Will harvest ever end in North Dakota?

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Shay: Welcome back everyone to the Ag View Pitch. This is Shay Foulk, and joined again today with special guest Mark Cartwright. And Mark, if you could just take a minute here to reintroduce yourself, that'd be great.

Marc

Cartwright: Yes, good afternoon, Shea. Nice to hear from you again. I work with the Pioneer Hybrid team. I'm up here in northeast North Dakota, northwestern Minnesota area, and working with large farm accounts in this region, trying to position the Pioneer products, working with the sales team to best suit their farms and their needs for the upcoming season.

Shay: Great, thanks for doing that reintroduction again, and I thought we'd touch base here again today and talk about how this 2019 harvest season has really gotten much easier in your area. I was wondering if you could give us an update on on how harvest is looking there.

Marc

Cartwright: Yeah, we spent the whole month of November basically getting through the soybean crop and through the sugar beet crop in the area, dry edible beans. Uh, we've had some delays here in December with some early snows, and now we're finally getting an opportunity to continue hammering away at the corn. So I'd say today we're about 50-55% completed with harvest on the corn. And probably somewhere around 70-75% completed with harvest on the sunflowers. So we still got those two crops out in the field. We got about two-thirds of our sugar beets done, and unfortunately we had to leave about a third of them out there. So just the way the years shake out with all the moisture and everything, and guys are still plugging away at it.

Shay: So Mark, with all the sugar beets that didn't get harvested there, I guess the question that I have, you know, if you don't have a third of that crop coming in, How does that affect markets there locally? You know, what's the impact there? Can you speak to that?

Marc

Cartwright: Well, there's a lot of sugar on the market. So I don't think our little market is going to impact sugar prices too drastically bad, you know, when you look at it worldwide. Just locally here, our local sugar cooperative, American Crystal Sugar, they've got some fixed costs to meet for the year. They're a farmer-owned company. So they're actually, you know, not going to be able to pay as much per ton of harvested sugar beets. And then they're actually assessing a penalty for every unharvested acre out there as well. So the sugar beet farmers are, are investing into their local cooperative. And, you know, they've got to— they're not going to be making any money off the sugar this year, which is going to be kind of a hit financially to the area, but we'll bounce back.

And the sugar growers have made a lot of money over the years, and hopefully they can continue to prosper in that endeavor.

Shay: Yeah, absolutely. Glad to hear that. So with the amount of corn too that we were discussing earlier, you know, 50% unharvested, we're looking at a couple million acres of corn there, right?

Marc

Cartwright: Yeah, a couple weeks ago, USDA had North Dakota pegged at about 43% harvested, and that would have would have left the number of about 2 million acres unharvested. Now, we've done a little bit more now. But, you know, I would still figure, you know, 1.75 million acres are still out there, you know, so it's, we've had some good weather this week. Combines are going this week again, for operations that feel like they've got storage capacity to handle that and drying capacity to handle that. And— and are moving forward with their corn harvest. Other operations maybe have some logistical issues that they're working through. The test weight in the corn is still on the light side. You know, a lot of, say, 49 to 51-pound corn even after it, it runs through the dryer. So we have some limitation just on the quality of grain that's out there too, but, but there's a lot of bushels.

The bushels are above average. And there's money out there to be grabbed. And guys are working hard to find different outlets and receivable points for that grain.

Shay: What are some of those outlets? What are the decisions being made there?

Marc

Cartwright: Yeah, the, you know, basically the ethanol facilities is probably the number one. We've got a, you know, got a few in the region. I wouldn't say they're real close, but they, they are manageable. If you've got, if you're closer to an ethanol facility, you've got some outlets there. We've got some feeders up in Canada that are looking at buying a lot of our corn as well. So, you know, cow-calf operations or feedlot operations, you know, mainly the feeders are going to be going through more, more corn than average. So hog operations, there's some hog, hog operations up in southern Manitoba that are looking for corn as well. So there's a, there's a few outlets., that guys are exploring, and it's, it's creating us some opportunities out there as well.

Shay: What kind of hits are producers taking with that lower test weight?

Marc

Cartwright: Oh, the discounts are variable, uh, just depends on if you're getting it dried, uh, at your own facility or if you're asking the elevator to dry that as well. And, uh, you know, yeah, they're, you know, you hear of reports of anywhere from 50 to $1, $1.25 discounts that, that guys are taking. And again, most of that is moisture as well as test weight discounts at the local elevator terminals.

Shay: And moisture, you know, we haven't really hit on that, is a big issue. And we talked last time, and it sounds like it's still affecting operations there.

Marc

Cartwright: Yeah, you know, we just— this time of year, you're not going to get any conditions to to dry the corn down naturally in the field very much. We are losing some moisture just from, just from the extreme cold and stuff. We're losing a tad, like I said, but I'd still say most of the corn is in that 20 to 25% range. You know, a month ago, we were maybe 23 to 27, 28, but there's, there's still some corn out there where guys push maturity or had a little bit later planting date. Where we're in the upper 20s, even low 30s for moisture content on the grain. So, you know, it's that stuff that's closer to, to say low 20s that guys are going after and trying to get accomplished. And the stuff that's really, really wet is, is gonna have to stand in the field probably till guys are saying March.

Hopefully we get an opportunity in March, maybe early April before some of this corn gets off the field. Of course, that starts to impact 2020 planting. When we start talking those timelines, you know.

Shay: And we were talking a little bit offline here too, that everybody has a bit of a different strategy with that. And I mean, operation to operation, that's got to be completely different, but pretty amazing some of the adversity that these producers are having to overcome. And, you know, the farmer's the eternal optimist. Be putting the crop back in the ground next year.

Marc

Cartwright: Oh, yeah, these guys, they're making plans for next year already. You know, assuming that Mother Nature will give us a good opportunity. Obviously, a little bit of trepidation out there just with the high soil moisture profiles and such. And just obviously, the weather's got to play a factor in it too, as we shake, shake the spring out here. If we can get some good cooperation with the weather, you know, a lot of these acres will still get planted. We just got to see how it shakes out. But you're exactly right. Everybody's got a little bit of a different outlook on this corn. Guys that have some, some good marketing outlets, and have some corn in that lower 20% moisture range, they feel like they can handle that.

In these temperatures we're getting this week and next week, we're supposed to be, you know, in the upper teens into the 20s, maybe even low 30s for some temperatures. So it should be good conditions. To, uh, to continue with some harvesting. Uh, the other crop out there was some sunflowers, you know, and I'd say the sunflowers are probably getting about 3/4, uh, of the way harvested across the region here. So guys have a little bit of sunflowers to continue harvesting as well as the corn.

Shay: Well, and to give people a little bit perspective, you and I were talking offline here before the call, and I actually saw, I think on Twitter today, that there was a operation, they were running the sunflowers from their semi-trailer, looked like through a double conveyor system to where they're actually working to separate the ice from the sunflowers. So I think a little bit of innovation through necessity, but they were talking taking 5 to 6 points off of, off of drying there.

Marc

Cartwright: Yeah, well, that's, that's impressive. So yeah, like, like you said, there's lots of ideas out there, a lot of innovation, guys are thinking and working hard to salvage what they have for a crop out there.

Shay: Our just—

Marc

Cartwright: our thoughts are as we go into the deep winter months, if we get much more snow, we've already got about a foot of snow on the ground here in Grand Forks, North Dakota. And it varies across the region a little bit more in places, a little bit less in places. But as we, we go through this, we know that corn is going to maybe probably have standability concerns as we get into the spring months. So if we can continue to pull some acres off here and there over the next few weeks, uh, we should be going good. The main thing is guys are looking at is field accesses. As we snow more, can we get to those fields that are well off the primary roads? Those got some priority. Fields with hybrids that aren't standing as well, they have some priority as well. And fields that have some manageable moisture contents are priority.

So guys are working hard putting a plan together and doing everything they can to execute on that plan.

Shay: Yeah, glad to hear that. Any last thoughts that you'd like to leave either with the producers up in your area or those listening from around the country that maybe just has a little bit of a different perspective than what they're used to?

Marc

Cartwright: Yeah, I just say continue to put your boots on every day and go to work. And we're all praying for the crop to come in as best as it can. Take some time with these holiday seasons and spend some time with, uh, some well-deserved time with friends and family and gain even some deeper perspective on the things. And, uh, like I said, our hearts and prayers with everybody to be safe. I know it gets cold out there this time of year and you can lose your little focus at times, and those are the opportunities that usually come up and bite us if something, uh, if something unfavorable is going to happen out there. So pay attention, keep your heads cool, and just know that everybody's thinking hard about the farmers that we have out in this region and know that they still have a lot of work to do in some— in the end.

Shay: Absolutely. Well, our prayers are with you guys up there, Mark. I appreciate you taking time to talk with us here today. And we'll check back in on you hopefully, Hopefully harvest isn't going too long up there. But the reality is, we might be talking with you in spring again to see how harvest of '19 wrapped up.

Marc

Cartwright: Yeah, that'd be great. I think if we can get together again in February, get another update to everybody, that'd be awesome. And we'll see what February brings. And we might have to do it one more time before it's all said and done.

Shay: Well, appreciate you sticking with us here, Mark. Take care. Merry Christmas and happy holidays to you all up there.

Marc

Cartwright: All right. Merry Christmas to you and your family too, Shay. Appreciate your time.

Narrator: Thanks again for listening, everyone. If you would like to hear more content from Ag View Solutions, listen to our other podcasts such as Dad's Wisdom or our current Harvest Series. Ag View Solutions works as an integral part of operations like yours, side by side for farm profit management, business collaboration and structuring, facilitating industry-leading peer groups, and coaching and consulting tailored to your farm's unique needs. We know that no two farms are the same, and we are here to help make your farm be the best it can be. You can learn more at agviewsolutions.com, email us at agviewpitch@gmail.com, or call Chris Barron at 319-533-5703. We really look forward to talking with you.