I'm looking at this as a case study, and I'm curious why supply and demand haven't resolved this already? If I owned land in that area, I would be inclined to build grain bins for my own crop. This allows me to (in theory) market it for a better price, and I don't have anyone to slow me down when harvesting.

My prediction: there will be a year when a hail storm hits that area before the harvest is complete, but at a time when the harvest could have been complete had there not been a line at the elevator. The financial loss from that event will "wake up" the farmers, and there will be a massive number of grain bins constructed in the years following.

-Lance

 

I agree. We've been spending five hours per truck per trip in line at the co-ops here in Altus. With three machines we managed to only cut 180 acres yesterday, and now we have 200 acres left, and it rained. On a normal day we would do 450 acres. It is frustrating, and sometimes it just feels good to vent about it. When you pull into an elevator with a line a mile long, and everythings going into a 13 inch auger, it's easy to get disgusted.

 

I agree 100% LL, but most farmers don't forward contract or take advantage of carry or basis changes down there. They look at bins as a waste of money because in their view bins would only speeds up harvest and then they have to deliver it later when we can deliver it for them right now. "We" meaning corn farmers realize that we can't afford not to own bins to get the most out of our crops value. I don't argue the fact that wheat farmers will realize the true advantage of owning grain bins but my fear is it will be too late. Financially we as harvesters can't allow our operations to be this inefficient, we need to cover x number of acres per day or we are better off staying home and mowing lawns (which I may add would be more profitable most years). Southern wheat farmers need to learn from farmers in corn country how to maximize their farms potential and one of the main ways to do that is to keep control of their own grain and not turn it over to the mercy of the grain merchandiser's until they have maximized every penny possible out of every bushel.

JHarvest

 

this all still sounds better than hemmingford nebraska......

And, i agree with you 100%. Where i am from in kansas, we dont need bins because the longest you will sit at an elevator is 2 or so hours, usually less than 30 min. Most of the time it takes me more time to drive to the elevator than it does to unload.

Good luck with your adventures....... I have sat in line for 9 hours in a day, and hated every sweaty minute of it.

Matt

 

This is a bit annecdotal(sp?), but when we went down to ND, I was surprised as heck at the infastructure. Up here, almost all grain elevators are modern, concrete facilities. The pit is large enough to dump a B-train (1700+ bu) on one go, so you're unloaded as fast as the grain flows out of the chute.

I should get some pics next time I head to Viterra/Forrest.

-Christian

 

Its as bad as it sounds. I sat in line for 7.5 hours with one load wednsday night in Frederick. We've been dumping trucks until 3am every night and still accomplishing nothing. Everyones very frustrated and sick of sitting, sitting, sitting, sitting. They say they'll be changes but there hillbilly style elevators will be the same next year.

On a side note, when we do get to cut which is pretty much 4 hours a day the combines work great.

 

I m suprised they haven't done anything to upgrade those outdated elevators down there in the years since I last made the run in 2002. I drove trucks on the run for 3 years and all I have heard from those elevators that they were in the works to upgrade capacity/speed/effiency to handle the new generation of wheat producing/harvesting in the years to come. I guess not. Since this is still a problem, my feeling is that they would not upgrade their facilities until a major diaster strikes before they finally wake up to the fact the elevators are the ineffiency problems.

 

I remember talking to a certain bearded man back in '04 who held the opinion that not only was the grain handling infrastructure lacking but the entire states infrastructure as well! Does anyone else feel the same way?.....I wonder how that old man is....

 

Its a world wide problem.Farmers with their own harvest and handling gear up to be efficient but as custom harvesters and carting to elevator's we wait.This is meet with understanding with the farmer we are working for but a few jobs further on they are waiting for us.

 

Here in Scotland, we do not have farmer owned coops except from East Coast Viners, who are a farmer owned feed company.

That seems kinda pointless as you seel your grain to them to buy it back off them as cattle feed.

Here in Scotland we cannot get it naturally dryed as much as yous in the U.S. We tend to cut with a high moisture and dry it aswell as not having as long a summer and as high humidity.

Most folk tend to store it loose in sheds or towers.

I wish I farmed 'across the pond'.....

- Gordon

 

So have the elevators even added storage after all these years?
Are they piling wheat outside?
The stories on this thread sound familiar from when we cut wheat near Enid in 1986. Farmers didn't have storage and elevators were grumbling about the "big" combines and tandem trucks of the day filling them up too fast and they couldn't get enough transfer trucks to haul wheat to the big terminal at Enid.Plus there was a 20%? acre setaside.
So we flash forward to '08.Much larger combines dumping into graincarts (we didn't have them then) and hauling with semi's into small country elevators. No setaside and they managed to get a wheat crop this year. It's a recipe for a harvesting logistics nightmare.
Wheat can be a difficult crop to store especially down there with the early heat and humidity and potential bug problems. When we grow wheat up here we don't like to store it either.Just haul it into the elevator and let someone else worry about it. But SOMEBODY needs to be building bins. Around here both farmers and elevators have been adding storage and a lot of this has to do with ethanol plants competing fiercely with export channels for corn. And elevators also see that we have bigger combines and trucks and are improving for these reasons. It's helped us a lot but the sad truth is that the ag sector has been money starved for so long that our grain handling infrastructure has fallen way behind and BADLY needs updating.
Btw around here if an elevator says it will be closing at 4:30 or ? and there are a bunch of trucks in line to unload, it's just amazing how they can speed things up to get everybody outta there quickly. They have a way of slowing things down so as to restrict the inflow of grain so they don't fill up too fast and then have to cut everybody off.

my .02

 

Seems like the perfect storm. Bumper crop = disaster (for harvesters, anyway).

I feel your pain, JHarvest. There's not a prescription that will dull the ache of knowing that an idling motor gets pretty much less than zero MPG. But the way I figure, all of the economic principles are still in play. Everyone wants to maximize their margin, so why would an OK farmer pay for bins, or an elevator capitalize for equipment that would sit empty or go underutilized except for maybe two seasons out of eleven? It's a little easier math in places where yields are more predictable, and the crop is not so fragile.

It should be recognized that you guys are the ones who are the most affected, and your choices (e.g., whether to return or not) will help determine how Oklahoma positions itself. I say make some noise, just make sure when you bark up at the tree that the right people hear it.

Farm culture is built on loyalty and trust. Yours and that of your clients is sure to be tested this year in the early going. Best of luck, and fortune.

[jim]

 

Good grief, people! You all seem to be just pointing your fingers at our small, insdependent co-ops, without even realizing the real core issue. It's not that these guys "live in the dark ages" or even want to! It's about this state's overall economy.

For those who've kept up with some of my own commentaries on the lack of local new combines and other machinery, here in this state, you will then begin to link what I already covered, with what's happening here.

Again, Oklahoma, is for the most part, a wheat-only based economy. Sure, there's other crops, but corn, sorghum, soys and even cotton, are only scattered here and there. Wheat is and always will be, this state's chief crop, just due to its climate, weather, ground water, soil and so on.

We have lost most of our combines over the past 25-30 years, slowly, by attrition. We lost the parity base, back in 1973, before most of you were born. I don't even get many answers on here, when I ask about parity.

Wheat has never been much more than $3-4 for over 17 years, period. Those were the HIGH end prices, too. I know our elevators are in need of improvement, just as our small towns are dying. Yes, buildings and store/business fronts once active and well-kept, until maybe just 15-20 years ago, are crumbling and streets are cracking, for lack of maintenance and upkeep. Why? The money just is not there. The people just are not there, either.

I know it's not easy having to put up with most small town co-ops and elevators. Many are not even in as good of shape as they were, 20 years ago. In some cases, it is even a safety hazard, too. Still, it's not helping the matter by just griping about all of this. Just give them some time to recover. For the first time in at least 35 years, we have very close to a parity price for wheat, even as some combines are rolling.

Now, if our elevators continue lack of improvement, after let's say, 5 to 7 more years of a decent wheat price trend and not just a mere market spike fad, then we can all start complaining. As for now, just let it be. Stop the bellyaching. Now you know and understand why they're in the shape they're in, and have been for 2.5 decades.

 

Combiness, you make it seem like Oklahoma is the only state that has suffered over the last 20 years of low commodity prices, you may want to leave the state on occasion because almost every other ag based state has went through the same depressed prices and struggles no matter what crop they raise. Take a look at FSA loan prices if you don't remember. The rest of the country has adapted to $4 soybeans, $2 corn, and $3 wheat and learned how to improve their bottom line so that they could expand their infrastructure. They are the ones who will capitalize on these higher prices because they have adapted. I am also unsure if you have actually ran any numbers lately but with inputs as much as tripling in some cases the margins or "parity" haven't changed much for farmers with these higher commodity prices, so what I don't see this huge influx of money flowing into these struggling ag towns that you do over the next 5-7 years.

You can call it bellyaching if you want I don't really care but this isn't a new problem and my banker won't just "let it be" as you say we should do, he wants his money and he really prefers it to be on time and I can't do that if I get behind on finishing my jobs, I need these acres and I need them in a reasonable time frame or I am not going to be around here to see this great mystical ag boom you talk about.

 

How's the wheat crop doing? Better than average?

How many years have you been down there cutting 20-25 bu wheat and not having to wait much, if at all?

And what's the consistency on the yields been like since you've been down there? Have yields consistently increased over the last 20 years like corn yields have, due mainly to improved genetics?

Maybe you need to step back and look at it from the other side... Do you want to invest the $100K in a grain handling facility that you don't think you can consistently utilize/fill? In that area it would take a large farm to produce the same total bushels that a small-medium size cornbelt farm will produce in a given year, so a top-notch grain handling facility is a much riskier investment.

Now having said that, I agree 100% with what you're saying. Those 3-4000 bushel legs need upgraded. Our local elevator has a leg that's probably 6-7000 and it keeps up pretty well, even when we have good crops. Before it was upgraded though, it was torture.

 

They could easily build a 8,000 bph leg on the end of the annex of the Elevator & run their tripper upstairs backwards and increase capacity. There may not be more of a need for more bins but rather a need to get it in the bins faster and adding another leg that's outside with even a leg that will hit 8 of the annex bins will allow much shorter turn around time. I agree with Jharvest, they are behind the times from the sounds of it. Even the local "farmer owned co-ops" around here have updated, how hard is it? Much has changed in 30 years logistically, the old out of date stuff needs to go, the knowledge of olden days doesn't do any good. You can't set a rotor like a conventional and you cannot think like you did 30 years ago, your knowledge is worthless. So like everything update and keep ahead of the curve or be left behind.

 

You really had that much trouble in Hemingford????

 

With those kind of waits, 6 hours or more, why don't you CHs hire a few more semis and just go direct to the terminals. I don't know where they are for sw Oklahoma, Dallas FW or Amarillo? 200 miles one way, can make the round trip in a day. Sounds like it is time for some heart to heart talks with the customers and coops. I know the customer says where he wants his grain, but this sounds ridiculous. If it is the right direction, the customer should make it up in basis.

 

with fuel prices, they cant afford that. plus, shipping that far might be worth more than the grain itself!!!

plus, truck drivers usually wont do that, unless u can guarentee so many miles / day / week

 

You really had that much trouble in Hemingford????

We did, it wasn't uncommon for our 4 combines to require 6+ trucks to keep up with us, as it was about a 6 hour wait (give or take on the day), so about the time we'd fill the grain cart a truck would show up. That place is so mis-managed it's not funny. They try to keep all this and that separate and send you to 5 different pits, some where semis have to back out/into, little trucks dumping in the fastest pit semis in the slowest... that place is a joke. I understand it's a terminal and takes in a lot of grain, but for a place of that magnitude surely they could manage the logistics a little better?

 

Hmm well im good friends with the manager of the grain department in Hemingford so ill try and put a word in about whats going on.

 

well, the fact that they split the wheat so much there...... come on people. we took 130k crop here today on 2 pits, and it seemed like we were twirling our thumbs all day.

Matt

 

They built a new circle track unit train facility west of vernon Texas its got two 25000 bushel/ hr legs in addition to there old elevators.

 

You missed the point, Jharvest. I never said this was the "ONLY state" in such a boat. I only stated the basic reason why our elevators, small towns and economy in general, has been in a severe recession for the past 30 years. There is just no parity for our wheat, or rather thare was not, until just this year.

Now, you should step back, wait a couple of seasons, see if this is a trend and not a fad. Then if the former, our elevators as well as commerce and economy, can begin to improve. You must also realize, Oklahoma in particular, has suffered even more so, than its two bordering states north and south, for the past two years, for having a near state-wide crop loss.

Combiness you need to take a drive north. My hometown elevator has expanded more times in the past 10 years than Frederick has in the past 40. http://scrantonequity.org/index.cfm (picture on main page is not updated)
More later have work to do, since elevators are slow.

 

325, that does not surprise me, so what's the point? Many elevators in just Kansas, have expanded or remodeled to be more update. All you've done, is just reinforce my point that we don't have [or did not have] the funds for such improvements, till maybe next year.