Weekly Crop Commentary - 11/17/2023

Wes Bahan
Vice President, Grain Division

Good afternoon. Well, how about another huge week of corn harvesting. My goodness, everyone is running as hard as they can for the finish line, and a few are getting there. Corn drying continues to be a bottleneck everywhere, even though we have seen some good dry-down again this week. Corn basis is really taking it on the chin as the pipeline fills. This is nothing uncommon, we had the same thing happen in the middle of the soybean harvest. I do not think we are going to see the bounce back quite as quickly as we did in the bean market though. We are dealing with two totally different situations in these crops. Corn is very plentiful, and the markets continue to find their way as carryout numbers grow. Beans did build a bit of a cushion, but they are much tighter than corn. Yields continue to be impressive from reports I have heard this week from farmers.  As we get into the home stretch here things are going to be a bit slower, bins are filling, and freight never moves fast enough. Everyone in the system has the same goal and that is to get you to the finish line as quickly as possible. I do want to wish all of you a Happy Thanksgiving as we do have a lot to be thankful for.
 

Haylee VanScoy
Director of Grain Purchasing

Happy Friday! Can’t believe we’re over halfway through November already. Bean harvest has all but wrapped up for most and corn is chugging along, nearing 75% complete. Space, drying capacity, and logistics continue to be the name of the game as they always are this time of the year.

The corn market continues to struggle to find any real story to build support on. Brazil is over 50% complete on corn planting and has received decent rainfall recently with the 6-10 day forecast predicting more. This has the market pulling quite a bit of risk premium back out, especially on beans. Jan beans (SF) saw a nice rally early on this week and have since fallen back close to last Friday's values around the 20-day moving average of $13.40.

With yields coming in better than expected, continue to reach out to your local merchandiser to discuss contracting options for both the additional unpriced old crop and new crop for 2024. Don’t forget that if you are interested in deferring payments until January, you must have those in by the end of the month to take advantage of the 3% deferred interest. Hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving next week with your families!
 

Will Gase
Grain Merchandiser, Upper Sandusky (Region 2)

Rainy Friday here in Wyandot County. Off and on downpours have slowed everything down today and likely through the weekend. Beans are all but finished up here in the north. Corn is moving along, slowly but surely. Elevators and end users are reaching the point of capacity and are seeing shortened hours or closures. If I had to pinpoint harvest percentages, I would put beans at 95%, and corn somewhere around 75%. Yields have been above average on both commodities from what I have been hearing, a lot of 60+ on beans and 200+ on corn.

We are at that point in harvest where contracts are all but filled up. I am getting a lot of questions on what to do with the remaining bushels to get out of high storage costs. We could sell bushels, defer the money and pick up 3% interest. We could do a min price contract where we lock in a cash price floor and buy a call option for March or May at the same time, this leaves you open to upside potential. We could also do a basis contract for bushels that are still in the field, lock in basis on bushels not yet delivered and price the futures as time goes on. As always give us a call if any of these sound like something you might want to do.

Friendly reminder that for those deferring bushels to January payment, you have until November 30th to pick up interest. We are paying 3% interest on grain that is deferred. With Thanksgiving next week, the 30th will be here before we know it so a good reminder for everyone! Hope everyone has a great weekend and a wonderful Thanksgiving next week!