Statistics Canada Crop Production Estimate

[wmoebis]

helmsdale What does that tell you about the grading abilities of your local elevators? If they are missing grades at unload what are they missing at your bins? Up or down?
There should be a full blown inquiry into why these miss grades happened.

We need universal (certified) training and regular testing. We will be the ones paying the demurage on the ships waiting for the grain that these guys miss graded and shipped now to get the right grade into position.

[helmsdale]

Richardson. It tells me they got their peckers slapped for trying to blend a #3 or worse up and now they have to make up the diffeŕence, or it is truly just amateur hour. If i had signed a contract for #2 and was confident in the grade you could bet that every sample bag would be CGC bound.

[charliep]

Looking for thoughts. Would moving to a more quantatative system like the US where specific quality attributes are measured (eg. falling number) put us at more risk? Or should we keep our qualitative system that is mostly based on visual appearance? Our current system has worked well in that there has been a very tight relationship between visual appearance and quality. Years like this test the system.

I'll take one step further and ask about differences between how wheat is valued at the elevator and how it is bought at port position.

[bucket]

I asked because p&h are changing their tune on any new contracts.

[helmsdale]

Charlie. I recall reading a Reuters article earlier this week which highlighted dissatisfaction amongst our customers of delivered product so far this year. I doubt, at least in their minds, that quantifiable characteristics like falling numbers would improve our situation. I hauled a load of wheat (falling #~350) to Prairie Flour in Elie mb that at best would have visually graded #3.

[tstep]

We should have 2 grades of wheat. Milling and feed. Protein on milling

[charliep]

One of the biggest issues is gluten strenghth. Many customers buy Canadian wheat to blend with their domestic supplies/cheaper stuff from elsewhere. Some of the newer varieties are not performing as well in this area. Likely others here who have a lot better understanding of this issue than I do.

[ado089]

Agreed charlie, the last 2 year I've been selling to a mill in the states based on farinograph test. If you can pull together stability and protein they pay big. Even this year I've had some go well into the $8's. We stumbled upon utmost working well compared to goodeve. Fields that got PH roundup were more likely to get accepted than those desiccated (we were trying for a sprouting wheat market).

[farmaholic]

I'll bet part of the ****ing problem with the unloads not meeting spec is that the GrainCos are blending/sending stuff that BARELY makes the lowest spec tolerances for the grades being asked for. Too bad the GrainCos can't unload the risk back to the CGC grading services when they loaded cars for inward inspection at transfer elevators and export terminals. If other third party inspectors are used while loading cars, are they responsible for the misgrades? And now when the GrainCos **** up, the next round of Producer's grain purchases will have to pay for it with wider basis.

[furrowtickler]

That happens more than not