New Crop Acreage/Strategy

[charliep]

Any shifts in acreage from what you might have thought a month ago? How are moisture conditions going into seeding in your area? Have you pre-priced any new crop yet?

[Ron]

I have sold feed wheat for $3.00 and canola for 6.23 off combine. Hopefully my worst sales of the year. Not going to bother seeding barley as cps wheat will match yield in central alberta.

[charliep]

Your comments on feed wheat/canola pretty well match up with what we are doing with clients (using current prices to sell both). A switch to more grains in rotations/less canola is really playing havoc with cash flows/bin space issues on bigger farms/more productive farms. Sales of both these crops take the heat off both these issues. Pro-Ag/MNP is seeing the same thing in that CPS wheat is more profitable than barley along the Calgary Edmonton corrider. This is putting more pressure to sell as feed wheat (both in Alta. and the Fraser Valley) is a somewhat limited market. The other wild card for the domestic feed market is crop quality with an early frost/nasty wet weather at harvest a threat to the feed market. A question from my consulting is that I am seeing real variability in average yields for CPS wheat varying all the way from very good experience to very bad (you seem to either have the skill to grow CPS or not). I would appreciate any comments on what makes a successfull CPS wheat grower.