The Manitoba Agricultural Services Corporation (MASC) has released its 2023 Variety Market Share Report. This report breaks down the number of acres seeded to each crop type in Manitoba. As well, the relative percentage of acres each variety was seeded on within each crop type is reported. This information is useful to understand overall production patterns in Manitoba. A link to the 2023 report can be found here. Furthermore, 2023 results from the winter wheat sites of the Manitoba Crop Variety Evaluation Trials (MCVET) have been published. Results can be found here.

It is important to note that farmer members’ dollars directly contributed to the plant breeding research activities which were instrumental in the development of the top winter wheat varieties.  

Select Take Aways

A small number of Winter Wheat acres were seeded again in 2023, with approximately 59 thousand acres seeded. This is up slightly from 2022 and up over 20 thousand acres from 2021. The top six varieties by percentage acres seeded are listed in Table 1, but 12 varieties were listed in this year’s MASC Variety Market Share Report. All top six seeded varieties are Canada Western Red Winter (CWRW) wheat.

Table 1. 2023 top six winter wheat varieties by percent seeded acres in Manitoba.

Note: * Data obtained from MASC 2023 Variety Market Share Report. ** Data obtained from the 2023 MCVET Winter Wheat and Fall Rye report. Fusarium Head Blight; FHB.

AAC Wildfire was the top seeded winter wheat variety, occupying 43.2 per cent of seeded winter wheat acres. This is an increase of just over 14 per cent from 2022. AAC Wildfire was registered in 2015 and is a late maturing CWRW variety. AAC Goldrush, which was registered in 2016, also increased in percentage of acres seeded, increasing by three per cent from 2022. AAC Vortex, which was registered in 2021, was seeded on over four per cent of acres in 2023. There were no reported acres of AAC Vortex in the 2022 MASC Variety Market Share Report.

Emerson, which has a fusarium head blight rating of ‘resistant’, has been the most seeded variety in Manitoba for several years. However, its acreage has dropped just over 14 per cent from 2022. A similar trend was seen in AAC Gateway, which dropped from 16.1 per cent in 2022, to just over five per cent in 2023. AAC Elevate remained steady from 2022 to 2023, at just over five per cent of seeded acres.

The Seed Manitoba Variety Selection and Growers Source Guide should be consulted when making variety selections.