n THE CARILLON STEINBACH, MAN. C6
n www.thecarillon.com THURSDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2024
Agriculture Now
WES KEATING THE CARILLON
Marc Hutlet welcomes customers to the 40th edition of the fall crop tour at the Marc Hutlet Seeds test plots on Provincial Road 201, east of Landmark. Southeast diversity spells success for Hutlet Seeds
by WES KEATING A fter more than four decades at the helm, Marc Hutlet has decided to turn the ever- ex- panding seed company at Dufres- ne over to the next generation. But while his daughter Karis and Ben Signer are handling things on a day- to-day basis, Hutlet is not complete- ly out of the picture just yet. Like the farmers he has been serving for generations, he still isn’t ready to retire, and his dedication drives him to keep a finger on the pulse of the agricultural diversity that has seen southeastern Manito- ba grow and flourish. Many of those farmers, who also have turned their operations over to the next generation, joined Marc at the annual fall crop tour the first week in September. Hutlet was very much present, visiting with cus- tomers, while Karis and Ben talked about the soybeans and corn that made up the two test plots on Pro- vincial Road 210, east of Landmark. While the company agronomists were wrapping up their presenta- tion, Marc was back at the road, firing up the barbecue to serve up smokies to the hungry crowd at- tending the event. There were prob- ably close to 80 farmers there, some for the soybeans, some for the corn, Hutlet said. The annual crop tour, approach- ing its 40th year, gives Marc Hutlet Seeds the opportunity to rate the performances of several varieties of corn and soybeans during the grow- ing season, and at the same time, introduce a new variety or two that will do well in the soil conditions and climate of southeastern Mani- toba. The five varieties of soybeans, planted in eight rows of each, have turned around since the cold, sat- urated conditions in the first half of the season. Hutlet Seeds usually includes one or two new varieties in their test plots, but for next year Pi- oneer Hi-Bred is launching five new varieties of soybeans with a new genetic platform of herbicide toler- ance called Enlist E3 and all five will be in Hutlet test plots and commer- cial fields in 2025. In the Southeast, this year’s soy- bean crop is not expected to be as good as last year’s, but 2023 was a high-water mark year for soybeans, Hutlet said.
WES KEATING THE CARILLON
Eric Peters, Wendell Penner and Loren Warkentin in a tall stand of corn at the annual Marc Hutlet Seeds crop tour.
crop tour, one of her many tasks in the office, was to text 250 people asking them to attend the tour. As the company has expanded, so has their yard. Over the years, more warehouses were added to the yard at Dufresne for corn seed storage and a soybean plant today that con- sists of eight bins, capable of hous- ing 32,000 units of soybeans. Hutlet explains that one unit of soybeans doesn’t quite plant one acre while a bag of corn can plant approximately 2.35 acres.
students. Marc’s wife Marilyn still helps out in the office during spring pick-up days, although she is more grandmother than staff, these days, Hutlet says. Their daughter Karis is one of the two agronomists at Hutlet’s and a part of the shift in ownership. She has been with the company on a full-time basis since graduating from the University of Manitoba with an agri-business de- gree in 2017. Ben Signer, who has been with Hutlet for a decade, is now the lead agronomist, according to Karis. Barb Dueck is busy as the full-time administrator. Before the recent
From the beginning, when he was selling 15 to 20 bags of corn seed to a dozen customers, Marc Hutlet Seeds soon outgrew the family farm location and moved to the yard at Dufresne. From that start in 1982, Marc says he built the business slowly and when he made the decision to focus all his energy on lining up more seed customers and being more connect- ed with his existing customer base, Marc Hutlet Seeds grew rapidly. The company today includes two full-time sales agronomists, a full-time administrator, a full-time seasonal driver, as well as summer
The same challenges apply to growing corn this year and produc- ers may be running out of time for grain corn to mature before a killing frost. Some will cut the corn as for- age instead of waiting to harvest the crop, but most will wait for the first frost before making that decision, Hutlet said. Marc Hutlet Seeds had its begin- nings on the family farm north of Giroux where Marc was a salesman for PAG Cargill, selling sunflowers. It wasn’t long before corn was added to his list and he recalls that Ed Os- wald at Friedensfeld was one of his first grain corn customers.
See ‘Soybeans gaining’ on 7C
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