Anyone want to discuss the HEAT

[bucket]

With the last few days of 30 temperatures and very little soil moisture, does anyone have comments about statscan or the cwb's production estimates.

I would say we are in for an average crop at best.

[boarderbloke]

bucket, driving around today i only saw a few fields of canola that might do better than 25 bus, (those were on summerfallow or chemfallow) most everything else will be lucky to make 25 with ideal conditions, if we have two weeks of 30 degree heat, you can kiss even that goodbye! this will also be hard on the winter crops. but on the other side of things, if we don't get some heat our crops will freeze for sure! (we're 2-3 weeks behind)

[bucket]

Damned if you do and damned if you don't. I agree a nice 1/2" would speed things up. What bothers me most about the reports is they are 2-3 weeks behind and no accounting for it. What happens to next months pros if the heat continues and those donkeys in Winnipeg continue to make sales based on info that's out of date. They may be giving our crop away.

[boarderbloke]

what happens if they sell more than we grow, has that ever happened? i'm sure that would cost something!

[bucket]

It did last year. Remember flaman bragging about how the cwb was making substantial sales at the higher prices. Where exactly did the premium go? The cwb pats themselves on the back for outdoing the americans on durum as well. They forget that most american farmers going durum have new crop prices of 13 -15 dollars locked in for two years and where is our PRO - in the toilet. Its happening - they have been caught short.

I googled cwb and awb a year ago they have reciprocal agreements in place to cover each other in the event someone is short on a sale. But it still lowers our return. Can't find that article, I wish I would have hard copied it for my own reference.

[SASKFARMER3]

Regina is shaping up for a average crop at best. With the heat who knows.
York ton Area still OK but heat will stress. North to Wadena Tomorrow and then over to Canora. Should be a interesting day.

[SASKFARMER3]

And yesterday the latest news out of the grain trade Canada had a lowest bid and received a sale. Ha their doing it already in Winnipeg giving away our grain based on some BS reports that were going to grow this mega crop. Ha when you start out with poor conditions a crop really never recovers and the weather pattern for our area has been the same all spring rain from north but not huge showers and when its a Montana low rains five to 10 miles south of us.
But it is good to help push us along to harvest. Peas flowering and canola starting to Bolt. Durum heading.

[Hopperbin]

Got 6 quarters pounded completely into the ground last night. Not sure whats better, the stuff out of the hail strip that got no rain or the Canola or Peas in the hail strip 9/10s inch of rain 20 minutes. I believe the hailed stuff will be completely brown in a few days and come back better than the crops with no rain.
The soil was so dry the 9/10s in 20 minutes didn't run down the hills.

[charliep]

Always interesting to put the ideas about crop conditions into an S&D. Statcan put Canadian canola acreage at 15.8 mln acres. Yields over the past 5 years have ranged from lows of 26 bu/acre to highs of over 30 (average closer to 28). Taking the ranges, canola production should be in the 9 to 10 mln tonne area depending on whether you are an optimist or an pessimist. Given the increased crush capacity Canada and continued strong world fundamentals, Canada can sell either end of this range and have limited impact on prices.

Wheat acreage is also way up at 25 mln acres. A tonne a acre or 36.74 bu/ac (normal) would give 25 mln tonne crop. Someone is says below average crop will likely use 10 % lower yield which means 22.5 mln tonnes. That puts Canada at about 4 % of world wheat production and 12 to 14 % of world wheat trade. My thoughts are Canadian quality will have more impact on world markets than yield but that would be another discussion. Today the market is dealing with the a large Northern hemisphere winter wheat crop and the overall impact of $8/bu corn.

Barley perhaps is the interesting one. Most barley is used at home as livestock feed but $7 to $8/bu corn will create outside opportunities for feed barley. Farmers seeded 9.1 mln acres to barley with about 1 mln acres silaged. Using 55 bu/acre (normal) will result in about 10 mln tonnes. Carryover on July 31, 2008 will be close to 1 mln tonne which is pretty much empty bins. Assuming a malt barley disappearance of 2 mln tonnes and 350,000 seed, that leaves 7.5 mln tonnes ish for feed relative to 8.5 mln tonnes normally (excluding this past crop year). Implications - very tight on the feed grain side again in 2008/09 with limited help to the south to offset (expensive US corn).

Won't go through the others. The above is the process all analysts will be going through on the Canadian crop.

[charliep]

Will also note Kodiak's comments about the demand side in another thread. Small crops are obviously a painfull experience here is Canada. On the grand scheme of things, how important is Canada on the world scene? How will importers react? Impact on domestic customers? Government intervention - you might want to follow what is going on in Argentina.

[bucket]

charliep

All good points but if canada is just a small player why is it that algeria watches what happens here. And like I have said before if I have to go broke because of shitty prices I would rather have my bins full.

If canada is such a small player then lets quit giving our grain away. Tell the world that canada is not in the market - you will quickly find out how much difference canada makes. The cwb did this a few years ago when harvest went late and there was a spike in prices. I do not like always being sold short (both figuratively and market) on Canada's ability to feed the world and its importance. This is why I think the cwb could do better job.

[mbratrud]

The next 2 weeks will be critical here in Weyburn area. We are running on "Just in time rain" and have no reserve moisture to carry us for much more than a week. I don't think I would be looking for lower production numbers yet though. The nightime temps have been around 10 degrees and seems to be helping the plants recharge. The crops look great for only having about 4 inches or rain so far in the growing season.