Ramsey County Ag Column

By Bill Hodous

May 4, 2009

Howdy!!!!

If Sunday didn’t put a spur in your get in the field mode nothing will.  What a beautiful day and sounds like more coming this week. They even lowered the chance of rain for Monday.  I write this article on Monday so we will have to wait and see what happens, as we read the paper today.  Keep in mind the soil temperatures are not conducive for fast germination but we also do have to get rolling.  I checked the NDawn station this Monday morning and bare soil temperature, as of Sunday was 47 ° and turf covered ground, which would be like a lot of our field soils, was at 39°.  Obviously edible bean fields and some wheat and barley fields, which have been worked, will warm up much faster.  A reminder of NDawn station; to call the station the number is 701-398-3008 and on completion of your call please make sure to press the pound sign.

A note about the latest Commodity stocks report!!!

Have you done any pricing yet?  I know that we would all like the prices we received a year ago but like all things, all good things come to an end.  There is some pricing potential in this market which would show a nice return over costs but many of us wait for the home run (Like Paul Overby, Lake Region College commodity marketing, would suggest).  I have seen many waiting for the home run to only end up with a strike out wondering how we might get through the next year.  Luckily for some, input costs have come down some (nutrient costs and fuel costs) while seed and land costs have gone up.  This will also be another one of those years where land costs could really sky rocket.  By this comment, I talk about actual tilled acres.  This is purely a guess on my part but I am thinking a 25% reduction in planted acres this spring.  Below I have included a report on ending stocks from USDA.  Part of the information was taken from Paul Overby’s marketing letter he sends the three area marketing clubs.  This information is mainly focused on Soybeans but might be used for general terms of all markets.  I see where Soybeans were much higher over Sunday night.

The soybean crop in Argentina is much worse than expected.  It looks like it may be about 180-250 million bushels (5-7 mmt) less than USDA projected in April.

With USDA cutting soybean stocks in this country for each of the last two months, now down to 165 million bu, what impact does Argentina’s losses have on world soybean stocks?  Will Argentine politics get worse to protect these ending stocks, or capitalize on higher prices?  China continues to import US beans.  We are now at 97% of USDA’s export projections, with 4 months left to go in the soybean marketing year! 

Because of all that, there is some talk that USDA needs to lower ending stocks to 125 million bushels.  Minimum “pipeline” supply is estimated to be 100 million bushels (that would be late August).  That is the story behind the soybean rally.

Remember we have two pieces of news that is affecting Soybeans pricing; Old crop stocks are tight and getting tighter and the market needs to determine what level it will take to get those “missing acres” back into production of soybeans.  Late corn, and now wheat planting will play into more potential soybean acres.

524 4th Ave #5, 2nd Floor Ramsey County Courthouse
Devils Lake  ND  58301
701-662-7027
email - NDSU.Ramsey.Extension@ndsu.edu