It’s a sunny, chilly 46 degrees, but it will warm up later this morning. It’s Wednesday, October 8, and this year is fast disappearing...just like the crops in the fields.
You may have noticed long, white bags in a harvested field. They could be filled with soybeans or corn depending which stubble is left in the field. It’s a way to store a crop when folks run out of bin space on the farm, or space at an elevator. Last week Cargill shut down taking corn at one terminal, and beans at another (Havana and Beardstown). I don’t know if they’re accepting grain again or not, and I don’t know if the raccoons and deer will be a threat to the big bags, or if they will leave them alone.
China has stopped buying soybeans from the U.S,. and are buying from South America. It is ironic that we buy so much from China (look at the product labels), but it isn’t a two way street.
Another problem is going to be shipping crops on a low river. We did get 3/10 of an inch a couple nights ago, and it soaked into the ground so fast that farmers were back in the field at a fast pace. For one thing that little bit of moisture would have raised the low moisture content of harvest beans and corn. Beans are ideally13% moisture for weight, but they were being harvested at 8%.
Well, the government shutdown also stopped any USDA reports that were to be published. So, that could be a two edged sword by keeping traders in the dark about yields and carryover. Who needs to buy a lottery ticket or go to Vegas?
