587.742.6023Sign inSell grainBushels to tonnes: how Canadian grain prices convert
To turn a Canadian grain price per tonne into a price per bushel, divide by the crop’s bushels per tonne: 45.93 for barley, 36.74 for wheat and peas, 64.84 for oats, 39.37 for rye. Those come from conventional bushel weights of 48, 60, 34 and 56 lb, and the fact that a tonne is 2,204.62 lb. No law fixes them, and the American tables are wrong here.
The arithmetic, in two lines
Bushels per tonne is 2,204.62 (the pounds in a metric tonne) divided by the crop’s bushel weight in pounds. Price per bushel is price per tonne divided by that number. Say barley’s at $250 a tonne: 2,204.62 divided by 48 lb gives 45.93 bushels per tonne, and $250 divided by 45.93 gives about $5.44 a bushel. Going the other way, a $6.00 a bushel bid times 45.93 is about $275.58 a tonne. The $250 here is a made-up number to show the math; our barley page carries the live ones.
The factors, crop by crop
| Crop | Lb per bushel | Bushels per tonne | Where the number stands |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wheat, all classes, and durum | 60 | 36.74 | universal Canadian convention |
| Barley | 48 | 45.93 | AFSC names 48 lb as the buyer standard |
| Oats | 34 | 64.84 | Canadian convention; the US 32 is wrong here |
| Rye | 56 | 39.37 | universal convention |
| Corn | 56 | 39.37 | universal convention |
| Flax | 56 | 39.37 | universal convention |
| Canola | 50 | 44.09 | CGC publishes a chart for bushel weights only |
| Peas: yellow, green, maple | 60 | 36.74 | trade convention, no CGC chart |
| Faba beans and chickpeas | 60 | 36.74 | trade convention, no CGC chart |
| Soybeans | 60 | 36.74 | trade convention |
| Triticale | 52 | 42.40 | Giddyupp house convention, basis disclosed below |
Why nobody makes these official, and tables disagree
Canada doesn’t fix a bushel weight for any grain in law. The Weights and Measures Act defines a bushel as eight gallons, a volume, and stops there. The Canada Grain Regulations set grade standards in kilograms per hectolitre, never in pounds per bushel. The Canadian Grain Commission itself says there’s no single conversion factor, even for a specific grain, and points people at the actual test weight of the load instead. So every number in the table above is a trade convention: real, settled, what the whole Canadian cash market quotes and pays on, but convention all the same. That’s why two conversion tables on the internet can disagree and both look confident.
The oat trap: 34 in Canada, 32 in the States
Oats is where a wrong table costs real money. The US convention is 32 lb and the Canadian one is 34. The two aren’t even measuring the same pail: the American Winchester bushel is 35.24 litres, the Canadian Imperial bushel 36.37. Alberta Agriculture warns oat sellers about exactly this, and AFSC names 34 lb as what Canadian buyers use. Run a $250 a tonne oat price through the US table and you get $3.63 a bushel; through the Canadian one, $3.86. That’s a 6.25 percent error, in the seller’s disfavour, from one borrowed webpage. US tables are one search away and they all agree with each other, which is what makes the trap work.
Triticale has no standard at all, so here is ours
Canada publishes no bushel weight for triticale; the Grain Commission says the data isn’t there and its own conversion chart list skips the crop. So when we quote triticale in dollars a bushel we use 52 lb, our house convention, and disclose the basis every time: the No. 1 Canada triticale minimum test weight of 65 kg/hL, divided by 1.247, is 52.1 lb per Imperial bushel. It’s the conservative direction, since a lighter bushel means our per-bushel quote reads lower rather than flattered. If someone quotes you triticale on a heavier bushel, their $/bu will look better on the same $/tonne; work both back to tonnes before comparing.
Bushel weight and test weight are different numbers
The conversion weight in the table turns tonnes into bushels; it never grades anything. Test weight is the measured density of your actual load, and it decides the grade and whether a buyer’s spec is met. Feed barley usually trades on a 48 lb minimum spec, and barley converts at 48 lb per bushel. Those are still two different jobs, done by two numbers that happen to match. A 46 lb load of barley still converts to bushels at 48; what changes is which bids will take it. Mixing the two up is how a load gets priced on one number and rejected on another.
Tonnes and tons, while we’re at it
Canadian grain trades on the metric tonne: 1,000 kg, or 2,204.62 lb. An American short ton is 2,000 lb, about 9 percent lighter. When a price is quoted “a ton”, ask which one: $250 a short ton works out to about $275.58 a tonne, a 10 percent difference hiding in one word.
Where you will actually use this
Every price we publish shows the crop in the unit farmers quote it in, with tonnes a click away, and the conversion runs on exactly the factors above. Check barley or oats, or see the nets town by town around Lethbridge. Freight runs per tonne too, which is why the trucking math in our grain trucking guide is stated in $/MT. If you’re wondering who we are while you’re here, here’s what a grain broker does and who pays. A number look off? Ask us and we’ll run it with you.
Questions farmers ask
About 45.93 bushels, on the 48 lb per bushel weight the Canadian trade uses for barley: one tonne is 2,204.62 lb, and 2,204.62 divided by 48 is 45.93. So a barley price of $250 per tonne is $250 divided by 45.93, about $5.44 a bushel, and a $6.00 a bushel bid works back to about $275.58 a tonne.
Divide the price per tonne by the crop's bushels per tonne: 36.74 for wheat, 45.93 for barley, 64.84 for oats, 39.37 for rye. Going the other way, multiply the bushel price by the same number. The factor is just 2,204.62 lb per tonne divided by the crop's conventional bushel weight, so all you ever need to remember is the pound weight.
Because the US uses 32 lb on a Winchester bushel of 35.24 litres, while Canada uses 34 lb on the larger Imperial bushel of 36.37 litres. Canadian buyers work on 34, so a US table applied to a Canadian oat trade understates the bushel price by about 6 percent: on a $250 per tonne net that reads $3.63 a bushel where $3.86 is right.