I was a country elevator merchandiser before I returned to the farm.  I have a fairly good understanding of how it works.

With HRW wheat harvest around the corner.. if it rains.. we have 2 months to go. Some years the elevators are still full from the previous years crop carry over.  Given the severity of the droughts since 2022.. which we’ve yet to fully recover from.. most country elevators here are at levels not seen in a decade or so.

Our local coop had been aggressive in building storage.. a little too aggressive vs what’s needed.. as I noted.. It has new storage which hasn’t seen a bushel dumped yet.  As the ethanol buildout has transformed the industry.. Feedlots which used to take and grind High Moisture Corn HMC because it was cheap at harvest.. and a reason why Q1 is padded.. have transitioned to more steam flaking and buying railed in corn.. as the demand is greater for fall bushels.

Our part of Kansas is turning into how the panhandles operate relying on shuttles to sustain through the year.  Irrigated corn yields of less than 100 bu put a hole in the supply in 2022 which we have yet to fully recover from.  Personally we moved 90% of our 23 crop.. which was the 2nd highest irrigated yield by January.. our on farm stocks.. are the lowest probably in over a decade.

Some of my neighbors did not harvest a wheat crop for the first time in their careers last year.. we are currently running less than half of normal rainfall and the 2024 wheat crop is under severe stress.

There is no need to “make room” for a crop at this time.. and those who have stored this long are in “no need” to cash in on prices several dollars below previous years and below the costs of production.

Like the Argentinians we are skipping on fertilizer applications and other inputs.  Those who applied normal rates are seeing their crops burn up faster.

We do not view the situation at hand the same.. no doubt.  I only wanted to know how my forefathers survived the 1930s.. I didn’t want to relive it.

btw how does NASS account for shrink?  Shrink from this storage..would amount to a couple 100 million bushels on a 15 billion bushel crop.  This is kind of a sore subject.. but a neighboring coop evidently came up a couple million bushels short.. all I will say about that.  Other than the ground piles recovered were not as big as reported on the books.. and consequently to NASS as by law.

 In regards to planting the 2024 corn crop.. we are waiting on rain for dryland.. which as you know 67% of the Kansas corn crop is.. and we’ll probably have to pre irrigate before starting the irrigated if rains do not develop soon.

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