Potato planting underway this year

May 16, 2022

Potato planting has begun in some areas of the province.

As of Friday, Vikram Bisht with Manitoba Agriculture, says roughly five thousand acres have been seeded, most of those in the Shilo/Carberry area. That amounts to roughly five to seven per cent of total acres. By mid-May, that number would be in the range of 50 to 60 per cent.

Bisht talked about concerns around the delay in seeding.

"There would be certain varieties which may not have enough time but we have been surprised with good weather towards the end and so we probably need to cross our fingers with fewer days left it could be a tight situation towards harvest time."

He also touched on soil conditions.

"The moisture in the soil profile is pretty good. The deeper soil profile numbers are very nice but it is the top five to twenty centimetres which is really soaked in many places so that is a point of concern. If potatoes or any other crop is planted into soils which are wet for a long time and they don't have seed treatment, there is going to be a lot of emergent issues. A lot of crops have seed treatment on them and so that is probably going to be one of the best investments this year."

Bisht says the soil temperatures are similar to this time last year, which is around 10 to 12 degrees Celsius.

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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.