Thanks for the update, Bryce.

Bryce, I heard on the radio a few areas of the country can plant corn as a cover crop on prevent plant acres as long as it’s taken for silage. We can’t here, but it might be worth checking into for guys that can’t find sorghum seed.

Yes I heard that Sunday and it looks as if our area will qualify. The reason many did not want to do a row crop is it requires more money for weed control and tillage etc. July planted corn can make good silage with a normal July, August and a warmer than normal September. It does not work as well in the northern portions of WI as we start getting a lot of 40 degree nights in August north of Wausau and corn needs 50 degrees on the lower end to get the GDUs.
Our UW Extension specialists are drafting letters to send to the USDA and RMA in hope that this will help with getting corn and soybeans being able to be utilized for cover crops. The bio engineered corn can't be used as a cover crop so conventional or bin run corn will and can be utilized. Also many will probably use twin row or narrow row or even grain drills to get faster canopy and lower weed issues. Soybeans harvested for forage at the R 6 stage of growth typically have nutrient values similar to average 1st cutting legume forages and can yield about 1.7 to 2.2 tons of dry matter per acre which is like a typical 1st cutting here.

Bryce

What is your cost per acre to plant beans on leased land?

What was the price of beans before President Trump put the tariffs on China? Not 10 minutes before when he had been talking about it. What is the price now? Was the sky really falling or did they just think it was going to.

Below is the board of trade soybean prices for the last 5 years.
Tariff talks were hyped in mid 2108 and again in late spring of 2019 and one can see the market responses.
We were seeing a trend up in late 2018 early 2019 as farmers indicated more acres into corn based on anticipated prices with corn being more profitable. We can also see a small rally lately as weather is creating a market change but more so in corn than beans as corn exports are a smaller percentage of sales for corn than beans.

https://www.macrotrends.net/2531/soybean-prices-historical-chart-data

Bryce

$5.29 corn. $8.96 soy. Harrisonburg,VA. $0.85 basis.

Has the talk of economic relief because of the tariffs ended, or will billions still be paid out? Do the saw mills get anything because of the price drop in some of the hardwood lumber?

I believe that the stated price of $1.25-$1.50 per bushel to growers for their soybeans should be evidence enough that the discussion on trade led to significant reductions in soybean prices. Compare that to corn which was .02 cents per bushel and all the the other crops and other products that received none. So yes that is political subsidization as much or more so then economic and it appears to be continuing with the 2019 16 billion dollar farm subsidy efforts being worked out now. With yield based subsidies, there will be a lot less pay out this year as yields will very likely be much lower and with prevent plant aces none at all.

Bryce

$5.02 for corn. $0.90 basis. $8.86 soy. Harrisonburg,VA.

USDA June crop report is out early and it shows that the projected corn acres planted was to be 92.8 million acres which is now lowered to 89.2 million acres or a drop of about 3.6 million acres. The projected yield is set for 166 bushel per acre which is about 8 below last years average. This report is creating a mni run for the corn market. If it stays too wet the yield projection will drop. If it gets hot and dry the yield projection will drop, so a moist but normal late summer and a longer fall are needed to bring home the now estimated 14.9 billion bushels which is a big crop. The guess now is how much might we lose due to weather? 1 billion bushels 500 millions bushels etc.
July report is usually the key report but may not be this year with all the delays.

Beans are not gaining much from the report even as yield projections drop and acres planted drop. The reason. With trade and tariff issues we are likely to have a billion bushel carry over for beans. Our typical crops are about 3.4 billion bushels so a carry over of 30% is huge. It looks like beans will gain some subsidies and corn will not.

Bryce

$5.22 for corn. $0.90 basis. $8.83 for soy. Harrisonburg,VA.