Monday, May 16, 2011

September excitement...

After my post about falling global crop yields, a friend in PA sent this note:

After church I was approached by the grain buyer for a large mill in the area and said he raised his basis to +.90 cents for August and September and was unable to buy one bushel of corn. I talked to a dairy vet in the area about 10 days ago and his comment is that there will be dairy farms that will be without corn in August and September because they do not know where it is coming from and are making no plans till they are out to look for corn. Another large end user, (feedmill) with 300+ tons per hour capacity is entertaining the idea they will have to pay $12.00 a bushel to get corn sometime before new crop corn becomes available.
[Note: this morning he updated the basis as $1.20 over]
This is the slow motion train wreck I see happening due to lackluster yields last year in the ECB, and our subsequent slow start this year - especially IN and OH.  Sometime in July (perhaps sooner with a cool summer) it could become obvious despite "ample" carryover, it is badly mislocated and livestock operations on the East Coast will be up the Chesapeake without a paddle.

This is undoubtedly a major item of discussion at Cargill, etc.  My expectation is for early delivery of new-crop to be enticed by free drying schemes, lucrative basis, toasters, whatever.  That's why we're shifting to more short season corn for the last 40%. 

I believe the phrase is "giant sucking sound". 

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

John,
No kidding about late planting. It was surprising to see along Hwy 14 in Minnesota on May 15 all the fields not yet touched. Not sure but I believe their yield drop date for corn is around April 30.