Crop planner · 2026 provincial budgets
Which crop pays on your land?
Every crop's margin and break-even yield per acre, from your province's own crop budget for your soil zone. Tap a what-if, put in your own rent, fertilizer and equipment costs, and change any crop's yield or price.
Tap a crop, then Add to my plan to build your mix and see it on your acres.
How it's worked out
- Margin after direct costs: yield × price, less the costs of growing and selling the crop: seed, fertilizer, chemical, crop and hail insurance, trucking, fuel, repairs, custom work, labour, utilities and operating interest. Alberta calls it the contribution margin; it's what the crop leaves toward land and machinery.
- Margin after all costs: also less land (the budget's rent, or yours) and the rest of the overhead: machinery and building depreciation, licences, insurance and interest; in Manitoba's guide, also the owner's labour and living.
- Break-even yield: all costs per acre divided by the price. A crop "to spare" grows more than that at the budget's yield; one "short" grows less.
- What-ifs: the yield and price sliders change every crop by that percentage; the fertilizer slider changes each crop's fertilizer line. Your rent replaces the budget's land cost for every crop.
- Your own costs: neighbours can be $100 an acre apart on fertilizer and another $100 on equipment, more than the gap between most crops. Open a crop to put in your own fertilizer per acre; under Fine-tune, your equipment and buildings cost per acre (depreciation or payments, interest, insurance and sheds) replaces the budget's overhead for every crop. Fuel and repairs stay in the direct costs.
- This week's prices: the province's latest weekly price, converted from $/tonne at the standard bushel weight, for the crops that have one; the others keep the budget's price. It's today's old-crop price, not a new-crop bid.
Saskatchewan and Ontario
Saskatchewan's Crop Planning Guide (costs and returns for each soil zone) and Ontario's Publication 60, Field Crop Budgets need the province's permission to reuse. We'll add each one here when it's given. Until then, pick the province and soil zone closest to yours and put in your own yields and prices.
Questions
How do I work out my break-even yield?
Add up all your costs per acre, land and machinery included, and divide by the price you expect per bushel. On Alberta's 2026 budget for canola in the Black soil zone, $711.98 an acre of costs at $14 a bushel needs about 51 bushels; covering only the direct costs ($447.25) needs about 32.
Which crop is most profitable on my land?
It depends on your own yields, prices, rent, fertilizer and equipment costs, and on rotation, disease and moisture, which no planner knows. The list ranks crops by margin on the figures in front of it; put in your own yields, prices, fertilizer, rent and equipment cost to see your farm's order.
Which soil zone am I in?
Alberta's budgets come for the Brown, Dark Brown, Black and Grey Wooded soils, the Peace Region and irrigated land; your soil test, crop insurance contract or ag fieldman will say which fits your land. Manitoba publishes one budget for the whole province.
Can I keep my plan?
Yes. Tap a crop, then Add to my plan, and give it acres (or put in your whole farm's acres and they're shared out). Save takes the mix to a free GrainPosition book: after you sign in with your email, it asks before adding each crop's acres, yield and budget per acre to next year's Plan, where its break-even per tonne is worked out and every sale is set against it. A target price you already have stays.
When do the 2027 budgets come out?
Manitoba's 2026 guide came out in January 2026 and Alberta's Cropping Alternatives in March 2026. This page will move to the 2027 editions when they're published; until then the 2026 figures are a starting point to put your own numbers into.
Your own costs, all season
Put crops in your plan above and Save takes them into GrainPosition. Each crop's plan has its acres, yields and a per-acre budget, so its break-even per tonne is worked out for you, and every sale and settlement is set against it as the season goes.
Try it freeSources
Alberta Agriculture and Irrigation, 2026 Cropping Alternatives (Crop Budget Planning), AgriProfit$ program (March 2026), Tables 3 to 8: stubble-seeded crops by soil zone, forages left out. Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence – Alberta.
Manitoba Agriculture, Guidelines for Estimating Crop Production Costs 2026 (January 2026). Contains information from the Manitoba government, licensed under the OpenMB Information and Data Use Licence.
This week's prices: Alberta Agriculture and Irrigation's Weekly Crop Market Review and Manitoba Agriculture's Grain and Oilseed Prices, as on the grain price pages. This page isn't endorsed by either government.
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