About This Episode
Chris Barron checks in with Chase Dewitz, a no-till producer and cattleman farming the I-94 corridor between Bismarck and Jamestown in south-central North Dakota. A weather station seven miles from the farm had logged 1.06 inches of moisture since the beginning of September 2020, against about 9 inches for all of 2020 and more than 28 inches in 2019. Winter brought essentially no snow. A two-inch band of moisture sits at the top of the profile with dry soil underneath it.
Small grains went in early April into ground with no moisture at the top to germinate seed, then caught about four tenths of rain the second week. Soybeans are nearly finished and corn is half planted. Dewitz expects small grain acres to fall and soybeans to gain because they are the lower input crop. He has applied no anhydrous and no broadcast fertilizer, running a 50/50 blend of 10-34 and 28 percent in a 2x2 with the planter and holding top dress until it rains.
Marketing is the harder problem. With production ranging anywhere from 200 bushels to zero, cash contracts are nearly impossible. He has one 25,000-bushel soybean contract that filled overnight on a resting order well above the market, and otherwise is feathering in hedges and looking at puts against his APH bushels. Cash basis has flipped positive on corn and soybeans where it is normally well under. On the livestock side he expects to feed hay into June and sees a lot of cows going to town.
“We're in an environment here where we can grow 200 bushel corn or we can grow 0 bushel corn.”
— Chase Dewitz
Key Takeaways
1.06 inches of moisture from September 2020 through early May 2021, versus about 9 inches for all of 2020 and over 28 inches in 2019.
Only a two-inch band of moisture at the surface with dry soil below; small grains were seeded in early April into ground that would not germinate them.
No anhydrous and no broadcast fertilizer: a 50/50 blend of 10-34 and 28 percent applied 2x2 at planting, with top dress held until rain comes.
Herbicides have almost nothing to work on because weeds, rangeland and hayland are all stagnant.
Cash basis flipped positive on corn and soybeans where local elevators are normally 30 to 60 cents under; new crop is still 50 to 60 cents under.
One 25,000-bushel soybean contract filled overnight on a resting order; the rest of the risk plan is hedges and puts against APH bushels.
Full Transcript
Chase
Dewitz: We're running about 4 miles an hour. We're running hydraulic downforce. We gotta run about 150 pounds. And thank God we've got planters with weight ring distribution because if we didn't, we'd have to be hanging weights on our wings. But we're— we keep breaking lower, the lower parallel linkage arms, the cast ones. We keep breaking them damn arms. I actually had to quit tonight because I had put the last one we had left on this morning and I broke another one. I think we've gone through like 14 or 15 since we started and all 3 planters are doing it.
Chris
Barron: Welcome everybody to another episode of the Ag View Pitch and we are doing another crop update here today and we've got Chase DeWitt in North Dakota. How's it going, Chase? And tell us exactly in North Dakota where you're at.
Chase
Dewitz: Uh, we're, I guess, what they would call south-central North Dakota, um, right along I-94, uh, right between Bismarck and Jamestown, um, capital of North Dakota, Bismarck, I guess. Gotcha. Kind of farm along the I-94 corridor, um, east-west, I guess.
Chris
Barron: Gotcha. So On the last crop update I did, it wasn't too long after that I got a, I got a text from you that said if you want to talk to somebody where it's really dry, because I was saying how dry it is here and it is powder here, but it sounds like you guys have some like major extremes kind of right in your area. Tell us a little bit about what you're, what you're experiencing right now there.
Chase
Dewitz: Well, just, I mean, we had zero snow all winter and just recently have had a little bit of snow and just some very minimal showers. But we've got a weather station about 7 miles from our farm and I pulled the weather records off that station last night and since the beginning of September of 2020, we've had 1.06 inches of moisture is what that has recorded. And so then I pulled the— this is kind of already starting all the way into 2020. So the whole, the whole year of 2020, we had 9 point— I don't remember, it was 9.08 or something, the entire year of 2020. But then just to show the extremes we've had, in 2019, we had over 28 inches of moisture. So it's been very extreme. I think the only thing that's probably really saving us right now is we haven't been real warm. You know, finally got a few days in a row here we haven't been freezing every night.
The last 2 days have been— or last 3 days have been quite a bit warmer, which our seeding conditions have been pretty good. I mean, we have moisture right up the top. Top, just from the 30, 40 hundredths of moisture that we've had in the last 2, 3 weeks. But just in the last 2 days, I've noticed our ground's getting extremely hard again, just from getting that little bit of moisture, or a little heat, I mean. And, um, I don't know, it's— we're all no-till, so anywhere where we have done any tillage. It's very dry. We seeded the small grains early part of April. At that point, there was no moisture at the top for any germination, even germinate the seed. And then we did, we did get about 40 hundredths of moisture, second week of April. Which that, that's up now, but we've got a 2-inch band of moisture at the top and then dry below that. So we don't have much gas in the tank.
We might have enough to get things started, but it isn't going to carry us very long.
Chris
Barron: So we're, we're recording this on May 3rd, essentially. So you're, um, what, what is the planting pace You said, you know, the small grains are pretty well wrapped up on corn, soybeans. Kind of what's that looking like in your area?
Chase
Dewitz: I guess for, for our, for our farm, um, we're actually just about done with soybeans and 50% on the corn. Um, you know, it varies quite a bit. Um, you know, we had that warm sell early April. And, you know, we put all our small grains in and went, and then there was quite a few guys that probably have just really actually got going this last week, probably some guys still seeding small grains yet. But if I had to guess, I would say the small grain acreage is going to be down quite a bit.
Chris
Barron: Um, so what's going to be up? I think soybeans will be okay because the one thing that I noticed all winter— you talked about not having any snow in North Dakota. It was the first year I traveled North Dakota and didn't get snowed in someplace at least a couple of times during the winter, and I drove all over that place this winter again and just was in awe how there was no snow anywhere, you know, maybe a dusting at the most. And so, you know, you guys go from the extreme of completely saturated to now completely dry in most areas of the state. So, um, you're saying more beans, but I also— the other thing I, I noticed driving all over the state is there was more tillage done in North Dakota than I'd ever seen. South Dakota, for that matter, too. I mean, just, you know, fixing a lot of ruts and all kinds of issues, and it was a good fall for tillage. Is that a hindrance?
Is that making it so guys are going to lean more to beans than corn, or what, what's driving that?
Chase
Dewitz: You know, our— right, right where I'm at, we didn't have as much PP, uh, in '19 as they did to the east and south of us. Uh, you know, we're pretty heavy no-till area. Um, The one thing though, the areas where guys did do tillage, we had that crazy wind in March there and there's a lot of ground that blew. Mm-hmm. That definitely was a hindrance. You know, I would say a lot of the ground that had tillage is probably heavier type soil that didn't get seeded. That ground probably still got obligated to wheat or corn.. But I just, it really all comes down to where guys are gonna be at for crop insurance guarantees. Just because we're so dry, I think guys are going to gravitate towards the soybeans because just lower input crop. And what do you, and that being said too, I mean, for us on our corn, we haven't spread any fertilizer. We didn't do any anhydrous.
We're running a 50/50 blend of 10-34 and 28% with the planters planting corn, doing it 2x2, just basically putting something out there to get the corn started. And if it starts raining, we'll go out and top dress. But at this point, I mean, we haven't been able to guarantee on a rain to incorporate fertilizer, and we just can't do tillage in the situation we're in right now.
Chris
Barron: It's pretty hard to get— pretty hard to get herbicides to do anything too without rain, right?
Chase
Dewitz: And that's the other thing. I actually went and did a little bit of spraying this morning. It was the first spraying I had done and just had this conversation with the agronomist yesterday. I said quite literally, other than maybe bordering some fields and going and spraying potholes or areas that, you know, we haven't been able to farm for how many years because they're always wet, now they're dry. The rest of the field's clean. There's just, there's no, there's no activity. And, and, and that, that leads us to another situation is we also don't have any activity in our rangeland or pastureland or our, you know, hayland. The grass is just not doing anything. It's just like everything is stagnant. Yeah.
Chris
Barron: And you've got a lot of livestock, a lot of cattle to worry about feeding. How's that looking? What's, what's the thought there?
Chase
Dewitz: You know, I'm fortunate that I have a lot of forage on hand. I typically carry over a lot of hay and feed supply. So that— I'm fortunate in that aspect. I, at this point, kind of planning, we're probably going to be feeding at least well, well into June. Um, I would like to probably do some more calling on the cow side. Uh, obviously the higher grain prices have been very detrimental to the cattle prices here recently. I still have some background cattle in the feedyard I would like to move. I don't think I'll— I won't be putting any yearlings on grass, which we typically would do. Just to save any range that we have for the cow-calf operation. Um, it doesn't look good. It's— I think there's gonna be a lot of, a lot of cows going to town in June, especially by late June and July if the moisture situation doesn't change. So there's gonna be a lot of cows going to town.
Chris
Barron: Yeah. So that's the issue on the livestock side. Another quick question here before we wrap up on the back to the grains for a minute. What are you hearing as far as, you know, you're thinking a lot more soybeans? What's your, what's your current basis looking like for corn and beans? Or, you know, you guys were in an area to the east of you anyway where there was a ton of prevent plant, not as much production. Not as much grain and the grain's moving.
Chase
Dewitz: Crop basis, we're positive basis now, which I mean doesn't sound great to a lot of the area, but usually our basis is terrible, right? Uh, huge. I have seen some local elevators who usually are typically always, uh, $30, $40, $50, $60 under on corn or bidding a positive The soybeans as well. As far as new crop, new crop soybeans are still a $0.60 under bid, and then that same kind of $0.50 under for corn. So on the new crop side, so what are you doing?
Chris
Barron: Are you marketing anything ahead here on beans or corn, or are you holding off, or what's your thought there?
Chase
Dewitz: It's quite literally impossible to do any cash marketing just because because they don't have any production, right? I mean, we're in an environment here where we can grow 200 bushel corn or we can grow 0 bushel corn, right? I mean, it's so extreme. So I actually just last week I had one contract, 25,000 bushel of soybeans, kind of one of those things, quite literally had an order in that was so far above the market it filled on the overnight in one cash contract soybeans. That's the only cash contract I currently have. I've been doing, you know, some feathering in, some hedging, trying to figure out how to put a floor on this thing. Um, really struggling with the marketing like everybody else, but I also have the struggle of I don't know if I'm gonna have any production, right? Right.
You know, I basically figured out what my APH guarantees are, my APH bushels for each crop, and— and I'll probably at some point try to get a 4 under everything with, with puts, I suppose, would be the safest way to do it.
Chris
Barron: Yep, probably some options.
Chase
Dewitz: I'm trying to do any kind of cash marketing right now. We just, we can't do it.
Chris
Barron: Do you have any rain in the forecast or any hopes for anything in the next 10 days?
Chase
Dewitz: Well, today we had 60% chance of rain. Well, that turned into a few sprinkles on the windshield that never shut down any seeding equipment. So, wow. Uh, well, kind of came through and a few sprinkles.
Chris
Barron: Well, um, I think what we'll do is we'll, uh, recheck back with you and some of the guys in your area that are, um, you guys obviously are going from one extreme to the other, from super wet to super dry, and— we'll say a couple extra prayers for you and hopefully, hopefully we can, we can get, do a rain dance on top of that or something too.
Chase
Dewitz: Well, they say plant in the dust and the benz will bust. Well, we're definitely planting in the dust, but we'll see if that comes to light.
Chris
Barron: See if it works.
Chase
Dewitz: Yeah, this is the driest I've ever seen in my in my farming career. I mean, a lot of guys are comparing it to '88 for our area. Uh, you know, the 2012 drought, we were kind of insulated from that. We actually had pretty decent production in '12, but in our area, everybody goes back to '88. I was very young at that time.
Chris
Barron: Oh, I unfortunately, I remember 1988, and it— that was kind of a late drought that year, at least in the center part of the Corn Belt. We had, you know, dry planting conditions that year. And then it just continually got, you know, we caught some rains, but it got really super dry late in the season to where, you know, after we got things pollinated, but then it just basically completely shut the water off almost everywhere. And that was not good. But hey, Chase, I think this was a good place to, to wrap up. And, uh, really appreciate you reaching out and giving us some perspective on kind of what, what you're seeing there in North Dakota. And I'd like to have you back again and give us a report once you get some rain and things look a little brighter, if that works for you.
Chase
Dewitz: Well, let's hope I can give you that report of that we got rain very soon. But, um, I guess, I guess every day that goes by, we're one day closer to the rain. So, yep, um, when that'll happen, I, I don't know. But all right, yeah, that sounds good, Chris.
Chris
Barron: All right, well, hey Chase, thanks a lot, really appreciate it. And thanks everybody for listening. Again, as I said on the last Crop Up Beta, if you got something going on in your area, please let us know. We'd love to have you, uh, give us a report from your area, kind of what you're seeing, and, uh, and keep everybody kind of updated and give some perspective out there. So again, thanks everybody for listening. We'll catch you again next time on the Ag View Pitch.