Spring’s work is in full swing!

 

Whether you have been planting or harvesting, it has been a fantastic April this year. The spring harvest brought better quality and drier corn for the most part. Corn that was 26% to 28% moisture in December is now coming off at 12% to 15% moisture and has added 2 to 4 pounds to the test weight. There is believed to have been some yield loss, but maybe not as dramatic as one would have thought. Have we started a new trend in the industry?

 

As far as planting goes, we are way ahead of last year. Of course, it has yet to be seen whether there will be enough heat in early may to keep the crop moving ahead. A large amount of the wheat planted has already emerged and roughly 75% of our corn acres are now in the ground. Soybean planting is a touch early yet but we anticipate that will take off sometime this week as well.

 

Grain marketing has been hit and miss in the last month or so. There hasn’t been much for news lately to move the market one way or the other. USDA’s planting intentions report showed corn and soybean acres up and wheat acres down from last year. Recently, some bullish news came through the pipeline with China’s intentions of buying US corn for the first time in four years. We look for this small rally to jumpstart farmer selling again putting the nearby corn over $3.00 and pushing new crop corn towards $3.25. Soybeans seem to be still carrying the grains with both nearby and new crop hovering around $9.00

 

We are still taking both futures fixed and priced contracts for corn, soybeans and spring wheat so call Jason for information at 883-5201.