The couple, who farm more than 4,000 acres near Hartney, southwest of Brandon, have been experimenting with split nitrogen applications — spreading their fertilizer across two or more passes during the season rather than front-loading everything at seeding.

For their corn acres in particular, the approach has helped them stay flexible when weather throws a curveball. Splitting nitrogen lets them spread out risk, workload and logistics through the season, Nathan Beernaert said.

“We’ve run off our residual early and been able to top up to where we needed to be later in the season. It’s saved our butt a couple times.”

WHY IT MATTERS: As well as being touted for reducing financial risk without hitting yields, split nitrogen application is among the practices caught up in the quest for fertilizer efficiency, assuming farmers can work it into their workflow.

The Beernaerts apply UAN 28-0-0 liquid nitrogen in season via drop nozzles, targeting the base of corn plants before tassel emergence. They’ve tried putting down 100, 50 and even zero per cent of their nitrogen needs at planting, followed with a mid-season top-off.

The results haven’t always been what they expected. One of their strongest corn crops came in a year when they applied no nitrogen at planting and put it all on later in a June–July pass, Nathan said.

“It went against a lot of the other experience we had doing that, and against some of the norms associated with nitrogen availability or crop uptake in corn.”

Research backs in-field experience

Splitting fertilizer applications is one of the identified best management practices rooted in 4R nutrient management philosophy, noted Xiaopeng Gao, professor of soil fertility at the University of Manitoba.

Holding back on some of the fertilizer at seeding can better match crop needs for nitrate requirements.

“Especially where the crops are small, they don’t need a lot of nitrogen at the beginning,” Gao said, adding that nitrogen applied later in the season matches the peak growth stages of the crop.

Why and how nitrogen gets lost

Across the Prairies, nitrogen use efficiency is often only about 50 to 60 per cent for the current year of application, meaning a large share of fertilizer isn’t taken up by the crop in the year it’s applied, Gao said.

Better timing can push that number higher, though there’s still a lack of data on exactly how much.

“If you can do a better job in terms of the 4Rs, especially if you can time the fertilizer supply better with the crop needs, that can improve the efficiency, maybe up to 70 per cent,” Gao said.

Nitrogen loss hits both at the farmer’s wallet and environmentally, and it happens through several pathways depending on soil type and location.

In Manitoba’s Red River Valley, with its heavy clay soils, nitrogen loss mainly happens through denitrification and the unfortunate transformation to nitrous oxide — the greenhouse gas at the heart of Western Canada’s fertilizer emissions debate and the government’s push to curb them. The risk is particularly high while ground is waterlogged during the spring melt.

On sandy soils, such as the potato lands around Carberry, the bigger risk is leaching. Shallow-rooted crops like potatoes, with their high nitrogen and water demands, are especially vulnerable to having the nitrogen they need leach away on coarse-textured ground with low water-holding capacity.

A third major loss pathway is ammonia volatilization — nitrogen escaping to the atmosphere when urea is broadcast on the soil surface rather than banded below ground.

“But if you can improve your placement by banding the soil, either side-banding or mid-row banding, that can effectively reduce the loss,” Gao said.

Other tools to reduce nitrogen loss

The Beernaerts are also considering nitrogen inhibitor products, which Gao said can make a real difference under the right conditions.

Enhanced efficiency fertilizers fall into two main categories: polymer-coated products like ESN, which slow down nitrogen release over time, and inhibitor-based products that include urease inhibitors and nitrification inhibitors.

The benefit of inhibitors is most pronounced when conditions are already driving significant nitrogen loss — a warm, wet early growing season, or in low-lying areas of a field prone to ponding and denitrification.

“Under that condition, if you use some inhibitor products, that will reduce the loss,” Gao said.

Under normal conditions though, if the nitrogen loss is already minimal, farmers shouldn’t expect a benefit by using those products, he added.

“It depends on the soil condition, the landscape and also the environment conditions,” Gao said.

Thinking beyond the next season

For the Beernaerts, nitrogen management is not just about the economics of a single season. With nitrogen making up roughly a quarter of their input costs, and prices that can spike suddenly based on global events, efficiency matters.

It’s also about setting up the farm for the long term.

“We want to set ourselves up for the future succession of the operation,” Chelsi Beernaert said. “We want to know that it’s in a good position to be left when we’re not around.”

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The USDA also issued its quarterly grain stocks report with stocks for soybeans bigger than anticipated, while those for corn were smaller and wheat virtually matched the average trade guess.

USDA forecasts seeded acres for 2026/27

The USDA predicted corn planting intentions at 95.34 million acres, which is down from 98.79 million acres U.S. farmers seeded last year, but less than the market projection of 94.37 million.

The shift away from corn to soybeans was not as large as the trade believed there was going to be.

“That was the big conversation, how many corn acres there was going to be, especially with the beans this year,” said Ryan Etnner, broker with Allendale Inc. in McHenry, Illinois.

• For daily market updates, visit the Western Producer Markets Desk

The report placed soybean acres at 84.70 million, up from 81.22 million last year, but short of the market projection of 85.55 million.

Ettner said the total wheat acres caught his eye, with how close the USDA was to the trade guess. The department placed its forecast at 43.78 million acres and trade called for 44.79 million. Last year, farmers planted 45.33 million acres of wheat.

Fertilizer issues could be down the road

The broker added that rising fertilizer prices did not have as great an effect on the switch from corn to soybeans. He said most U.S. farmers apply their fertilizer in the fall and what will go on the fields this spring was largely bought before the Middle East war.

“The bigger concern is fall of this year, if things don’t calm down over there by that point,” Ettner said. “Most people are assuming this is a larger 2027 issue if the war is still going on by the fall.”

USDA Planting Intentions (Millions of acres)

1 acre = 0.405 hectares

Grain stocks

As for grain stocks as of March 1, Ettner said there was some pre-report speculation that total corn could be as high as 9.30 billion bushels.

“The quarterly stocks all came in line. The one concern was ‘what if corn had come in bigger?’ and it didn’t,” Ettner said.

He added that corn stocks were going to be very large simply because of the size of the 2025/26 harvest.

USDA Grain Stocks as of March 1 (Billions of bushels)

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It ends a 75-year run as a frozen vegetable processor in the area, according to a social media post by Johnson Fresh Farms from Barnwell, one of the many fresh vegetable contractors to be affected, producing the sweet Taber corn the area is known for.

WHY IT MATTERS: Nortera plant closure in June leaves several southern Alberta producers scrambling to figure out what to put in their crop rotations with upcoming loss of contracts.

The affected 6,000 contracted acres in the southern Alberta produces 40 million pounds of frozen vegetables according to Johnson Fresh Farms.

“(It) is affecting several jobs and family farms including ours scrambling to figure out what we are going to grow to replace all those vegetable acres with,” said Johnson Fresh Farms in its post.

“That is why we are encouraging everyone to support your local farms and everyone that will be affected when the plant permanently closes. We have some ideas, but we’re gonna need your support, so stay tuned to find out.”

The news comes on the heels of Quebec-based Nortera buying in late October, the Green Giant and Le Sieur brands in Canada from New Jersey-based B&G Foods, and investing $28 million in its Saint-Denis-sur-Richelieu plant. Nortera also announced the closure of its Saint-Césaire plant which was scheduled for late January 2026.

The move has been dubbed a “strategic restructuring of its Canadian frozen facilities” according to a company press release, in a market increasingly challenged by international imports.

Over the coming months, production volumes and certain equipment from the Lethbridge plant will be transferred to several of the company’s other frozen facilities.

“Closing a facility is never an easy decision, especially given the dedication of our Lethbridge team,” said Hugo Boisvert, CEO of Nortera in a press release.

“Current market pressures have made it essential for us to consolidate our operations. By optimizing our manufacturing footprint, we are securing the future and the competitiveness of Nortera.”

The transition will affect approximately 70 employees at the plant.

Nortera is North America’s leading processor of frozen and canned vegetables. It operates 13 plants in Canada and the U.S.

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Soybean seedings, meanwhile, are expected to jump as some growers shift acres away from corn and wheat, which require more costly fertilizer, they said.

Farmers are entering the critical spring planting season under a cloud of uncertainty as the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran disrupts global trade, causing fertilizer and diesel costs to spike. The long-term U.S. trade relationship with China also remains unclear amid the ongoing trade war launched by President Donald Trump’s administration with the top soy importer.

U.S. net farm income

Meanwhile, U.S. net farm income is forecast to turn lower this year despite near-record government payments, marking the fourth straight year of crop producers facing tight margins, high production costs and low commodity prices.

The Trump administration is in the process of distributing $12 billion (C$16.6 billion) in aid to U.S. farmers. As the repercussions of the war rattle the broader economy, farm groups have urged Congress to approve additional aid.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is due to release its annual prospective plantings report on Tuesday, its first survey-based crop acreage estimate of the year. Analysts cautioned that the estimates, gleaned from farmer surveys conducted in the first half of March, could not fully account for disruptions and price impacts caused by the war, which began when the United States and Israel launched airstrikes across Iran on February 28.

“This particular planting intentions report, right out of the gates, is going to be viewed somewhat skeptically by the trade just because of the timing of the survey with the start of the war and how things have changed in terms of costs,” said Terry Linn, analyst with Linn & Associates in Chicago.

Analysts polled by Reuters, on average, projected corn plantings to drop to 94.371 million acres, down from 98.788 million acres in 2025, which was the most since 1936. Soybean seedings were seen at 85.549 million acres, up from 81.215 million a year ago.

Wheat plantings expected to fall

Plantings of spring wheat, grown in the northern Plains, are forecast to drop to 9.843 million acres, down from 9.990 million last year and the lowest since 1970. Prices for the high-protein grain have slumped since a record Canadian harvest last year.

Farmers in the U.S. Midwest farm belt normally rotate their fields with corn one year and soybeans the next, but profit projections and input costs can prompt farmers to deviate from their crop rotations in some fields.

“The fertilizer cost and fertilizer availability are the main drivers right now,” said Rich Nelson, chief strategist with Allendale. “But I would point out that we have questions about whether the USDA’s report will show the true story.”

Prices for urea fertilizer are up about 40 per cent since the start of the war while costs for anhydrous ammonia are up nearly 20 per cent, according to a report this week from economists at the University of Illinois.

“Given that nitrogen fertilizers are not used intensively on soybeans, higher nitrogen prices could also lead to a shift towards more soybean acres and fewer corn acres,” they said.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins this month estimated that about 75 per cent of farmers already had their fertilizer needs booked.

Hunt for alternatives

The hunt is on for alternatives that would insulate farmers from price volatility tied to natural gas in fertilizer markets, and be less carbon-intensive.

While natural gas powers the process of synthesizing most widely used ammonia fertilizers, there are efforts to power more ammonia production with renewable energy.

In Minnesota for example, a coalition of agriculture and conservation organizations launched the Minnesota Made Ammonia project on March 5 to build local ammonia production facilities in Minnesota that use renewable energy, according to a statement from the group.

Outside of the heart of the Midwest corn and soybean belt, farmers have more planting options, including hard red spring wheat, durum wheat, canola and cotton, analysts said.

Demand for biofuels swells

In North Dakota, the top spring wheat state and a key supplier of soybeans that are shipped to China via Pacific Northwest ports, rising fertilizer costs and trade uncertainty are likely to prompt some farmers to choose corn or canola over soybeans and wheat, analysts said.

The price of urea fertilizer has jumped at least $200 per ton since the start of the war, according to Jim Peterson, executive director of the North Dakota Wheat Commission.

“On a 50 bushel (per acre) wheat yield, you need another 40 or 50 cents a bushel to just cover that cost,” Peterson said.

Canola, grown in the northern Plains and in Canada, is also a viable option despite high fertilizer costs due to strong demand for vegetable oil for biofuel production. Demand for biofuels has swelled amid rising prices for petroleum-based fuels.

In the Delta, low cotton prices and costly inputs are likely to lead to the lowest cotton plantings in a decade as farmers may choose more profitable soybeans instead.

“If we go through the rest of March and into April with soybeans looking this much stronger than cotton, then, yes, we’ll see more acres move from cotton to soybeans,” said Barry Bean, president of Bean & Bean Cotton Company.

1 acre = 0.405 hectares

— Additional reporting by Ed White in Winnipeg, Renee Hickman in Chicago and Anmol Choubey in Bangalore

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The USDA releases its prospective plantings report on March 31, providing the first survey-based estimates on the upcoming U.S. growing season.

The trade sentiment ahead of the report is for a three-to-five-million-acre reduction in corn area from the 98.8 million acres grown in 2025 and a similarly sized increase in soybeans from the 81.2 million acres grown last year. Rising fertilizer costs due to the war could see even more area shift to soybeans.

Soybean/corn ratio

The soybean/corn ratio is calculated by dividing the soybean futures price by the corn futures price, with a number above 2.5 historically seen as favouring planting soybeans and a ratio below that tipping the scales to corn.

With May soybeans settling at US$11.7175 and corn at US$4.6725 on March 25, the ratio works out to 2.51 — slightly favouring soybeans.

However, the localized cash bid ratios across the countryside are more varied. Looking at a sampling of elevators in Illinois and Iowa the local soybean/corn ratios range from 2.35 to 2.65, meaning seeding corn looks more favourable in some areas and soybeans in others.

The high fertilizer costs and other metrics are also not caught in the ratio, which should keep speculation on the annual fight for acres at the forefront of the trade in the coming weeks.

Charts

May corn has traded in a range of US$4.40 to US$4.76 per bushel since the Middle East war started on Feb. 28. Fund traders added to the bullish bets, to sit on their largest net long in corn since February 2025 at about 230,000 contracts. The trend is still higher in corn, as that market looks to keep too many acres from flipping to soybeans.

May soybeans settled at US$11.7075 per bushel on Feb. 27, the day before the U.S. and Israel first attacked Iran and hit a session high of US$12.3875 per bushel two weeks later. However, the contract was right back where it started by March 25.

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Jim Beusekom, president of Market Place Commodities, said feed barley was trading at C$305 to C$310 per tonne in Lethbridge, with feed wheat at a similar range. U.S. corn was trading at C$295 to C$305. He said feed barley and wheat, which were trading at C$270 per tonne at the start of the month, largely followed the upward price movement for U.S. corn futures.

For daily markets coverage, visit the Western Producer Markets Desk

Beusekom added that consistent demand and a “successful” export program for feed barley will continue to support prices over the next six weeks.

“We would expect spring and summer will be a competitive marketplace to purchase from farmers because they’ve been successful in selling their crops so far and they aren’t carrying as much as originally forecasted,” Beusekom said. “A lot of the market direction on barley is definitely still being set by corn and secondly by the exporters.”

Although the war in Iran and the halting of traffic on the Strait of Hormuz have affected energy prices nationwide, Beusekom said it hasn’t affected grain prices yet, but freight rates could change if fuel costs stay elevated. The question of who will take care of those costs is still up in the air.

“There are a lot of input costs that are creeping higher. How do you know if they are factored into those prices? It’s hard to tell,” he added. “For example, on grain that’s (shipped) for export, does the seller pay for it or does the buyer pay for it? For the grain we’re importing, it’s basically the same thing.”

More markets coverage – Klassen: Stronger barley prices weigh on feeder cattle values

As for upcoming spring conditions, Beusekom said parts of southern Alberta and southern Saskatchewan are “leaning towards drought”, but they are still subject to change.

“It does seem Western Canada is leaning on the dry side but I want to caution everyone, rain and a snowstorm will alleviate every drought concern,” he said.

Prairie Ag Hotwire reported delivered feed barley prices in Alberta at C$4.79 to C$6.68 per bushel on March 23, up 26 cents from the previous week. In Saskatchewan, the price range was C$4.90 to C$5.45/bu., unchanged from the week before. In Manitoba, prices were from C$4.60 to C$4.71/bu., down two cents.

Delivered feed wheat prices in Alberta were from C$5.97 to C$8.41/bu. for a weekly gain of 35 cents. In Saskatchewan, prices were up 30 cents at C$7 to C$7.30/bu. In Manitoba, the price increased by three cents at C$6.27/bu.

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Soybeans

China has been forecasted to see slightly more soybeans planted in 2026/27, due to government assistance and improved domestic prices.

For 2025/26, the USDA indicated 10.80 million tonnes of soybeans have been purchased by China or are being shipped to the country. Also, the USDA said 2.19 million tonnes are destined for unknown destinations and it’s not yet clear how much of the amount is destined for China. Soybean imports are to increase in 2026/27, but China’s demand is expected to slow over the coming years.

Canola

There’s to be a small increase in canola acres in 2026/27 as China begins expanding its winter canola area to idle land. Its winter canola currently accounts for less than 10 per cent of China’s total canola production.

In February, China removed or reduced the tariffs on its imports of Canadian canola seed and meal. Since then, China has bought 650,000 tonnes of canola from Canada.

Corn

As China continues to boost its domestic corn production, its import program has become more heavily focused on Brazil corn. Two years ago Brazil corn accounted for 47 per cent of China’s imports, followed by the U.S. at 26 per cent and Ukraine at 20 per cent. In 2025/26, Brazil stands at 61 per cent, with Russia at 17 per cent and Myanmar at 11 per cent. Ukraine and the U.S. fell to nine and one per cent, respectively.

Wheat

Although China’s 2026/27 wheat crop was planted later than normal, yields are projected to be a pinch higher than in 2025/26 while harvest area holds. Guaranteed returns have encouraged farmers to maintain 2025/26 levels. Reduced ending stocks in 2025/26 are to lead to a further decline in 2026/27.

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• Corn futures in Chicago climbed to their highest levels in 10 months, with the May contract up by 30 cents per bushel over the past month. Rising energy and fertilizer prices amid the escalating conflict in the Middle East added to expectations that farmers in the United States will shift more intended corn acres into soybeans this spring.
• West Texas Intermediate crude oil climbed to its highest levels in four years, trading at just under US$100 per barrel on March 19.
• Feed barley into the Lethbridge-area feedlots was priced at about C$285 to C$295 per tonne in mid-March, having risen by C$20 to C$30 per tonne over the past month, according to provincial data. Feed wheat priced similar, with corn from the U.S. at US$290 per tonne. • Seasonal price trends contributed to the gains, as feed supplies tighten ahead of cattle going out to pasture and the new crop.
• Solid export demand continued to underpin the domestic feed market, with more grain moving offshore this year. Canadian Grain Commission data shows 2.142 million tonnes of barley exported through 31 weeks of the marketing year, up from 1.204 million tonnes at the same point a year ago.
• Country-specific data through January shows China remains the largest single destination for Canadian barley in 2025-26, accounting for about 57 per cent of the movement to-date. Japan and Saudi Arabia were also major buyers.
• Canadian imports of U.S. corn are also up on the year, according to the latest USDA data. Canada has imported 383,600 tonnes of U.S. corn from Sept. 1 through March 12, which compares with only 101,700 tonnes at the same point the previous marketing year. An additional 201,100 tonnes are on the books to move later — roughly eight times the outstanding sales at the same point in 2024-25.

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“The markets (in 2022) were telling farmers to plant every acre that they could,” Lilja said. “The Russian-Ukraine war has been in a heavy agricultural producing area.”

“That spring, we were just coming off of a South American drought. Supplies of soybeans, corn and wheat were historically on the low side,” he added, noting there were a number of limit up days in the commodities, especially for wheat.

Today, Lilja said the situation is different, despite the hikes in soybeans, corn and wheat. There hasn’t been any limit up days.

“You can argue the view from South America right now, they have come off record yields,” he said.

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For 2025/26 soybeans, Brazil is on its way to another record harvest that’s to be about 180 million tonnes, according to the United States Department of Agriculture. Plus, Brazil is to have strong corn yields that are to produce a crop of around 132 million tonnes. Also, Argentina had a record wheat harvest of about 27.8 million tonnes.

As well, Iran isn’t as a major wheat producer that Russia and Ukraine are. Lilja said the latter two countries combined will provide about 108 million tonnes of wheat, while Iran’s production is maybe one-tenth of that.

Added to that, the U.S. situation is much different between 2022 and 2026. Lilja said U.S. wheat ending stocks four years ago were in a range of 570 million to 670 million bushels. The USDA has forecasted the 2025/26 carryover at 931 million bushels.

“We just haven’t seen the huge price spike that we saw back in February and March of 2022,” he said, but stressed the commodities are still following the increases in crude oil.

“The night crude oil spiked up (March 15-16) was the recent highs for U.S. soybeans, corn and wheat,” he continued.

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“Right now in South America, I have a corn crop being equal to last year. In my gut, I think it’s going to be below last year when the safrinha crop is finally harvested,” he said.

Issues with safrinha corn

Although that second Brazil corn crop is more than 91 per cent planted, Cordonnier pointed out there are more than 3.21 million acres still needing to be seeded and stressed the main planting window has closed with dry weather ahead.

“Planting (corn) at this point is very risky. They’ll run out of moisture before the crop has a chance to mature,” he said. “They’re already worried about the dry weather in the state of Paraná.”

Cordonnier said Brazil’s first corn crop is more than halfway harvested, but about 20 points behind this time last year. He said that isn’t too much of a concern.

He recently cut his call on Brazilian corn production this year to 133 million tonnes, from an earlier estimate of 135 million. That compares with the United States Department of Agriculture’s forecast of 132 million tonnes and 138.3 million tonnes by Brazil’s Conab.

Argentina corn

As for corn crop in Argentina, Cordonnier said about nine per cent has been combined and the average yield is about 131 bushels per acre.

“They’re harvesting the best part right now,” he said, noting that yields will likely decline as combining progresses.

Dry conditions in parts of Argentina created a wide gap in yields, from as little as 40 bu./ac. to as much as 200. Cordonnier said more recent rainfall has stabilized Argentina’s corn.

Soybeans

As for soybeans, Cordonnier said Brazil remains on pace to produce its biggest crop on record. However, it likely won’t be as large as initially expected.

The Brazil soybean harvest was about 61 per cent finished, nine points behind last year.

“It’s on the slow side. That’s because heavy rains continue to fall across northern Brazil,” Cordonnier said.

In southern Brazil, such as Rio Grande do Sul, soybeans were planted late due to drought and that state’s harvest is barely underway, Cordonnier said.

Aside from a very small amount of fields, the soybean harvest had yet to start in Argentina, he added, projecting yields of about 56 bu./ac. in the country’s core soybean-growing area.

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