Canada: Winter wheat hits corn-like yields on Prairies

showed that AAC Coldfront reached a yield of 200 bu. per acre under irrigation. “Starting to sound like corn yields,” Rob Graf, the retired Agriculture Canada wheat breeder who developed AAC Coldfront, said in a posting on X. These yields are from irrigated fields and plots and are much, much higher than winter wheat yields on dryland. Why it matters: The yields demonstrate the potential of the latest varieties of winter wheat and the opportunity for big profits, if growing conditions are ideal. The 160 bu. across the 120 acres came from a variety called AAC Overdrive. The winter wheat was weighed and the yield is accurate, said Crooymans, who runs Crooymans Family Seed Farms in Bow Island. “When the hired man was combining, he said there were times when it (winter wheat) pushed 170 to 180 (bu.).” Such yields are encouraging for proponents of winter wheat, a crop that has struggled to grab acres in Western Canada over the last decade. From 2010-15, Saskatchewan and Manitoba had ...