The Oil Drum | DrumBeat: November 11, 2006

178 comments on DrumBeat: November 11, 2006

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airdale on November 11, 2006 - 10:01am

Ethanol, farming and the weather:

Yesterday when visiting ADM I jotted down the yardboard prices on grains.

Grain Cash January
Corn 3.67 3.72
Soybeans 6.23 6.83
Wheat 4.98
Milo 3.82 4.03

The prices have risen quite a bit but in the last day or so have fallen some few cents due to USDA crop report just out.

The weather is very bad in my area of the midwest and is causing tremendous problems in the field but the worst is high moisture content in the grain. The farmer gets 'docked'
for this since it requires a lot of energy(gas of what ever form) to dry the grain to good storage values.

If you have 16% in milo then you can lose perhaps $.50 per bushel which is very significant. Much of the grain is going out at 17 and higher. If you hit 20 they might not take the grain or tell you not to bring anymore of it in.

So this is the point I am heading towards. Global Warming and its possible negative effects on ethanol or use of our crops for fuel.

It appears to me and others that the extremes in weather we are experencing is likely due to GW and other facets that are related directly to GW(El Nino,etc).

These effects play havoc with crops and crop management.

Right now we have semi's broken down in the field, tractors stuck, combines struck and damaged due to the condition of the crops. All this might be multiplied many fold in the future if the weather continues to worsen as I assume it likely would.

Some farmers may find they can no longer continue. One of my friends still has a third(1,000 acres of crops) still at risk and still not in the bin. Water levels rising , soil not drying,and more.

Fingers are crossed and the farmers are basically working extremely long and hard hours.

Will all this go in the future just to keep soccer moms happily motoring? To keep the Wal-Marts flourishing? I wonder.

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Francois on November 11, 2006 - 10:21am

Airdale,

THanks for these posts on the farming perspective. I learn a lot from them.

Francois

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elwoodelmore on November 11, 2006 - 10:22am

i have a question why are we harvesting in mid november ? is that a result of gmo's, fertilizer use, no till (chemical till ) or is this the historical time for corn harvest here in the midwest of a ?

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dipchip on November 11, 2006 - 12:24pm

When I was a kid and corn harvest was done by hand, we often picked corn till Christmas and then it was extra dry. 100 bushels/day 40 acres at 40 bu/a is 16 days work. Save drying costs pick later. Its much more complex today at 150 bu/a. Today most grain farmers have no cattle to run in the fields after picking.

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airdale on November 11, 2006 - 8:17pm

In my area, upper south ,mississippi valley, most all the corn has been harvested. We are now into milo(grain sorghum) and soybeans. Also planting winter wheat. Lots of it due to the price runup.

These two(beans and milo) are later maturing grain crops and often bad weather can set back the harvest times. Milo has a large stalk and so rain , floods and wind doesn't usually bother them like it does soybeans. They can be smashed flat.

Corn can be almost totally lost due to high wind and extreme wetness. Thats why the want it out early.

In any event its sometimes early Dec before ALL the beans are done with.

AFAIK hitech farming, such as gmo and no till do not have a substantial effect on the maturing and harvesting. You can buy seeds that have longer germination periods though. You can buy many many different seeds with lots of variation due to soil type,weather , etc.

Farming is a chancy endeavor. You simply cannot control nature. You then learn how to predict or make wise decisions on many facets of it. If you don't you can go under.

Most farmers are very rich, in term of assests but very cash poor. They sometimes only realize their lifelong accumulation when they sell out.

I do know some who brought land when it was cheap and brought lots of it. They are doing extremely well.

Thanks for the above praise. My intent was to let the community know more fully the life and trials of farming, or at least the higher tech style and especially as it relates to our future and the energy situation.

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elwoodelmore on November 11, 2006 - 8:21pm

ok great one less windmill for elwood to tilt after

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Todd on November 11, 2006 - 8:40pm

Around here we call it land poor. I'm one of those people.

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elwoodelmore on November 23, 2006 - 4:50pm

its summertime and the livin is easy
the fish are jumpin and the cotton is high

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JoulesBurn on November 11, 2006 - 10:31am

Another aspect of the impact of biofuels is the increase in speculation:
Grains Have Gone Parabolic
Prices have been bid up despite high harvests. Of course, that doesn't completely ease the pain from getting docked--or if you can't get it harvested at all.

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JMG on November 11, 2006 - 10:55am

One climate scientist is looking at more local relationships in the causes and effects of climate change:

Climate Science: Roger Pielke Sr. Research Group Weblog
[http://climatesci.atmos.colostate.edu/]

A New Perspective For Assessing The Role Of Agriculture In The Climate System And In Climate Change
Pielke Sr., R.A., J.O. Adegoke, T.N. Chase, C.H. Marshall, T. Matsui, and D. Niyogi, 2006.

[http://climatesci.atmos.colostate.edu/2006/11/10/a-new-paradigm-for-assessing-the-role-of-agricultur e-in-the-climate-system-and-in-climate-change-2/]

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72myz on November 14, 2006 - 4:54am

Airdale,
What are the costs per acre of diesel for different farming operation? I am not a farmer (albeit interested in farming), but from my limited knowledge, for any one crop, you would have to pass over the field:

once to plough or disc in the crop residue (unless you burn it)
once to add in lime to balance out acidity from nitrogen
once to harrow or otherwise prepare the seedbed and possibly 'base fertilise' the land
once to spray out germinating weeds and leave a residual weedicide
once to sow the seed and place initial fertiliser
two? times to spray out emerging weed seedlings
maybe once or twice with fungicide and/or insecticide (unless done by helicopter)
maybe once to side dress nitrogen (unless done by helicopter)
once to harvest with the combine

Is maybe 10 passes over each acre in a growing cycle realistic? Or am I way out?

Last two questions:

what is a 'ball park' average of diesel consumption for the machinery involved in these operations (I guess it will differ between the size of the machine, the type of machine, the variable resistance of the soil according to how wet and what type, etc but I am just trying to get a 'feel' for deisel use per crop/acre)
Leaving out climate variability (I know that's stupid, but for the sake of thinking about it), are there farmers at such physical distance from diesel supply lines that movements we have already experienced in deisel prices make their seed-growing operations marginal? Do such farmers have a price point for diesel in back of their mind at which they know they can't keep going, have you heard?

The USA is currently a major corn (at least) exporter. Government has subsidised exports, and this has worked well when oil was cheap.

It seems to me that subsidised exports are hit twice - tax on USA consumers to pay the subsidy, and effective USA subsidisation of Japanese or whoever poultry producers.

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178 comments on DrumBeat: November 11, 2006

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“Any coward can fight a battle when he's sure of winning, but give me the man who has pluck to fight when he's sure of losing. That's my way, sir; and there are many victories worse than a defeat.”

—George Eliot