Simple answer don't do it anymore if it's so bad.. All i know is that wheat is simple to grow and a fairly reliable crop on this farm so you haven't convinced me yet sorry..

 

I agree with you Christian. We don't grow wheat because we don't want to deal with the CWB. The last time we grew wheat it all went to the local feed mill, and the feed price was with in 5 cents of the board. And we get our money, all of our money, right after we drive off the scale. Thats nice. But at our place we have lots of low spots that can freeze. And we are down stream from a bunch of no tillers so we have water running on to our place and keeping our low spots full of water, so we are generally a day or to behind some of our neighbors when it comes to seeding wheat. And we can get frost every month of the year, which leads to down grading. frustrating.

Would much rather grow barley.

I am with you Christian, SCREW THE CANADIAN WHEAT BOARD.

 

Christian I grown alot of marginal wheat crops, but i have found one that will actually yeild for me, I think u just have find one works, for me it has been infinity bycanterra, for u it might be something different, i tried some kane but i have not harvested it yet, everybody around can grow superb and pull 50 plus yields, for me barely 40, and poor grade, keep your options open, unlike u my barley yields can not break 65 but oat will go over a 100 on the same inputs.

 

Simple Answer?

Everybody around here does. Everyone says wheat is easy to grow. They aren't wrong on that... But canola is easier to grow than wheat. Wheat-canola-wheat-canola. Barrie, Superb, Kane - that's the rotation in these parts.

40bus wheat is considered an excellent crop... 30 is considered average. Lots of 50s and 40s this year. 38 should be profitable. If I had my way, it would have been sold before the price totally collapsed.

I'm still waiting on a final payment for last year's wheat... THANK YOU CWB.

I've got some canola contracted at $10.10/bu. Do I have the option to do that with wheat? NOPE!

I've read about the Crow benefit. Here's a question for you... I sell canola at the futures price, minus a 5 - 15 basis (last winter for instance). Why is the wheat basis so much more??? How can an elevator RIGHT ON THE TRANS-CANADA be considered "HIGH FREIGHT AREA"?

There are WHEAT MILLS IN MANITOBA. Why can I not sell my PREMIUM product to a LOCAL mill, for a PREMIUM? (I can get clean wheat to blend mine with, take ergot down to 0.01 and make it a #1, and be at 14% protein).

Heck, growing feed wheat and selling it to Mowhawk/Husky is more profitable.

Cargil is paying $2.40 / bus for barley... The mill usually is $0.20 - $0.25 /bus over the local elevators. They don't deduct dockage either.

I wonder what is so SPECIAL about wheat???

There are peas, canola, flax, hemp, borage, lentils, fababeans, corn, oats, feed barley, caraway, camelina, mustard, and clover seed, being marketed every day. There is no CWB for these. What makes wheat so "special" that it takes a "board" to sell it???

My main problem is the fact that the bit of profit I *could* make is gone based on the interest I'm paying on the money that I'm not getting, for the wheat that I gave to a board that says I don't own it in the first place.


/end rant

 

Good point on question 1

In NuttyTown, they grow oats, without end, year on year. According to the locals, canola doesn't grow "here". Wheat doesn't grow more than 8bu/acre.

"here" = greater Parkland area.

Do you mean the fixed price contracts? Those are even more discounted than being in the pool.

Does Thunder Bay count?

Flax goes out the same port, and our Flax bids are fairly close to Alberta's.

If I want to sell to a mill, it still goes through the CWB, and I still get what the CWB "thinks" it can sell a crop for... In an "open" market, I can sell where I want, when I want, how I want.

I'm tempted to grow soft white wheat, but no one has ever tried it around here...

Winter Wheat does superbly - even on the light land. A friend of mine who's further south, but rents a few Qs in NuttyTown grew winter wheat here - it did 65bu/ac.

The problem I have with growing it, is there's no way for me to sell it before the rest of the crop comes in. Why? Because the CWB only takes 20%!

I find it amusing that even today farmers thing that the grain companies are "screwing" them when Farmer X gets $10.00 /bu for canola, and he gets $9.00 two days later.

You don't come across as a jerk, jester... Debate is healthy

Now a question for you... You're obviously more versed in CWB than me... this is my canola marketing plan for this year:

1. Sell 30% of expected production @ $10.10/bu = 10 * $10.10 = $101 / acre
2. Sell 15bu at harvest, on a CALL-type contract @ $8/bu = $120 / acre

Now, we have 25bu/ac (45% sold), I have $221/acre in my account (Variable input costs = $202/ac), and have upside potential on 15bu, along with another 30bu/ac in the bin.

How would I be able to do this /w the CWB?

-Christian

 

Well...it's not itchy...doesn't take up as much bin space...tastes good when harvesting...and...hmm...oh yeah, it's not itchy!

Don

 

Not itchy... Point taken. Barley isn't that bad, compared to oats

. Tasty... yes. I have a coffee-can of wheat that I had taken to Cargill... It's only half full now. I keep eating it.

Then again, Malt barley is sooooo sweeet. It's like eating sugar

 

farmerleach ya ought to be happy about no-till, cleaner water, less pollutants and honestly less water going down stream due to infiltration. We have way less erosion since no-till and better crops.
Try this test: get 3 of mamma's cake pans and put bare dirt in one, about 50% straw on dirt in one and 100% straw over dirt in other. Put pans on a slope about equal to your farm slope and with garden spinkler run at 1" per hour (trial and error to fiqure how long to run) with rain gauge. put catch pan under each pan. Bare dirt looks good and wet, but is it, what you will find is more water under dirt pan than others and the water will be dirty than the other two with straw and 100% straw water will be nealy clear. Then after that shocks you take your hand and scoop out of each pan, you will notice dirt pan is dry at the bottom with straw nearly saturated. And I can keep going about compaction with tillage and heavy equipment.
Bottom line is no-till will not cause water to stand down stream, other factors like a hard pan are likely to blame

 

I defintiley agree with this. Plus wheat is much easier to harvest as it doesn't lodge as badly as barley does and the straw is actually dry when the grain is ready to be harvested. Around here most of the wheat is CPS wheat instead of hard red because it yields more and you don't have to deal with the CWB when selling to a local farmer or feed mill.

 

Whoaa easy jester your gonna give me a coronary

. I really appreciate your input on the forum and I'm sure your understanding of the futures market is far greater than mine.
But.
The CWB act was first introduced at the time of WW1 as part of the war measures act then again in WW2, to keep the price of grain from going to high so Europe wouldn't starve to death. I have my Grandfathers grain price books in print of the average price of wheat from early 20s to late 40s and it clearly shows. In no way shape or form was this set up to benefit farmers.
Also I'm not going to defend the Grain Growers but many have tried to start pasta plants as a Can. U.S. joint effort but it is just not feasable with the board in place.
Also the CWB basis always seems to reflect the position of there pool accounts, and isn't really a true basis.
And I'd rather grow wheat than barley. Durum that is.

 

We get screwed so bad on all the other commodities canola, mustard, oats, flax, edible beans, corn, peas, lentils, soybeans, sunflowers, etc. that I think we should have the wheat board market all of them for us.

Or did I just list of the crops we don't get screwed on hence the reason they are way more profitable than wheat.

 

Why is it that if there is a large sale of canola or peas the basis flattens out or even goes positive to entice us to sell to get the crop to port to fill ship. In the case of wheat I pay about 55/MT in elevation cleaning freight to get it to the same coastal terminal that uses the same spout to load canola peas etc. that they will actually at times pay me in their basis to elevate,clean,freight to the coast. I know it is not as simple as it sounds but with the board under our FARMER CONTROL they had better do alittle more explaining, because like christian said if I wait until next christmas for my final and have to see the pro price everymonth get wittled down I may just loose faith in the expert marketing of the Board.

 

Why grow wheat? cause its easy. Isn't the really the only reason that any smart farmer grows it? cause it ain't because of the fantastic productivity or residual nutrients or ease of marketing or just the bottom dollar. Ask alot of wealthy older farmers they will tell you malt barley is king, and that they have made the most money over the years growing malt. Well they didn't grow much canola then which seems to be king now but in the cereal world malt barley holds its own. Christian sorry to hear about your low wheat yields, we found the opposite after years and years of growing barrie we tried Kane & Glenn. Glenn hit a high of 79bpa on a half and Kane had a high of 71bpa on a qtr. With the current market we can still make more with barley & oats but we continue to grow it because we don't have the swathing/combine time & bin space to plant anything else!! I firmly believe that without the CWB and the new RSW varieties, wheat could be the profitable thing to grow again. Conservative majority government anyone? woops, don't need to get into political talk, thats a whole nother bag of tricks.

 

How did you get Glenn out of the heads? I know of a field that got burnt because 9120s couldn't thrash the )*%$)$ stuff.

How much N did you put down? I have a feeling that's the key - it's N hungry, and not efficient.

 

Interesting. One thing no one has mentioned, is that the CWB has been very effective in trade disputes over the last few years. It's there in place with the resources when tariffs have been put on our grain. I seem to recall a number of years ago when the barley market was opened, how quick a reaction there was when our American friends had to wait for Canadian trucks at their elevators. I was a member of alberta pork and voted to make it voluntary. In hindsight I'm not sure if that was the right decision. I think it shifted the balance of power too far from the producers. And for those who say we have no choice, as others have stated, there is a lot of non board options even for wheat. I'm also not a blind believer in the thought that if its private its therefore better. Our dear Viterra has "proven" that. In Southern Alberta they have realized that they couldn't buy the market share with
price (and poor service). So to get the business they bought their main competitor in South, Lakside fertilizer. I think if you look at the business models of the big fertilizer companies it is to become the sole supplier of their particular product. If it works for them it should work for us. With proper management and some more changes I think it can make us more money.
Dusty
Dusty

 

Sorry for the errors, forgot to check it first and don't know how to edit it now.
Dusty

 

I disagree with those that say growing wheat is "easy". In this area it seems the more management you give it the more you can be rewarded, but at the same time there are guys that don't do anything and still produce a good crop.

I do feel for you Christian in having to deal with your marketing problems on top of things

 

I wonder why I grow wheat at times also. Lowest profit/acre out of all my crops. I've got 60,000bu of worthless 10 protein winter wheat that I wasn't smart enough to market before harvest began.

But the good part of growing wheat is that it does store easy and even if it takes a few years for the protein break to come off its lows, that wheat in storage will still be good. I just hope that my other crops will cover my operating loan this winter. Kinda funny how after the best year we've ever had on the farm will come a very frugal winter because I don't want to sell any of that wheat.

 

Interesting, we have always said Barrie is hard to thrash, really hard. So we welcomed any variety that was better than that, as it turns out Glenn seems to be as bad as Barrie. Which has never been a disaster to combine but comes with its disadvantages. The only way we could make any kind of a job is to tighten up the concave and buy extra fine concaves. This year we have 2% dockage because of white caps and unthrashed heads but next year I will buy more extra fine concaves and I shouldn't have any problems making a very good job. We zero-til and apply a 60-25-0-0 blend in spring @ 167 lbs. We cut back on our N this year but we usually apply more, we might next year.

 

that's less than we did. We put in 65lbs/ac of N, and then more in the N-P-S blend yet.

BTW, do you guys ever use 90+lbs of N on wheat? That's what everyone here told me is necessary to grow 50bu wheat. You're doing quite a bit better than 50, and I've heard from others too, and no one uses 90ls of N!?!

 

Our Infinity is about 12% PRT, 55 bu/ac, with 65lbs actual N + 18lbs actual P on canola stubble. 11.5" rain Apr to Aug 31. It was 60 bu/ac , 12.5% PRT, last year with 80lbs N, 25 P.

 

We do VR fertilizer but the N is usually between 75 and 90 lbs going down. We had a few fields do 75 even a full section and there is still good N left in the soil according to our soil tests we just got back. Harvest and kane both yielded 75 in our best fields with monitor in places reaching the 100's but harvest for us is the variety to beat. Easy to thrash, stands well, not too much straw, big kernals, looks good and yields like crazy. I'd still rather grow something else. This is for Cristian three years ago on a section did half wheat and other half corn. Wheat did 38bu corn did 125 no bull and then our canola this year averaged 5 bushels better after corn than it did after wheat. Hope your test plot works for ya then you won't have to worry about the CWB.

 

It's fascinating to me the breadth of varieties and yeild potentials that are reported here, the breadth of inputs to go along with it, and the breadth of economic analyis about whether it's worth it or not. I understand this is because of vastly different conditions, but it's fascinating none the less.

As some of you may know or remember if you follow my posts with any interest, I grew my first crop of wheat this year. It could be a mini series all by itself to tell all we went through, but to keep it short here, we grew white winter wheat, N was about 70 lbs, our yields were about 65, our test weight was high, our quality good, 1% dockage for foreign material, which I fixed on the combine by the end.

We had nothing marketed, the price collapsed, we sold it right off the combine cash 190 miles away, and if you consider the lime the soil needed as a 1 year expense, we lost a little, if you spread it over 2 or 3 years, we made a little.

I wanted to work it in for agronomic reasons as well as making a buck. We argue about corn or not (too expensive inputs), 1 side likes beans, but the other says we've only been lucky on beans so far to not have had aphids, other pests, mold, rust, whatever. So, I wanted corn-beans-wheat rotation to keep the diseases out of the beans, right or wrong.

I'm not sure where we're going from here. We have enough wheat seed left over to plant the field planned for if the beans come off in time. How long will the wheat seed last while we argue about it

Seriously? A couple of years or not?

 

Hey Christian, jdmanitoba puts down 100lbs/ac of N and 41 lbs/ac of P of actual product if he is applying 167 lbs/ac of the blend 60-25-0-0. That's a little more than yours.

 

As long as it's kept dry and cool it'll last a while. We saved enough after harvest this year to plant all of our acres and have some left over for 2010 planting. It's kind of nice to plant a little heavier than usual and not worry about running out of seed.