Spring Wheat Yield Tops 100 Bushels
Around the Farm
WINNIPEG — During the last 100 years in Western Canada, very few farmers have achieved 100 bushels per acre for Canadian Western Red Spring wheat.
But multiple growers in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba topped 100 bu. per acre for CWRS in 2025.
That includes Darcy Enns, who runs Darko Farms in Linden, Alta., about 90 kilometres north of Calgary.
Enns recorded a yield of 110.4 bu. per acre on a 112 acre field of AAC Westking, a new CWRS variety.
“This is not (from) our combine monitor. Everything is weighed across a scale. I’m very confident in our yields,” said Enns, who was in the combine when the field was harvested.
“It was amazing. We kept filling bins. And this is just a tiny, little field. It just poured in.… It was fun.”
Enns, an independent seed retailer, was one of many farmers in central Alberta who harvested a fantastic wheat crop this fall.
In its Oct. 7 crop report, Alberta Agriculture said the average spring wheat yield in Central Alberta was 69 bu. per acre.
Around his farm, Enns has heard from neighbours who posted yields in the 70s for spring wheat.
That’s great, but it’s not 110 bu. per acre.
On the Field
The new variety and use of biologicals probably played a role on Enns’s best wheat crop ever, but something happened during the growing season of 2025 that can’t be explained by crop management.
“It’s not just variety. We had some (AAC) Wheatland.… it did very well, too,” Enns said.
“That tells me it’s more the (growing) conditions…. The stars lined up.”
Enns wasn’t the only grower to hit 100 bu. on CWRS.
Todd Hyra, western business manager for Secan, knows of several farmers in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta who got into triple digits in 2025.
In parts of the Prairies, including Saskatchewan’s northern grain belt, many farmers were worried about the lack of rain in May and the first half of June. Wheat crops were struggling in the dry conditions and growers were convinced that yields would be poor.
On Thomas Winny’s farm, near Rosetown, Sask., he received just enough moisture in June to support his spring wheat crop. Then, 30 to 60 millimetres of rain fell on west-central Saskatchewan around June 20.
That rainfall played a huge role in pushing Winny’s spring wheat yields to new heights.
“One (field) was 103 bu. and the other was a little bit more than that,” Winny said.
The 103 bu. field was 130 acres of AAC Stoughton. The second field of CWRS was 170 acres of AAC Westking. It was closer to 105 bu. per acre, Winny said.
He applied a top dressing of fertilizer, following the June rain, but it seemed like the newer CWRS genetics were the difference maker.
“I did have an older variety pretty close by to these fields.… it was 15 bushels less,” he said, noting that cooler temperatures in July also had an impact.
It’s likely that 2025 was an unusual year, when everything came together to produce an incredible crop.
While 100 bu. may not be the new normal for hard red spring wheat, it’s a sign that Canada’s wheat industry is moving in a positive direction.
“I grew up in northwest Manitoba and when I was a kid, 30 (bu.) was a really good crop,” Hyra said.
“In my 35 years working in the cereals industry, this is the first year we’ve had CWRS popping up over 100 bu.”
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