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2024 Crop Tour Final Review · Professional Ag Marketing Podcast

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Professional Ag Marketing Podcast.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_01: If you want a deep dive into the ag markets and risk management strategies, your search is over.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: Come here after every Friday to get your weekly commodity recap.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: Trading commodity futures and options involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for all investors.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: This is your host, Mike Minor.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: Let's get started.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: Today is August 9th.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: I've got Lucas Peters here with us today.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: He's going to give a little recap at the start of our final crop tour review of his Northern Crop Tour for South Dakota, Minnesota, and North Dakota.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: How's it going, Lucas?
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's going pretty well.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: I'm glad you made it back safe to the Laverne office, Mike.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh good to see you.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: Good to catch up with you and your thoughts on the crop tour.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: Hopefully everyone is following along this week on the website and on the podcast.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: And if you haven't, I know they're out there for uh you can go back and listen to them as well.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um so yeah, uh the uh a handful of us from the office did a northern crop tour to at least take a couple days off the road from you and your crew, Mike.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: And to get out of the office.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: Don't sell yourself shit.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe to get out of the office a little bit.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: Uh uh we didn't actually make it to North Dakota, so I I hate to uh be a hypocrite and say North Dakota because I I didn't actually make it up there this year.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: Once you get past like what, Watertown or Aberdeen, it's all the same advice.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: I I I I hate to say that, but yeah, kind of anyway.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: But um so yeah, what we did is uh uh we Laverne uh home office, we took off east down I-90 and headed over towards uh the Fairmont, Blue Earth area, kind of circled up, uh made a loop and came down through like Morgan, Redwood Falls, Minnesota area.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: Farmfest was going on this week, angled back to Laverne, and then uh the other day went south of Sioux Falls and then back up north on I-29, uh cutting uh across like Moody County, uh Cottington County, uh skipped uh what went through Clark, hit a little spank, and then looped back up towards Roberts County, South Dakota, and then back down through Minnesota.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I feel like uh, you know, the the the plan, I think, uh, and I know you hit it as well, this spring when we saw all the flooding and the heavy rain and the wet time, we talked a lot about like this 50 county area across Minnesota, South Dakota, Iowa, right?
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's where we wanted to spend most of our time looking of how did that 50 county area look after all the rain.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: And uh so from the Minnesota side, uh, when we uh Rock County, you know, is pretty roly, uh good drainage, and Rock County yields look like they're gonna be uh, I don't know about a record, but really good.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: And not as extreme of rainfall.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: We didn't have any seven-inch rain events really or anything like that.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: We didn't, and we we also didn't get the flooding, right?
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like the the heavy flooding uh going on.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: So as we went east, you stop in uh eastern Nobles County.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh that's kind of where it starts, right?
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: And we've been talking about that kind of all summer long.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, definitely evident in the field.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: So you go out in a field that is uh, you know, it's it's relatively flat, that's heavy dirt, um, and and what you notice is uh the corn is definitely stunted, it's a lot shorter than maybe a better drain field or a sandier field.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um so a little stunted growth.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the you also notice there's a lot of drowned out spots and spots that are gonna be you know next to zero yield because the water just sit stood there too long.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: But the other thing you notice is the crop looks pretty good where it's not drowned out or affected by the wet weather.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um stand counts where where we were at uh really pretty good.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: Uh ear set great.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you know, maybe a little delayed maturity because it was wet and it sat there for uh a few weeks.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: Uh plus, you know, this week it's a high temperature of like 68 today, so that's not helping out a lot.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: But that was kind of the similar trend from Eastern Nobles County, Jackson County, Martin County.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, in Martin County, we stopped a few times.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's a pretty big corn production county in southern Minnesota.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um there's some good corn out there.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's you you go out and uh you do some checks.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: Some of that corn got planted pretty early, and it's it's moving along, looks good, stand counts are good, ear sets good.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: You don't see stress due to drought.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: You don't, at least in that area, you don't see stress due to disease.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um little to no like post-season stress here, it's just stressed from that uh rainfall, excessive rainfall early.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: And when you get in a field that maybe has a few more of those drowned out spots, the yeah, the corn isn't as good.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: We we got a lot of like 190s with some 170 yield checks over in that Martin County area, which is kind of what we expected.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: That was supposed to be the worst area in Minnesota, and it played out that way.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: Uh as we went further north, it just gets less and less of the uh excess water, or at least the standing water, um, and the corn crop looks really good.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: I one of the comments that uh one of the interns that was with us uh uh on our tour this week, when we jumped out in southern Redwood County and looked at a cornfield, she said, Well, this is the best field we've been in all day.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's that obvious on how much better the crop looks once you get out of those areas.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: So uh all in all, uh Minnesota, at least in that first part there where we went, uh, is kind of what we expected.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the good stuff is really good.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: There's a water affected some of the areas, but if I was gonna put a number on it, like the standard 150-acre cornfield in in Nobles or Jackson County, Minnesota, there's probably five to seven acres that are gonna yield next to zero.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: And the acres that are there are probably gonna yield 220.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: So that's gonna bring your averages down uh into the low 200s, which is kind of what I think farmers are expecting.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so that uh Minnesota uh you know kind of wraps that up.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: I I think Minnesota is going to be important as we look at that national yield number, uh, and we can get in that in just a minute.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but I my feeling is Minnesota's gonna be somewhere in the low to mid-180s, and I know you might disagree with that, and we'll talk about that later.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh in the South Dakota side of things, um you know, this was kind of uh the biggest surprise, I guess.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: I grew up in South Dakota, you grew up in South Dakota, we farmed in South Dakota for years, like August, South Dakota corn, you should see some drying down, you should see some stress spots from the gravelly knolls or whatever the case may be.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: Everywhere I went, uh the corn crop looked great.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: It looked consistent.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, south of Sioux Falls in the wet areas looked like southern Minnesota.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: It was stunned, it was a little delayed maturity, but the plants were green and uh and healthy.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, you go up to Moody County.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: Some of the spots in Moody County last year got kind of dry.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: I think the field we were in, uh uh because we knew of the farmer, like that field's gonna yield 70 bushel more this year than last year.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh just with adequate rainfall, good drainage, good fertility, uh good weed control disease program.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it uh you talk about a perfect year.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: And the crazy thing on Moody County, which isn't a giant county, but it's a very important county for South Dakota corn production, from the southeast corner to the northwest corner is kind of the route I cut across.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: It didn't matter.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: You could have jumped out anywhere and the field, the corn field would have looked the same.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: It was just really good.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: And Englan up towards Watertown and then all the way up to the uh Roberts County uh area, um uh North Assistant there.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of prevent plant spots up there, but the corn that did get planted looks great.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: The only watch out I have on the South Dakota corn crop, and I would throw North Dakota in there, although I didn't actually go into North Dakota, yeah, uh, is delayed maturity.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I was surprised, you know, in southern Minnesota and the pictures you're showing, you know, we're a lot, uh, a lot of roasting year stage, yellow kernels.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: Boy, that there is a lot of blister corn yet in South Dakota, and the farmers we're talking to just feel like the crop's seven, ten, fourteen days behind.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: Well, even on the whole crop tour, I think I saw maybe two fields that were dented, and I'm saying like starting to dent, not even like I didn't feel a single ear that was hard to hold up.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yep, and that was everywhere.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: So that's you know, maybe something to be concerned about.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: So let's say, you know, uh on like one of the fields I checked uh in South Dakota uh was definitely like R2, like blister stage.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: So you got 35 to 40 days till maturity, if I remember my charts right.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, well, what's 40 days on August 9th that we're sitting here?
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: Like mid to late September, right?
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: Mid September.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's the last week of September.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: Last week, okay.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: So like it's it's gonna make it, I suppose, if everything's normal.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: It might be close, but it's also not normal.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: I was at the fair last night and it was really cold.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you're you're wearing a jacket, or you should have worn a jacket to the Sioux Empire Fair on August 8th.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: That uh that's not a great sign when you want neat heat units.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: Now, yeah, having said all that, you look at the two-week forecast and it's above normal temps.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: So uh maybe we'll catch up uh anyway.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: But um no, my general feeling is uh, you know, I I think South Dakota and Minnesota look very consistent this year everywhere we went.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it's a decent crop that's there.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think either state hits a record because of excess rainfall early on, uh, a little delayed planting as well, and possibly a little maturity issues uh coming in on the home stretch.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: So I I think South Dakota's gonna be somewhere 155 to 160.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna maybe lean towards 160 for a final yield.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: I think records 165, so you're gonna be close.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um and Minnesota, again, I I'm gonna probably say 183, 185-ish range because I think once you get out of southern Minnesota, the crop gets a lot more consistent.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: And um, yeah, record for Minnesota's 195, I believe.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: So you're not gonna be you know near a record crop in Minnesota, but I think it's gonna be pretty good.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: Well, let's start off the rest of the tour here.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: I I'll be a little bit quick on it.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: I'll try to summarize it as as best as I possibly can from each day.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, day one, the northwest Iowa, uh, very similar conditions that you had talked about, probably more in like Rock County, basically.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_01: Most of the problems were east of us, but still it you know, uh every third field we kind of walked in, it not the best samples, even though it looked decent from the road.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: The getting into Nebraska and then after really Nebraska's spottiness, you know, it was beautiful in northeastern Nebraska, it was awesome corn.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: Uh down by York they had some hail problems and whatnot, but by the time I got in Missouri, I'll just say it was good, excellent corn the whole trip after Missouri.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: Uh fantastic crop conditions, everything looked awesome, no problems.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: I pretty much didn't see a bad field until we got back into northwest Iowa.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: Now, anything that would hold those crops back where I heard a lot of well, we planted a fourth of our crop when we were supposed to in April at the end of the month, and then we had a break for two to even in one case a month before we got anything back into the field or not.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: That could probably play a problem in this, and and we talked about that after the May Waz Day as well, that uh maybe you could take a bushel and a half off this crop because of delayed planning at the start of the crop year.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: So that we'll see if that plays a factor later on or not here.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: But basically all the way from, you know, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, all look fantastic for crops.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: Eastern Iowa looked awesome uh pretty much from south to north of on the eastern side of the state.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe um some problems with a little bit too w too much water in the northern side, uh northeast side of the state there, where we were gonna need um, you know, a few extra applications of nitrogen um to help you out.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: But basically, if I had to draw a description for northwest Iowa, it was once I got to like Wesley, like basically I-35 west.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that's where the problem started.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: Uh first field I saw was m like just east of Algona that showed problems or signs of excess moisture.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: And then by the time I got to Emmitsburg, Dispenser, um, you know, that was a heart of the problem.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: And it it it that went obviously up into Minnesota a little bit, and then it went it went down to about Storm Lake, basically, where some of the samples weren't coming out spectacular down there either.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but the problems were pretty much gone by Sheldon.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: You know, then it was more spotty again.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: So um from the crop tour perspective, I didn't give Iowa a record yield because of that stretch for some of the most important production in the northwest corner of the state, but it's still pretty close um because of the rest of the state.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: And that's where I wanted to drag the final review to was that the rest of the United States looks fantastic.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_01: Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: I think those numbers are so good that even Minnesota being the biggest X factor with the widest range of does a state yield 165 or 185, and both people could make a case.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: You know, either one of those examples, you're still above a trend line yield.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: When I plug the numbers in, it's very hard to get that below 181.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: Now it's also very hard, I think, to get it really above 184.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: I thought it was 183 before I went on the trip, but maybe 184 or 183 is that's about the peak max yield that you can get.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: But nonetheless, it's a trendline or better yield.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: I think over the last couple weeks, Lucas, we've been able to uh plug in that uh yield, I think, pretty aggressively for a lot of places.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: Uh a lot of surveys, a lot of crop tours that have been going on.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um everyone seems to be coming in above trend line.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: That's a pretty common theme.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: And uh at this point it's just gonna be, remember, 181 is four above what our record yield was uh prior to this last year.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: So we'll see what you know what we can really do.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_01: And this is one of the first times after even, you know, 2012 we put a bunch of money into it after a drought year.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_01: We developed hybrids and numbers and and technology to improve production and uh really take on stressful years on this crop.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: Now the question is, okay, we get perfect weather, what can we really do?
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: And and we haven't had perfect weather uh in the states that we're questioning, right?
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: No, we haven't the Minnesota, but the Iowa.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: The you know, most of Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, most of where Mosa corn is grown in the corn belt.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: Correct.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so I I guess to your point though, of if we were gonna push it above 184, a 185 national yield, you're gonna need perfect weather everywhere.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: Everywhere.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: And and the you know, I know I remember doing a podcast with you when we were talking in May about, you know, maybe this reduces the yield by a bushel because of a late planting or the wet weather.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it probably did, right?
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: We're probably noticing that in Iowa, Minnesota, a little bit of South Dakota.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but instead of a 185, or in Minnesota, instead of a 195, it it drops down to the to 180s or even lower.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and because of that, late planting and excess moisture.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: So uh I think I think you're right.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: Of of when I hear your guys' and talk to you about the what you saw and what we saw locally doing our crop tour, it it seems like it's somewhere in that 180 to 183 range, um, which is really, really good.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's three to four to five bushels better than last year, which was a record, which is crazy to think about.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's pretty safe.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: Once you get over, and that's the thing too, once you get over 180 or 181, and you've got two billion bushels of ending stocks on corn, it's like you've got enough corn.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, at the end of the day, when it comes to price, you're gonna find your bottom.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you're gonna try to find some demand somewhere to get those bushels to move.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's all the same in a in a weird sense of looking at it.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I and I know we've we've plugged these numbers, and you can plug in the numbers uh on the website, uh, all of our listeners, but you know, I might think Iowa's gonna yield a little lower because of the northern Iowa wet weather.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you think Minnesota's gonna be a little bit lower than me.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: We've changed those numbers a hundred different times, and we end up like within a bushel of where our national yield comes in.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: So it doesn't matter a whole bunch, probably, uh, is is the point.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think uh, you know, as we kind of wrap up here, Mike, uh talking to some customers this year on the Crop Tour, which is really fun, uh fun way to as we grow our customer base and kind of get into some of the same fields or check them out.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: A couple things we learned is that that uh adding extra extra nitrogen uh in wet springs seems to have been really paid off for guys.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so that's something I think uh a takeaway as we look into future years if we get wet springs.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I know the the extra fungicide applications uh like out east as tarspot and some of these other diseases come in is a really big deal, and that's just gonna keep progressing further west, I would think, uh, into the corn belt uh as the corn belt moves further west.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: So a couple things to to watch for and and some of the battles that I know the our farmers and customers uh have been facing, and and obviously doing a pretty good job with it because the yields look really good.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: I was really disappointed this year, though.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: We took more people on the crop tour than ever before, a lot of first timers, and I was incredibly sad because from about day one through day four and a half, they had seen about the same cornfield every field we went into, Lucas.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: That that is, I know we talked on the phone during the week of it didn't matter if you were in uh Missouri or Nebraska or South Dakota or Illinois or Indiana.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: You jump out, you walk in a cornfield, God, this one looks pretty good, Mike.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: And uh that consistency this year uh across the United States looks pretty amazing.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: That it does.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: All right, we'll see what they say Monday.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_01: Remember, they changed this a couple of years ago.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_01: They do not take in-field surveys anymore in the August Was deerport, so we'll see what the USDA has to say in Monday's report, anyways, without any boots on the ground like we had.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, it'll be interesting to see what they do for that.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so just a very short, quick break until the USDA can ruin all our plans after a week of uh traveling in the United States, but hey, we gave it our best shot.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for everyone uh for following along.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: Seriously, though, go to our website, we put some really cool calculators and tools in there for your field samples to calculate a yield, and then also for the United States as well to plug those in.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks, guys.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: And thank you to all our listeners.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_01: Please reach out to us at professionaleggmarketing.com.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_01: Check out our other podcast as well, Professional Egg Marketing, that's released every Friday.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: Trading commodity futures and options involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for all investors.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: See you next time.