Canada: Winter wheat hits corn-like yields on Prairies

At a trial site in Manitoba and on irrigated cropland in Alberta, winter wheat produced some eye-popping yields this year.

John Crooymans, who farms near Bow Island, Alta., recorded his highest yield of winter wheat ever, hitting 160 bushels per acre on a 120-acre field with pivot irrigation.

At Portage la Prairie, Man., trial data 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 400,000 to 700,000 combined acres of winter wheat, each year.

However, acres started declining around 2017, sinking to 100,000 to 200,000 annually.

One reason for the drop is spring wheat yields. Newer varieties allowed Prairie farmers to hit 60 to 80 bu. per acre on hard red spring wheat, reducing the historical yield advantage of winter wheat.

However, the downward trend of winter wheat might be on the rebound.

In 2025, Alberta farmers had 183,000 acres of winter wheat and Saskatchewan had 126,000, Statistics Canada said. That’s the highest acreage in both provinces for five years or longer.

“Winter wheat (seed), for me the last couple of years, has been a bit of an easy sell,” Crooymans said.

“Probably a bigger percentage (of sales) this year to the irrigation farmers.”

New varieties with higher yield potential are getting growers’ attention, but some farmers are planting winter wheat for erosion control, he added.

If the crop looks good in the spring and prices are decent, a farmer will grow it out and harvest the winter wheat.

If not, they’ll apply a herbicide and plant spring wheat or durum on the field, Crooymans said.

“That’s becoming more of a trend.”

Tags: winter wheat, yields, corn