1.4 Billion Bushels of Corn Remain in the Field

1.4 Billion Bushels of Corn Remain in the Field

Tim Hammerich
Tim Hammerich
News Reporter
This time of year, the U.S. corn crop is normally all harvested and put away in the bins. But According to the USDA, over a billion bushels of corn still remain in the field, In some midwest states it will be next spring before they can get to it.

Here’s Arlan Suderman is the Chief Commodities Economist for INTL FCStone in Kansas City.

Suderman…”This year's crop was planted so late in in many areas of the Midwest. And then we had a lot of cloud cover in the Western Midwest in August and then in September, that really slowed down the maturation process of the crop. And then in early October, a big freeze came in and that always just kind of stops the corn in its tracks, it doesn't dry well after that. So a lot of farmers got caught with corn trying to dry in the field. Propane was short at many locations making a difficult to dry. They didn't want to pay high drying costs where they did have propane trying to dry the field. Now all of a sudden they're caught with, as of Sunday, 1.4 billion bushels of corn still in the field on December 1st.”

The biggest concerns are field loss due to winds this winter, poor quality, and low test weights. Some farmers were seeing prices as low as $2.25 per bushel after discounts and drying charges.

Suderman does not think these issues are priced into the current markets, as the USDA counts field storage as part of all on-farm storage.

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