by Brad Tastad
In the past week developments regarding the agricultural area of Traill County was a dual case of good news-bad news.
The good news is farmers were able to begin combining of their spring wheat crops. The bad news is, rainfall measuring in the four-tenths of an inch category came to the valley Wednesday afternoon, shutting down wheat combining efforts.
However, in the second good news-bad news scenario, the rainfall that stopped combining efforts, which is bad news, was good news for producers of soybeans and corn.
The latter two crops received an inch of rain last week, and farmers said that rainfall was perfect, but warned that an additional half-inch of rain would be needed each week to make the soybean and corn crops potentially the best-ever.
Farmers received that rainfall on Wednesday, meaning it was good news for those growing soybeans and corn.
The numbers
Some farmers in the west and north part of the county were able to first get into their fields to begin combining wheat Saturday of last week.
However, the majority of farmers with wheat acres in the ground were not able to begin combining until Tuesday of the past week.
Therefore, even though there are not a lot of wheat acres in the county, most farmers still have wheat combining to finish. Although a select few of the farmers were able to finish their wheat combining by Wednesday noon.
The numbers of the wheat crop were steady throughout the county. All farmers were reporting getting 50 bushels of wheat at the small end of the scale, with others netting 60 bushels per acre. Those two numbers were consistent all through the county.
Protein and moisture content numbers were varying, with the average moisture content ranging from 11 to 15. The moisture levels were even more variable, as those numbers were ranging between 13.5 to 18.
One reason protein and moisture content levels are so important to farmers is that additional charges are put in place if the numbers dip, or rise above a certain level.
Farmers have to pay 20 cents a bushel for every point under 14 that their protein measures.
For example. Since the Thursday morning price of wheat was at $6.04 a bushel, if a farmer brought in wheat that the protein level was only at 11, they would only get paid $5.44 a bushel for that wheat instead of the $6.04 market price.
However, the protein level isn’t a two-way street for farmers. If their protein measures higher than 14, they only get an additional five cents per point.
An example in that scenario is, if a farmer brought in wheat that had a protein level of 17, he would only get an additional 15 cents, or 6.19 per bushel, a nickel per percentage point.
In short, farmers get docked 20 cents for every point under 14 that their protein measure, but only get a nickel for every point over 14 that their protein measures.
As for moisture content, farmers have to pay an additional drying fee if the level is over 15.1. A charge of 11 cents a bushel is charged if the moisture content is between 15.1 and 15.5. And additional charge is added for moisture levels higher thatn 15.5.
As of Thursday morning, the market price for corn was $3.02 per bushel with the new price at $2.90.
Soybeans were getting $7.44 on the market price with the new price sitting at $7.64.
