons), Russia (4.1 million metric tons), and Argentina (931,700 metric tons), according to the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service.

Despite Canada’s modest sunflower production, it plays a niche role in supplying high-quality confectionery seeds and cold-pressed oil, primarily for domestic use and limited export.

With a low share of the global sunflower seed export market, the Canadian sunflower industry is working to expand through research and market development.

The Manitoba Crop Alliance, for example, is investing in hybrid development and production research to improve yields and profitability.

Saskatchewan has a growing interest in sunflower production, especially in the southeast and south-central regions. The Saskatchewan Sunflower Committee (SSC) is leading efforts to expand the crop’s presence. Their initiatives include developing new sunflower cultivars suited to local conditions, partnering with plant breeders in North Dakota, and hosting annual field days and seminars to promote research and grower engagement.

In 2024, Saskatchewan Crop Insurance reported 2,614 acres of insured sunflowers, and exports from the province have ranged from 115 to 324 metric tonnes annually, according to www.saskatchewan.ca.

Southern Alberta has seen a modest but growing share of sunflower acreage. While not as organized as Manitoba or Saskatchewan, Alberta farmers are increasingly planting sunflowers as part of crop rotations, especially in areas with irrigation, according to https://mbcropalliance.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Sunflower_Production_Guide.pdf. The province benefits from processors located in the Red River Valley and southern Alberta that support confectionery sunflower types.

Ontario’s sunflower farming is smaller in scale but diverse in purpose. Yes, farms in southern Ontario grow sunflowers for confectionery seed production and cold-pressed oil, but the farms are also involved in agritourism and direct-to-consumer sales.

Ontario’s sunflower farms also contribute to biodiversity and pollinator support, and some are involved in small-scale research and hybrid trials.

Challenges and Opportunities
Like most crops in Ontario, sunflower farming faces several challenges, such as competition from other crops like soybeans and corn, bird damage during seed maturation, and limited processing infrastructure when compared to western provinces.

However, opportunities for sunflower farming are growing in the province.

There continues to be a rising demand for healthy oils, an increased interest in local and sustainable crops, and an expansion of agritourism and direct-to-consumer sales. Give the people what they want.

While sunflower farming in Ontario may be small in scale, it’s rich in potential.

With their dual appeal as a commercial crop and a seasonal attraction, sunflowers are carving out a bright niche in the province’s agricultural scene.

As consumer demand for healthy, sustainable products grows, Ontario’s sunflower farmers are well-positioned to bloom.

Video: Can Gene Editing Give Seeds a Stronger Start?

Reagan Reed has a way of describing his research that might make a plant breeder pause.

“I’m the sort of person who likes to break things to understand them,” he says.

What he breaks are genes involved in seed germination. Reed, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California, Davis, is investigating whether changing those genes can help seeds establish healthy plants under a wider range of conditions.

Reed recently attended the National Association for Plant Breeding meeting in College Station, Texas, as an NAPB Borlaug Scholar. His work speaks to a question that matters well beyond a research lab: what does it take for a seed to get a crop off to a strong start?

A seed that germinates quickly, alongside the others planted with it, spends less time vulnerable to stresses before seedlings become established.

“If you’re able to bridge that gap between germination to stand establishment, then that’s going to give you the highest probability of having a solid yield that year,” Reed says. “There’s a bunch that can go wrong after that, but it maximises your yield from the start, at least.”

Reed works in Dr. Imtiyaz Khanday’s lab at UC Davis, where his research focuses on seed quality in tomatoes and potatoes. He brings an unusual academic background to the work: at Skidmore College, he studied both biology and Latin.

Reed believes that combination prepared him for research. Translating an ancient text means studying each word, weighing its possible meanings and using context to reach the best interpretation. There is rarely a way to know with complete certainty what an author intended. Science, he says, requires a similar willingness to work through uncertainty.

“Attention to detail and comfortability working with uncertainty,” is how he sums up what Latin taught him.

In the lab, uncertainty can produce a surprise. Reed describes changing one gene and seeing little effect. Changing a second gene also appears to do little. Put both changes in the same genetic background, though, and the result can be substantial.

“I break this gene, nothing really happens. I break this other gene, nothing really happens. I combine them into the same genetic background, and now there’s a massive effect,” he says.

Those interactions matter as researchers gain the ability to edit multiple genes at once. They also complicate any simple account of how a trait works: improving a seed may depend on understanding what several genes do together.

For Reed, the question is whether that knowledge could help seeds germinate reliably when conditions are difficult. Some of the genes he studies prevent germination under certain conditions. That response may serve a plant well in one setting while limiting its usefulness in agriculture. He wants to learn what happens when those genes are changed, and whether the result improves establishment.

Yet a discovery that works in a lab still has a long way to travel before it reaches a field. Reed argues that agricultural biotechnology faces an economic challenge as well as a scientific one. New tools can create value for farmers, he says, but developing them requires a way to support the work in an industry where margins can be thin.

His fellowship with Flagship Pioneering gave him a view across AI, agriculture-related work and human health research. It also reinforced the importance of bringing people with different expertise into the same conversation—a benefit of gatherings such as the NAPB meeting.

“You need to have a team of people with different backgrounds who are willing to work together and approach the same problem in different perspectives and different ways,” he says.

That thinking connects the different parts of Reed’s path. Latin taught him to examine details without expecting a perfect answer. Gene editing lets him test what individual genes do—and what happens when their effects combine. Working with people beyond his own field helps him ask what those findings could become.

He came to agriculture because of its reach: the possibility that work by a small group of researchers could eventually make a difference on a much larger scale. His immediate focus is smaller and more precise. He wants to understand what helps a seed get through its first days and become a healthy plant.