It was another great turnout for this year's Edible Bean Meetings.

Attendance in Portage on Wednesday was about 140, while roughly 125 people came out to the meeting Thursday in Altona. There were also a number of exhibitors set up at the events.

Dennis Lange with Manitoba Agriculture was asked if more farmers are considering growing edible beans.

"The grower base is pretty standard, we don't see a lot of increases anymore in new growers," he said. "But saying that, there's always a few new growers at these meetings that haven't grown them in maybe one or two years. Growers have to be very selective on where they put their dry beans, just for drainage purposes...Over the last four to five years, we've seen an increase in the average yield because farmers are realizing that they have lots of crops to choose from and when they're growing dry beans, they're picking fields that are going to be best suited for the best yields."

Lange said he's expecting to see a bit of an increase in edible bean acres in 2019, somewhere in the range of 130,000 acres.

Topics discussed at the meetings included weed control, research and the markets.

The meetings are put on by Manitoba edible bean dealers, Manitoba Pulse and Soybean Growers, Manitoba edible bean equipment dealers and other industry partners.