Grain Gleanings

Marketing Options

By Rebecca Johnson, Grain Originator, Salem

What a beautiful week of weather this has been.  The extended forecast shows 40’s and 50’s for the next 10 days with a chance of precipitation early next week.

This warmer weather is an ideal time to check your bin tops and the grain in your bins to make sure everything is in good condition.  If the grain is starting to look crusty or smell, it would be a good time to take a few loads out of the bin.

The corn and bean markets this week started off lower and basis have rolled to May futures so will have to see what the last two days of February have in store for the markets.  The Canadian and Mexican tariffs are still in the works to take effect next week; this could be very influential in the price of grain.  As I write this on Thursday, February 27^th, planting projection estimates will be released later today.   At this time the guess is that corn planting acres will be up roughly 3 million from last year and soybean planting acres estimate will be down almost 3 million from last year.  Guess we will see what the estimates come out at and what effect they have on the markets as well.

Reach out to one of our grain originators if you would like to discuss marketing options that may work best for you.  As always, we look forward to working with you and greatly appreciate your patronage.

2/28/2025

Core Your Grain Bins

By Jake Moret, Grain Originator

Farmers, please core out your corn bins and for a rule of thumb on a full bin in good condition I would try for 10%. Corn was put in the bin at warm temps last fall and the signs of that have been showing up.

As of Thursday, March corn has made its second Golden cross when the 50-day crossed the 200-day moving average and March beans are following closely with the 20-day looking to cross the 100-day moving average. Beans were able to test the 200-day without being able to break out above it.  $10.75 March futures might be a good area to look at making an offer if you’re looking to get beans priced nearby and the upper $4.90s for March corn futures. It is expected that 8-10% of old crop beans and corn in the surrounding states have been sold since the Jan 12th WASDE report. If you see futures continue to rally expect JFM basis to continue to widen. If you have March basis contracts from last fall it might be a good time to consider rewarding the market and pricing some of those bushels.

I would expect to see higher volatility in the markets over the next 30 days. South America starting bean harvest, 45Z carbon credit looks to have been signed off for another 60 days, Brazil’s second corn crop being planted, Argentina reducing exports and most likely seeing changing in tariffs. Brooke Rollins seems to be pro biofuels and ethanol, but I don’t think the new administration has plans of making any changes period for the next 60 days unless it involves world trade.

1/24/2025

Winter Grain Movement

By Matt Morog, Grain Department Manager

With the nice temperatures and recent rally in the market, grain movement around the country is at a very high pace. This is causing basis to really pull back on the front end. Soybean and corn processors are getting overrun with spot bushels. This is not only causing the basis to soften, but long lines and reduced hours. Consider looking at the deferred slots if looking to lock in a carry on contracts bushels. We at CFC are paying around 5c more per month for grain delivered down the curve.

Next week we have an updated Delayed Price policy taking place for both corn and soybeans. Corn will be 5 days free followed by 5 cents per month. Soybeans are going to FREE Delayed Price until October 3. Corn space is somewhat limited as the customers we have corn sold to are many of the same spots going full on the front end. We did sell a lot of soybeans at harvest time and have continued pressing outbound logistics giving us a chance to offer free delayed price at both our Marion and Lyons locations. The reason for only Marion and Lyons is our other locations have smaller flowable bean space available. If we run into space issues ourselves, contract bushels will be given priority to delayed price storage space.  

1/17/2025

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

• 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. You are able to see the grade factors on each scale ticket 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 can find our App on Google Play for Android devices or the App Store for iPhones by searching for Central Farmers. Scan the QR code below for quicker download process. Download it today!