At $25 a bushel, organic soybeans could be a highly lucrative crop for organic farmers. But right now that market is out of reach for most due to the limited number of varieties suitable for organic production systems. A student researcher at the University of Manitoba is hoping to change that. She is evaluating conventional non-GMO varieties that are adapted to Manitoba’s shorter season, evaluating conventional non-GMO soybean varieties they could possibly grow in Manitoba’s shorter season. Michelle Carkner is overseeing plot trials at the Ian N. Morrison research farm at Carman and working with farmers on five separate farms in southern Manitoba this summer. It’s the first study ever conducted in Western Canada to test the agronomic performance and determine relative maturity rates of mid- and longer-season varieties grown elsewhere in Canada. In Ontario and Quebec, where soybeans have been grown much longer, farmers have many options among the later-maturing, non-GMO varieties developed for the growing conditions of those regions.