Grain Gleanings

Dimock Location

By Royce Bialas, Location Manager, Dimock

Good morning from all of us at the Dimock location. We hope harvest is going well for all our locations. As for the Dimock area, we are done with bean harvest and 90% done with corn harvest. Crop is small in this area with beans around 30 bushels average. Corn is a big range, from 35 to 100 or a bit more.

As for the grain markets, we are seeing corn at about a 25 to 30 cent trading range in the futures market, 6.70 – 7.00. The basis has been on the strong side with feed demand being that driver currently. Many are trying to get their needs filled for the upcoming year. I feel that any small rallies close to that 7.00 futures level should be sold. The eastern part of the Cornbelt has great crops coming at them and with the Mississippi River low and very little barge freight moving, more pressure will be put on rail freight, and put pressure on basis levels. You may want to consider doing some basis contracts for future sales, also.

Beans are working that 14.00 futures range with a pretty good basis level. We finally had some bean sales on the export side so that makes me wonder how many beans are left that South America can sell. Brazil has good moisture for this planting season which has started but Argentina seems to be on the dry side at this point. Weather could also play a part in what exports do this coming winter.

Wheat will somewhat follow corn. It has been a volatile market with the Russia/Ukraine war which affects the export coming out of the Black Sea area. The agreement they made for loading ships will end early November. We will see if that will continue or not.

For any questions or marketing options you many have, just call your CFC grain originator for a marketing plan.

10/21/2022

Harvest Happenings & Safety Reminders

By Rebecca Johnson, Elevator Location Manager, Salem

Harvest is in full swing and what a harvest it has started out to be. We are just beginning our third week of Harvest mood.  We have had a lot of new and returning customers this year bringing in beans; and as we finish bean harvest, corn harvest is starting nicely.  The weather has cooperated for the most part until I began writing this and the wind picked up considerably. Sounds like the wind is to continue for the next three days with gusts 50 to 60 miles an hour.

High winds and dry weather make for very favorable fire conditions so please take extra measures while out combining to try and prevent if you can any chance of a fire starting.  Of course, the best measure would be to halt combining until the wind lays down but sometimes that is not an option so it is important to keep full fire extinguishers in your combine, and any other machinery you have out in the field that would be easily accessible if a fire ignites.  It is also important to have a charged cell phone handy to call 911 if needed and know the 911 address of where you are so you can be quickly responded to.  Make sure those helping you also know your 911 address.    It is a good idea as well to have a tractor and disk out near the field to help try and contain the fire if possible.    

Thank you for your patronage and if we can help you with any of your ag needs please call or stop in at any of our locations.  Wishing all a continued safe and bountiful harvest. 

10/14/2022

Harvest and Bean Basis

By Matt Morog, Grain Department Manager

Harvest is progressing very quickly in the southern parts of our territory. I estimate beans are over 70% in the Marion/Viborg area. Yields are about as many expected with very few good surprises. Yields to the north in Lyons are faring much better, maybe even will average 50 bpa on beans. The volatile yields in our trade territory on both corn and soybeans are going to cause the local market to swing wildly over the coming months. Corn is about to be started by many as well. It’s too early to call what average yields will be, but like beans, corn yields will vary widely from north to south.

Soybeans are coming off the recent highs rapidly as the recent USDA report found a few extra beans laying around. When you put that with the potential for the US to lose exports out of the Gulf due to the inability to move barges from the low water in the Mississippi, we could increase our carry out for next year even more. Good news is that because of the Mississippi River issues some of the Gulf demand is shifting to the PNW causing our basis locally here to firm up even in harvest. If you are bullish bean prices, it might be worth looking at a basis contract. Our basis is historically very firm for this time of year. You avoid storage costs yet get to take part in any futures price rally going forward. Please contact one of our grain originators if you have questions.

I’m still nervous going forward on futures prices for both corn and beans over the next few months. I still believe as I have talked about this spring that a recession in 2023 is looming. If that is the case, it is very likely demands for corn/bean byproducts drift lower with everything else. The federal reserve is still very motivated to lower inflation through the use of interest rates and have made many comments that they won’t stop increase rates till they do so. 

10/7/2022

Central Farmers has a mobile app that provides real time business information at your hands. By partnering with BUSHEL, we are able to empower you, our producers, to make informed and quicker business decisions with CFC.

• Access scale tickets, contracts, bushel balances, cash bids and market information— all from your smartphone.
• Access scale tickets virtually in real time, allowing you to know how many bushels you have delivered and how much still needs to be delivered. The Scale Ticket interface is easy to understand and tracks grade factors such as Moisture and Test Weight.
• Access your contracts that you have with any CFC location. You will be able to see the status of any contract to find out whether it is filled or is still open.
• Access real-time bushel balances of your grain across all CFC locations.
• Access delayed cash bids for all of our CFC locations. You will be able to access Grains, Livestock and Ethanol Futures from CME or MGEX.

You can find the App on Google Play for Android devices or the App Store for iPhones by searching for Central Farmers. Download it today!