Farmers cautiously optimistic about 2026 soil moisture

In East Selkirk, Doug Martin has been farming for decades.

“This year we had wheat, corn and soybeans,” Martin said.

Martin is also a director with the Manitoba Crop Alliance.

He says the 2025 season was a bit on the dry side, resulting in an OK crop. Martin adds it’s a bit early to predict this year’s soil moisture, but heavy rain last fall has him optimistic.

“The soil moisture definitely got recharged quite a bit through August to October. So the soil moisture levels are fairly high,” Martin said.

Over in western Manitoba, farmer Jake Ayre is also hopeful for a promising year, thanks to the current snowfall.

“Almost the whole province is out of a drought situation, but now it’s sitting on the cusp that we don’t really need too, too much more,” Ayre, who is also the vice-president of Keystone Agricultural Producers, said.

According to the province’s 2025 Fall Conditions Report, Manitoba soil moisture at freeze-up was near normal to above normal for parts of southern Manitoba.

While there’s optimism on that front for now, the industry is facing other challenges.

“If it’s not weather, it’s trade, it’s tariffs. There’s a lot of uncertainty,” Ayre said.

Trending Now

Martin adds that commodity prices have gone down while input costs have increased.

“It’s going to be a harder year for farmers to be profitable,” Martin said.

For now, farmers patiently wait for the spring, which is another big indicator of how this year’s soil will be.

“The amount of snow we are accumulating is important, as well as how the spring snow melt goes. When the timing is, what duration it occurs over,” Ashley Ammeter, a whole farm specialist with Manitoba Crop Alliance, said.

Ayre says a slow, steady melt is ideal but managing the weather is all part of the job.

“We are professional gamblers, really, at the end of the day,” Ayre said.