[00:00:00] Speaker A: November canola touches $800 a ton this week, the first time since the summer of 2023. Susan Stroud from no Bull Ag has been bullish for months now. We're gonna break down what she saw in this market and where does she think it's going. That and so much more. Episode125 coming at you right now.
Hey, folks, welcome to the what the Futures Podcast, your quick guide to better farming decisions.
All right, folks, welcome into episode 125 of the what the Futures podcast. Of course, my name is Ryan. I hope you're having a wonderful day. Of course, we put these shows out on Positive Friday, and I hope you're having a good one wherever you are. Of course, we are in the UPL studio here once again this week and every week.
And upl, you may know them for certain products. It might be Rancona Trio, it might be Batalia, but they have an entire suite of products. If it's something where you're sitting there saying, I need to do a better job in the field this spring, I need to get ahead of this problem. Reach out to your UPL rep, see what they have for you because they've got some dandy products. Of course, Wave being one of the more popular ones here. You could check that out at your local retail or reach out to your UPL rep. That, of course, is a great bio stimulant product. All right, folks, well, hey, canola hits $800 a ton.
I think we should talk about it. All right. I think we should talk about it this week. Before we get to that, if you could do me a favor. I'm trying to get to 1500 subscribers. I've already ordered the the bubble mix. We're going to blow bubbles when we hit 1500. So let's do that this summer, guys. If you can give us a subscribe, I would appreciate that. If you're not a YouTube person, go and leave us a comment on your favorite podcast platform. And if you want a little light reading, go ahead, go to ryandenee Ca check out. Well, a couple of things to check out actually this week, but one spot you can sign up for the emails that come out on Fridays.
Some funny things happening in there, usually some advice as well. And then there's also a new section called the Strategy Room. And so we've just pulled off our very first live session. This is a bit of a test run just to kind of see the vibes and what people are thinking. But we brought for this time around, Britt Nielsen from all Bushel Consulting, Ryan Bonnet from ABB Solutions, Allison from the Money Farm, and Dwayne from Grain Metrics. Just to have a conversation about crop marketing strategy and how these four great minds are tackling these current market conditions. The cool thing about this one is if you, you have to register. You had to register if you're listening to this after Friday. And we, we circulate the recording to those in the room as well.
[00:03:09] Speaker B: Right.
[00:03:09] Speaker A: You couldn't quite make it, Internet cut out, whatever it was. But that's how we're handling this. A hundred spots once a month and bringing in some great minds. So big thanks to those folks for joining me here this week. Positive moments, Mom. My daughter Willa, she's five. She's got a dance recital. This will be our second dance recital that we've, that we've ever attended and the first one where the grandparents are making the drive. The grandparents are making the drive. Mamie and Pepe, Grandma and Grandpa making the drive.
Maybe listening to the show here while they're cruising west. I know she's very excited to see them. We're all very excited. 3pm Performance.
They are the second last act.
And she will be singing and performing to Hard Knock Life from the Annie movie.
And so, like, if you thought that I couldn't recite every word of that song in June here, you are wrong. I got that thing nailed down. I tried to convince the teacher that they should do the Jay Z version. I said, that might be the way you want to go, but I don't know. Of course they know what they're doing here. So I had to step aside and hey, I've got respect for that song Hard Knock Life. It's a heck of a scene in the movie as well. We had to explain to our daughter what exactly was going on in that scene with the booze and with the behavior.
I can't remember her name, the main character there. But anyways, there you go. So Annie this weekend, gonna be a great dance recital and even have a dinner reso for the family after. So we're really going all out on this one. The farm also got done seating this week. Right. And I think if you would have, you know, went to the fellas, you know, on like May 15th and said, you will be done seeding on June 3rd. They would have laughed and laughed and laughed and said, that's going to be impossible. But they did it. They started May 19th.
Tough couple days getting going. You know, you're trying to figure out how to not get stuck. You are getting Stuck, you're going through all that. As the days go by, it gets better and better and better. And then the really interesting thing is that the way you started with getting stuck is also the way you finish, right? And so you guys know this. Like, if you've been out there, you know, in the mud, putting your crop in, you get to the end. And this is where bravery steps in. This is where I'm fed up. Right. So should I cross this spot? Maybe not. If this was a week ago, I'm not going to touch it. But because it's the last day of seeding. Let's give her. And so they ended the, the season with a few stocks. And it's also like a soft closing as well because there's, there's a 20 acre patch that, you know, if the weekend stays dry here, we may attempt on Monday.
So, you know, there's still a little bit of that, but I can't believe it. The whole crew just going all out, all out for two weeks. Imagine this. You start 14 days behind and at the end of it, you gave up five.
So you made that up. They made that up. So they made up all that time. We didn't finish two weeks later than normal. We finished like five days behind normal. Incredible run. And so hats off to the guys at the farm getting that done. And also, rain is not supposed to be a bad thing, but if you are in portions of northwest Saskatchewan, northeast Alberta, you know, specifically other regions as well, we see you and, and we know you're going through it right now, too. And, and you're going hard as fast as you can. You see the forecast and you're, you're doing everything you can to get as much done. You wish you could wave the wand and it just be over. But now the next set of challenges is coming, right? And so there's some unseated acres out there. There's some pain out there. We see you fingers crossed for some good weather to get this wrapped up.
[00:07:15] Speaker B: All right.
[00:07:17] Speaker A: Okay. Song of the week. I'm going to dedicate this one to my brother as well. I'm pretty sure when Queen wrote this song, it was about finishing, you know, seeding a crop. So I'm going to go with another One Bites the Dust by Queen. And I'm going to put that out to my brother Colin, who has been on a heck of a run here the last couple weeks and hopefully is not listening to this podcast and is just sleeping. Hopefully that's what he's doing. I thought he's a big AC DC fan. So I thought maybe, you know, know, Are you ready by acdc? That might be the. The dedication.
Like, are you ready to go spraying? But yeah, another one bites the Dust Bite Queen. Let's. Let's go with that one. Of course, I've got the Plant 26 playlist on YouTube Music. You can all check it out as well. It's a bit. It's a bit kooky.
[00:08:04] Speaker B: Right.
[00:08:05] Speaker A: The.
Yeah, we'll reference the playlist one more time here later on in the show. John DePape with the trading Floor. He joined me on cup of coffee this week. We just chatted about wheat basis and a few other things as well, so you can check that out on the channels. Yeah, just a. John's always a great guest and look forward to having him join us in Brandon at the Crop Marketing Made Cool conference, which I did have a farm message me this week and say, hey, is the conference sold out for Brandon? No, no, no, no. Absolutely not. We're just kind of quiet on it as we sort out just a couple more things. But it's on the website if you want to go and check it out. You got lots of time, lots of time to buy tickets as well. Don't need to rush into it. But no, not sold out. Plenty of room for you. Again, looking to announce a few details here shortly. Okay, now, before we get to the discussion with Susan Stroud, I do want to tee up the $800 canola from this week, because $800 canola was met with a lot of disappointment out there and disappointment in the sales wherever you started. I chatted with lots of farmers this week, all sorts of scenarios, all sorts of pressure and frustration.
And I get it.
We all wish we had the crystal ball where, you know, you could see, don't sell $700 canola, it's going to 800. Right. But we're coming out of a market that's been.
Well, that went through it in 20, 2025. Went through the ringer in 2025. It was absolutely brutal.
And as we're making our way out of that, you're rewarding this and say, oh, I haven't seen this price in six months or a year. And you're selling into this. And I get it, you wish you had the crystal ball and you could just lock that in and be like, don't sell anything. It's going to 800. And maybe you did, maybe you do. If I could borrow that crystal ball, that would be great. There's a little bit of a potential like tragedy. And in all of this, it shouldn't be like when you see $800 canola.
Your instinct, your excitement should be elevated. Your instinct should be to sell.
I'm going to sell this. I'm going to take advantage of this. I did not expect this. This is a gift. This is great. Can it go higher? Sure. We'll talk about that later. But this should be led with excitement.
Now, when you enter the first part of June, many of us have reached our comfort level. For percent sold could be zero for your farm. Good on you. If it was this year, you'll be happy. Well, hang on. You may not be happy, because I know what happens with you guys as well. Maybe it was five bushels an acre. Maybe it was ten bushels an acre. Maybe it was twenty bushels an acre. Whatever it was, you got to your comfort level. And then you get a pop in the market. You find further strength. And don't forget, guys, this thing, even last week, Chuck and I were talking about, man, like, this canola market's got to show us a little bit of life here. It's got to show us something. It's been sideways, sideways from April 28 to May 28, a full month, trading between 740 and 770 on the November contract.
Right? That's what it did. It was boring. And now it pops. And it should pop with excitement. It should pop with urgency to do something about it.
And what will happen?
A couple of things will happen. One. One thing that happens is you may do an out of your comfort zone small sale. You may sit here and say, okay, I'm gonna do. I'm gonna do 5%. Boom. Okay, I did it. I did it. I got something done. I'm outside of my comfort zone. But I've rewarded this.
And to me, you know, that is.
It's good that you do something.
But also, don't forget that when you want to get it, when you're the most uncomfortable, it's a time that very often your best sales happen. When you go back in time and you say, oh, remember that stressful conversation we had for an entire week?
I'm going to reference my dad, my brother here, but for an entire week. And we figured out our path and got it hedged the way we wanted, you look back and be like, man, that was awesome. Or you look back and say, why the heck didn't you tell us, Ryan? Why the heck didn't you tell us to do this? I'm like, wait a second. We did talk about this.
[00:12:55] Speaker B: Right.
[00:12:55] Speaker A: But this is the time where people kind of clench up, you know, freeze, maybe stumble, and ultimately forget to execute. And I get it.
It's emotional, it's painful. There's even a little bit of, I hate to say it, but a little bit of shame in those first sales.
Like, I gotta look at a $14 canola sale and be like, and I'm on a podcast.
I'm just kidding. But, you know, I do have the $14 canola sale, right? Many of us do.
And so you look at that thing with shame, right, and say, oh, like, darn it, I wish I didn't have that boat anchor lingering around. I wish that was a 17 or a 16 instead.
But the, like, the tragedy in all this is to go through this next few weeks and just like the wheat market has shown us. And by golly gee, folks, it's not just wheat. It's soybeans, it's corn, it's barley right now the start. Not oats, not peas. That's all fine. But like, these markets, they don't stay and last at these levels, you know, forever, right?
And so, you know, wheat showed us just a couple weeks back, hey, I'm going to come and give you a high and then I'm going to take it away, right? I'm not saying canola is going to do that necessarily, but we forget to execute in this environment when we should be racking our brains, trying to figure out at the end of the day, how can I secure $800 canola price at a higher level if it rallies above that, but have that safety net that if it goes back down to 700, I don't have to worry about it.
And it's all out there. Brokerage account, no brokerage account. It is there and available.
And here's the really special part about all this, is that if you ask anybody what they budgeted for their 20, 26 crop for canola, what numbers are going to come back, right? We know the government numbers, the insurance numbers, but what numbers are going to come back?
I remember writing down 15 bucks, 15 to 15, 50 for some farms in central Alberta. And they looked at me and said, are you serious?
You think that's possible? And I said, yeah, I know it's been rough here, but I do think that's possible. And so if you sit here and you've sold, let's be a little bit extreme, let's say 14 bucks on your first 40%, all right? And then let's say you somehow figure out, you know, let's put it 1675 on your last 60%.
That is an average of 1565. 1565, huh? It's even better than what I budgeted for.
Now, that's not.
It's not done.
It doesn't have to be done at that level. If the price rallies above the 800, goes to 900, goes to a thousand, whatever it is, this average goes up, right?
And if for some reason 800 is the peak and you decide that you're going to hedge yourself for the rest of your crop, but you're also going to hedge some of the 27 crop as well, then all of a sudden, this 1565, it could get a little bit sweeter. Or maybe you sick, you know, stick your head out there and say, well, you know what? I didn't catch this thing on the way up, but I'm certainly gonna try to participate on the way down. That can add to your price as well, a $16 average. If someone would have said on April 1, hey, you know, we can lock you in for the year at 50 and 50 or 16 bucks, how many hands would have went up, right?
So I know it's not perfect, folks, but this is not the time to freeze up. This is the time to execute.
And from the great show, the Price is Right. That is the theme song that I'm playing through my speakers all week here, all weekend long. The Price is Right. I gotta do something about it.
But you know what? Let's bring in my pal Susan Stroud from Noble Egg.
And before we bring in Susan, who's been bullish Canola this entire time, I want to add in here, if you want to go to St. Louis, Missouri, and participate in agri next.
That is a few she's going to talk about at the end, a fantastic conference that she puts in a heck of an experience.
I got a couple of tickets, and I'm willing to sweeten the pot a little bit, too. So if you're interested, you don't have to commit right off the hop. But if you are interested in going to St. Louis, Missouri, send me an email. Ryanatthefuturespodcast ca say, hey, Ryan, send me those details about St. Louis. I might want to do this. Let me know. We'll get our heads together. Maybe some way, somehow, we could go and check this out at the end of July. All right. Okay, folks, let's get into it with my pal here, Susan Stroud.
All right, folks, I've got Susan Stroud
[00:18:33] Speaker B: with no bull egg joining us once again here in the what the Futures podcast.
[00:18:38] Speaker A: Susan, how's your week going?
[00:18:40] Speaker C: It's going good.
How about you?
[00:18:43] Speaker B: Oh, man, where do I begin?
We had the largest rain event in forever over the last couple days. We've had some farms have received, you know, as much as six, six and a half, seven inches of rain in one event.
And so it's like a little hazy and cloudy and a little, little wet out there these days. But, but hey, canola market's ripping higher. And if it could influence wheat, I'd feel even better. But here we are.
[00:19:16] Speaker C: Wheat is a very fickle crop.
Commodity, I should say. Commodity. Well, it's also, it's fickle to grow, too.
Pain all the way around.
[00:19:27] Speaker B: One chance to market it per year. It's like everything aligns for this day and that's it. You do it all. Sell everything this one day. So anyways, I wanted to bring you, I want to bring you on the show because I, I get the chance to talk to a lot of people, a lot of analysts, a lot of advisors, and most that I talk to are, are perplexed, perplexed by what is happening with this canola market, the strength in this canola market.
It's a good thing, but folks are struggling to find reasons. And I even had one farmer comment to me this week and say, like, Ryan, you're a little bit of an idiot here, man. Like, why didn't you figure this out in the canola market? And I said, well, I know who did figure it out. And she told us on the what the Futures podcast to be bullish. Canola. So let's get her back on. So, Susan, what is going on with this canola market?
[00:20:22] Speaker C: I think canola is finally just waking up and realizing that it's probably the biggest, or it is potentially the biggest winner in US biofuel policy changes anyway that we've seen here in 2026.
[00:20:38] Speaker B: I heard a comment this week that the guy said, well, if you're, if you can't buy bean oil, you have to buy rins. Like that is it. If you can't buy the bean oil physically, then you have to go buy a rin. Is that in the background where Canola is putting its hand up, say, hey, don't forget about, about us. Like, you can buy us too. Like, is it something with that? Or.
[00:21:00] Speaker C: So I think the more important thing maybe to realize is that the higher that rins go, effectively that means that the, the more that that lifts the break even for various feedstocks. So canola oil, soybean oil, included in that probably one of the reasons too on the Canola side, you know, you have to remember that canola is there are some commodities that are wildly liquid in futures markets like corn or wheat for the most part, that kind of thing. But, but OLA is different. So you have two primary markets. So you have ICE exchange which is Canadian futures and then you also have Euronext futures or euro, the European motif futures.
[00:21:53] Speaker B: So yeah, Rapeseed. Yep.
[00:21:55] Speaker C: So the ICE exchange is the one that is the most highly liquid. But a lot of canola and I mean and especially canola oil transactions, we're talking about a physical market because we're also, we're talking about canola being the seed and then we're over here trying to call it apples to apples, but it's really not because it'd be the equivalent of the same thing as like a commodity, soybeans.
So I think you have to look at it from that in that regard too. So the things that are happening right now, we have a record spread from a cash perspective for US soybean oil, the domestic price for it versus what the equivalent would be in Argentina or Brazil. So you have a really wide spread there. So that's one thing. You have a cash canola or sorry cash soybean oil market in the US that's on fire. And that's because we're ramping up production of biomass based diesels. They need every available feedstock they have and soybean oil is the most readily widely available. And so we're going to work to exhaust all of our supplies. And when the value of soybean oil like that in the cash market continues to move higher, canola also, canola oil is also a huge winner. So we just saw feedstock data for the month of March because we're, it's the government and they're very slow but delayed in that we saw not only that soybean oil set an all time record, not just a monthly record, but an all time record as far as biofuel demand.
Canola oil didn't set an all time record, but its demand doubled month on month and it was the highest, highest demand since December 2024, which that was the point right before we fell off the cliff when we were still utilizing the $1 blending tax credit, didn't matter the carbon intensity of fuel.
And then we went to 25 where the US effectively shut canola out of the US biofuel market as a feedstock and that is still use some but not very much at all. And that was because it didn't qualify under 45C. Now fast forward to 2026. I almost said 2006. 2026. And not only do you have canola oil is getting I don't even remember what it is. Maybe a 20 cent credit. Maybe it's not even quite that much per per gallon of finished fuel but it's getting a 45Z credit. Plus remember in the US we about 80% of our canola oil supplies are actually imported from Canada. So it's benefiting in 45Z from that north America only feedstock provision. So it's winning that way. And then plus it's also so 45z gives it extra. You know, it was like putting wind in the sails. And then you have this whole when the RVO is finalized for 26 and 27 to more than 60% increase in demand. And so that means we have to fill it with something domestic soybean oil first and canola oil is right there with it.
[00:25:18] Speaker B: Argentina wouldn't qualify then like to send soybean oil from Argentina to the, to the US or is that just kind of not doesn't flow or.
[00:25:27] Speaker C: Well, it's a combination of things. So there are some, some biofuel producers that are and I believe it's like west coast renewable diesel producers that they already they have a pathway established in the renewable fuel standards. So for Argentine soybean oil to make renewable diesel or whatever it is. So pathway just means that it's officially they can gener create a rin with the fuel by making it from and Argentine soybean oil it flows into Canada, it will flow into the west coast of the US when it does pencil. But the other piece of this is that there's a sense of urgency we have.
You know, from a cash perspective you have a feedstock market that's inverted because you're needing all of these feedstocks and we don't necessarily have them. Yeah, I had someone ask me yesterday about feedstock like Argentine soybean oil coming into the US for renewables or for food or whatever it may be. And yeah, I mean technically it pencils right now, but it penciling and it actually happening are two very different things. Keep in mind, it's not like we're importing like you're importing fertilizer to put on a barge to send up river. It's a little more slightly more complicated either way. I think that and one of the things too that I think is the reason the feedstock markets are kind of are all are moving Higher. And it seems like going parabolic like this is, you know, it seems like it has no end.
One of the bigger challenges is that we have a lot of, we have import barriers. So you know, if you polled the audience, I'm not certain that anyone would be able to agree on exactly what tariff rate is being applied to various feedstocks that we're importing. So when you think about these higher volume feedstocks, for instance, like Brazilian beef tallow, which maybe in the past has been about, oh shoot, 40, say 35, 40% of our tallow supplies, like we've imported a lot of tallow because fuels produced from tallow, it's a waste product. So it has a really low carbon intensity score and a high, or it used to be a high value in 45Z. Well now it's restricted to US Canada and Mexico. So Brazilian tallow coming in, not only does it not get that 45z credit anymore, but it's also, I see where we've proposed or that they're suggesting maybe we do a 25% tariff rate on some Brazilian goods starting in August. So that's the other part that, that makes this very messy. And one more thing I think that's really important to point out. Not only do you have very high diesel heating oil prices, which also supports the biofuel margins. It supports because it's, every time diesel goes up, then you watch the margin, you know, the, the margin for biofuel production increases to some extent. But the other, the other part of that too is that you have a really, you have a mess, especially in Europe where they have very high biofuel blending mandates and they're running out of jet fuel, they're running out of some of these higher value petroleum distillates, that kind of thing. They're in a supply crunch because of what's going on in Iran. So not only is the energy market providing support to, to anything that would be a veg oil or a fat or any type of feedstock, but you also have a really disjointed market where Europe is becoming a little bit of a vacuum. So we're actually exporting a lot of biodiesel at the moment. So that's some things that we're working on for the biofuel blast later this week. But yeah, it's a really, it's a wild market.
So we need, we need all the biofuels that we can forget for RIN generation, but yet we're exporting to Europe because of the wild price differentials that we're seeing as a result of the Middle East. So this is really a combination of, it's kind of a perfect storm of policy and trade. War plus real war is what you're seeing culminating here. And probably what's gone on the past few days with Canola too. It's some, you know, markets are trying to trade something weather related, be it maybe a rough start to the, the Canadian crop, be it seeding or too much water or whatever that may be. And then also, I guess you have to pivot and kind of look at what's going on in Australia.
So those things, I think the world has the super El Nino on its mind, which also is typically not a good thing for Australian crops. So those are some of the underlying things that are all behind those.
Let's get back to the guy, the guy that was not being very kind to you as far as miss on market.
And you know, this is us sitting here though. We're, we're talking about something that's happened and we're talking about what's happened up until this point. You know, hindsight, we can always, we can talk about the things that are giving the market momentum or adding to the momentum. We don't know what tomorrow brings. You know, you would have thought today, today was this nasty red. I almost read, I almost wore the shirt bar chart gave me. It was something about like, I don't know, red days build character. But you know, the markets were just nasty today. And I think that that probably caught a lot of people by surprise, especially because overnight we saw that Middle east conflict. It looks like kind of erupted again while we're supposed to be on the. Skipping along our way to a ceasefire. So these are things that, that you see when the, the market is just, it's tired of.
[00:31:46] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:31:47] Speaker C: It's tired of the back and forth. And then all in all, we have, we have a, a lack of a major weather story.
And I think those things all came together today.
[00:32:01] Speaker B: Well, so, so you think, look at it this way, for us as well, up here in Canada, you've got the Canola market doing something, you know, special. Right. We'll put in quotation, but something special.
[00:32:11] Speaker C: It's special. Yes. And then Trump month is almost 800.
[00:32:15] Speaker B: I think everything else not right. Corn, beans, less degree, not as painful. But beans, wheat, you know, our specialty crops are pulses, like not doing anything. So it's like what is going on here? And there's been a lot of chatter about commodity super cycle and everything kind of going to the moon. Price Wise and all this stuff. So I think that is in here a little bit. People are thinking about that. Anyway, the cool thing is that yes, it's, this is the, the kind of that point where you've got you, your first sales are your are low and much lower than where the market's at today.
You, you're not sure how to tackle your risk management, your hedges moving forward. You're feeling a little bit beat up. You haven't really been able to reward this thing or, or you know, lift your averages and do all this stuff. You're kind of caught and then your crops may be under a bit of water. It's been a bit too dry. The Canadian crop is going to come along quite well though, the way that I see it. But it's just uncomfortable kind of spot and, and now it's what's coming. Right. What's coming next? What, what can I do?
[00:33:29] Speaker C: I like that you said uncomfortable.
This brings me. Oh, I'm like I'm getting in my. I'm going back to my roots as a merchandiser for so long.
Yeah. So I just pulled up no canola. So 802.
What I mean when is the last time that new crop canola has tried? I don't.
You would know better than me.
[00:33:54] Speaker A: 2023, you know.
[00:33:56] Speaker C: So you just said uncomfortable. Right.
So generally the best sales that you will make all year long are when you are the most uncomfortable.
So you know, as a producer, the problem is I was, I was, I got this vibe earlier talking to a Saskatchewan producer, Rob, who was say, echoing the same thing already, you know, hedges are too low. I was telling him that a producer friend of mine a few years ago needed a new email address.
So Kevin's email, I set up a Gmail sold too soon gmail dot com. So if anyone wants to give Kevin a shout out on your worst day when you're looking at, you know, no futures at 802 and you're thinking I was the dumb ass that sold. Oh, can I cuss on. I, yeah, I was the guy that sold, you know, $100 ago or whatever it may be.
So yeah, I think that you have to ask yourself, and I mean especially today was a day that canola new crop Canola just jumped 2.6% one day. That's, that's a big move in the world of Canola. So I think you, you have to lean into it and it again those sales that where you're the most uncomfortable, you have to help. You have to make yourself or push yourself to get Comfortable with it because what are you doing? You're making it for risk. This is a risk management decision. So go back and look at it on a per acre basis with an average yield. You know, what did you just gain today?
Why aren't you locking that in on another 5% or 10%? I don't know.
[00:35:42] Speaker A: I.
[00:35:43] Speaker C: So that's a move like that. I would say you need. That's a 10% for me if I was a canola farmer. I hope this doesn't go down as the worst podcast in the history of. It's probably going to go limit up tomorrow and then I will be the one that looks like a fool.
[00:36:00] Speaker B: But maybe it goes limit up and then comes back down by the time they check.
[00:36:04] Speaker C: Check this out.
[00:36:05] Speaker B: So you might be.
[00:36:06] Speaker C: Very true. Yeah. Thank you.
[00:36:08] Speaker B: So the, the thing about being uncomfortable, like, you're right. Like this. Like, here's the crime in all of this. Like, here's the. The bad in all of this. So you, you've made your first sales.
Yeah, let's call them two bucks a bushel lower than where we're at. You made those first sales and then your hedges, you know, there's a bit of panic there because maybe you've been margin called or you don't. You look at those and say, oh, those are nasty now. Like the market's gone that much higher. And sometimes people will get out of those and say, ah, I don't need this anymore. Right. I'm going to get out of this. So then you take a loss on there and then the, the crime in this is that you're frozen because you're uncomfortable. This passes you by and you sit there and say, all right, well, you get to harvest. And you're like, well, at least it's where I sold it at now.
That's what happens. But it's. The crime is. Is in action in this period.
[00:37:05] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:37:06] Speaker C: How PG is this?
[00:37:07] Speaker B: So if kids, if you're listening, you
[00:37:11] Speaker C: can sort of just stay lifting and I guess you could bleep. You can bleep. But when you just started to say lifting hedges, that, my friends, is how you triple D something.
So it's not.
[00:37:24] Speaker B: Have you heard that there's another T shirt idea? Yeah.
[00:37:27] Speaker C: You know what I mean, though?
[00:37:28] Speaker D: You.
[00:37:29] Speaker C: You get it and you're like, oh, my gosh, it went to 802 today. That means that those sales I made two months ago, those are horrible. I need to get out of them. I need to. You know, you have all these things you're trying to like, Justify it in your head and at the end of the day what will happen is you will dig yourself into a bigger hole. So yeah, there's two hats you could wear as a farmer.
The one that tries to be the price predictor or you can put the one on that's the risk manager. We don't like the price predictor hat because that never, never goes well. So I don't know. I think the market's giving an opportunity and we are so long overdue in all oil feedstock type markets for a step back.
I just, I think that it's important to make sure that no matter how many tons of feedstocks we are going to need for the next X months or to get us out through 2027, I think you have to still be reminded that its policy.
This is also something that, like soybean oil, it's very headline centric and especially it's been a long time since we've had some sort of negative headline. But you have to keep in mind that, and I'm not saying that wrens need to take a nosedive. Wrens are the, you know, the, the mechanism, the cost of compliance.
And I'm not saying that they need to take a nosedive. But just as soon when you have a huge mandate and the cost of compliance is going parabolic or it keeps increasing every day, that means the amount of refiners that are going to cry and say this is causing me economic hardship to comply with the renewable fuel standard, we need a waiver. Those things are stacking up. I'm confident and we're just not hearing about them yet. So I think that we have to be very cautious because one of these days we will, we will see negative headlines and the market's going to go into correction mode.
[00:39:41] Speaker B: Yeah. Is there anything policy wise or I guess everything is.
Yeah. I was going to ask, is there anything that could stand out? You've already kind of covered it, but yeah, I'm trying to figure out what shoe could drop here, but maybe that's it. Maybe it's what you, what you just said about waivers.
[00:40:00] Speaker C: I'm not suggesting that anytime soon we're, you know, that tomorrow we're going to wake up and run into some sort of headwinds. But again, it's policy and we are on a high priced island right here in the US as far as soybean oil goes. I don't think that will change anytime soon.
But I do think that it's just important to remind yourself that we are here because of the stroke of a pen.
[00:40:29] Speaker B: And that ink is dried. Right?
[00:40:31] Speaker A: We're.
[00:40:31] Speaker B: We're good.
[00:40:32] Speaker C: It's dried. Yes, it's. But it doesn't, but it doesn't mean that you can't have that. We won't eventually start to see pushback, even though it is technically set in stone through the end of 2027. The next, I mean, the next big problem will be that they're going to start talking about 2028 and beyond.
Looking at where RINs are today, looking at how much it costs to comply with the renewable fuel standard, I can guarantee you that it will be an uphill battle to see additional increases. I don't know. I don't know. It's a wild. We have gotten ourselves into one. I mean, Donald, the Donald said it himself. Us farmers get ready to sell a lot of product inside the US and
[00:41:22] Speaker B: yeah, here you are.
[00:41:23] Speaker C: Here we are.
[00:41:25] Speaker B: Yeah. With.
[00:41:26] Speaker A: With how ugly kind of the, the
[00:41:28] Speaker B: corn and the wheat charts look and, and even soybeans to some degree. Like, I don't know how long bean oil and canola can do it on their own either. Right. Like.
[00:41:36] Speaker C: Yeah, you, you bring up a good point because you're. We're marching along. And this is a lot of the reason that you've seen crush margins, board crush margins go what, you know, to these record high bonkers. Yeah. And it's because the product keeps moving higher, but the underlying commodity itself is.
Remains, you know, flatline or moving lower. So.
[00:42:04] Speaker B: Yeah.
Yeah. And even for us, basis, Canola, basis, with our crush plants, with our export markets, not great.
Like, it's. We haven't seen much appreciation. Like.
[00:42:18] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, it really. And you know, maybe that's the reason too, that canola is finally just waking up. Because really, when you look at them, you know, when you look at any market, it doesn't matter what commodity it is. It's. You see basis and you see spreads. That's what works first, and then the board typically follows. So when you see that cash demand, then you're going to start to see futures react as well. And I guess you would probably. You'll have a much better. I couldn't tell you anything about canola basis specifically, but crushers at this point are incentivized to run as hard as they can, just like in the U.S. you know, the biggest challenge is getting rid of clearing the meal that you're producing when it's really oil is the driver. Now, here in the US We've had wild success getting rid of meal, continuing to clear meal, which has really been nothing short of amazing. A combination of record strong domestic demand. Thank you. Chickens. And then also exports and the export exports. That's a combination of the fact that we just, we have cheap.
We're able to continue discounting meal to export it, although US Meal is more expensive than South America this time of year.
But, you know, we're, we're, we've managed to move meal, which that's what's really helped keep kind of the soy complex intact.
[00:43:49] Speaker B: Well, Susan, I, I think this was more of a therapy session than, than a biofuel hit for us here in Canada. So I do appreciate you, you coming on this week.
I also, you got a big event coming up here in what, seven weeks or so. What's going on in St. Louis? Right. Everyone heading down to St. Louis?
[00:44:10] Speaker C: Yeah, I'm hoping that I will see you there. I owe you a couple of registrations.
[00:44:16] Speaker B: Well, I need to go check out that baseball experience because there's two experiences this year. Right. There's baseball and what's the other one?
[00:44:23] Speaker C: Yeah. So the event starts Monday, July 27th. It starts at 6pm at Anheuser Busch. So this is the, the home of Budweiser in St. Louis. And so we are, this is sponsored by BOA staff for AG. And we will be in Anheuser Busch in their beer garden.
It includes food, obviously, fresh beer. Very fresh beer.
[00:44:53] Speaker D: Beautiful.
[00:44:53] Speaker C: And then tours of the brewery, plus we will have a Clydesdale there.
The conference itself is at Ballpark Village, which is a large bar entertainment venue that's adjacent to Busch Stadium.
That will be on Tuesday. Doors open at 8. Sessions begin at 9.
Throughout the day, we have a variety of sessions. This year's theme is Inflection Point Policy, Trade and the Forces Reshaping Agriculture. So in our sessions we'll have, we have some macro stuff. We also have, we have a big focus on protein.
So changes in protein demand, like global protein demand, and then also that supporting protein meal demand, canola included in that.
We have a session on inputs with fertilizer and input expenses. And then we have Sunny Westcott, who is the chief meteorologist for Department of Homeland Security, fema. She'll be there to talk about weather and El Nino. I guess I should have mentioned that this one is put on by both Noble and Bloomberg. So Bloomberg's team will be there too, helping me moderate sessions. We're going to have a US and Brazilian producer panel. So we're kind of, we're going to do some contrast and comparison between the two. I have someone coming from fs, which is a huge corn ethanol producer in Brazil. So we'll talk a little bit about that expansion. Other things. Biofuel panel will be pretty good. We're working on finalizing that one.
So anyway, good stuff. And then the final, final event will be the CME Cardinals vs Cubs, all inclusive baseball experience. So that's one of the biggest, biggest rivalries or most longstanding rivalries in mlb. So, so pretty excited about that. And then this morning I just finished up the paperwork for it. An add on experience that will be Monday morning. We will leave at 10am in a party bus that might or might not have neon lights and other things inside.
We're going to travel to lock 26, which is the Mel Price Lock and Dam. It's one of the biggest choke points on the Mississippi, Mississippi River. We'll do a tour of the Lock and Dam and also the museum there. We will stop at a famous bar and restaurant in Alton, Illinois along the river for lunch and then we head back to the riverfront and we will do a helicopter tour of the St. Louis Harbor.
[00:47:34] Speaker B: Whoa.
[00:47:35] Speaker C: Yeah, so we're gonna do that before the kickoff event starts at Anheuser Busch.
[00:47:42] Speaker B: So you've got great food, great drinks, a little bit of knowledge in there as well. Just a nice little sprinkle in the package.
[00:47:49] Speaker C: It's all a write off.
[00:47:51] Speaker A: Exactly. Yeah.
[00:47:52] Speaker B: You got to mix it all in. Yeah. No, that's great. Well, if anyone's listening to this that wants more details, Susan, where, where do you send them? To the website, I would think.
[00:48:01] Speaker C: Yes, the website, no bullag.com awesome.
[00:48:05] Speaker B: And if you're listening to this, if you're a Canadian producer, send me an email Ryan at with the futurespodcast ca.
Well, we'll see. I'm looking at my calendar right now and there's nothing. Those two days we leave for camping though on the Wednesday so I'd have to get my flights in order. But it may be doable here, so
[00:48:22] Speaker A: I'll let you know. Susan, thanks so much for being on
[00:48:24] Speaker B: the show this week. Really appreciate it.
[00:48:26] Speaker C: Okay, thanks for having me.
[00:48:31] Speaker A: Well, a couple things there in that interview. We'll see if what got bleeped or what didn't from the editors, but always a lively conversation here with, with Susan. But you know, at the end of the day, as I talk to people, as I talk to analysts, as I talk to advisors, I'm sure someone's going to respond and say they have this on their bingo card for happening this year, but I struggle to find that right and so it's, it's a good thing. High Canola price of 800 is a great thing. Hopefully it goes higher and we can keep getting those averages up and up. All right, we've got a second great guest here for this week. We've got Blake Wiseth from, from Western Ag.
And Blake and Ian came out to, to our farm. I got put on to these guys from a couple friends of the show here.
And our firm's trying something different here in 2026. We are trying something different from a fertility program.
And so Western Egg came out to the farm here, did some samples, provided us some guidance, and that's what, what this conversation is all about. So I learned a little something on here. I'm pretty excited about Crop caster and watching that yield story play out throughout the growing season and seeing what type of influence that has in our farms crop marketing decision, our decisions, I should say.
So let's get, what we'll do is we'll get into it here with Blake in a moment. When we come back, we're going to talk about a strategy for canola and we're going to go through eating your veggies. All right, so let's get after it here, Blake, with Western Ag.
We're going to talk a little bit of farm fertility and what we learned here for our farm in 2026.
Well, if we've got someone making, making their podcast debut here on what the futures this week, let's welcome in Blake Wiseth from Western Egg. Blake, welcome to the show, man.
[00:50:43] Speaker D: Yeah, this is awesome. Thanks so much for having me.
[00:50:46] Speaker A: Have you done a lot of podcasts? Are you on the circuit or is this kind of new for you?
[00:50:51] Speaker D: Nothing. Nothing of the echelon of what I'm on right now, certainly. So this is, this is an honor. Just looking forward to it.
[00:50:59] Speaker A: Just like having a zoom call, man. Just like having a zoom call. Blake, you work with Western Egg. We're doing a project on the farm this year with Western Egg that we're excited about here for 2026 because we're changing how we're doing some stuff. Why the heck are you on a crop marketing podcast? What's going on?
[00:51:18] Speaker D: Yeah, that's an awesome question to get us rolling. What my hope would be in our time here today is that we can even think about, you know, soil fertility, nutrient management in the context of supply and demand. You know, what is the soil supplying for nutrients?
What is the crop demanding for nutrients? How do we match that up? So I think there's alignment there the other thing too we're pretty proud of is within our PRS crop caster, which is our simulation model, we directly integrate economics into the model to help optimize fertility. Grow more profit. That's our tagline.
[00:51:55] Speaker A: So grow more profit. Like, has this been.
How long have you guys been working in this, like, frame of mind? Like, I don't want to pick on agronomists out there, but I, I wish I was smart enough to be an agronomist like you, Blake, but, like, why do the numbers matter? Like, when did you guys start, like, wanting to figure out if economically this made sense?
[00:52:16] Speaker D: Yeah, well, for sure, in terms of the history, Western ag and the use of the plant root simulator technology has been going for 30 years strong since the early 1990s. And we can dive more into the history. But in simple terms, I think really it's just understanding that when we think about sustainable farms, they have to be profitable. And by very nature of focusing on the economic optimum yield, you're also going to be efficient in terms of nutrient use, efficiency and that kind of thing. So, you know, that's always kind of been the North Star, and it just works on a lot of levels.
[00:52:53] Speaker A: It might not be fair to ask this, but is, is this kind of the norm, like, in the space that, that economics that, you know, what are you budgeting for your price of your wheat, your canola, your barley? Like, is this kind of industry norm, or do you guys stand on the outside a little bit on how you do this?
[00:53:12] Speaker D: Yeah, like, I mean, I think farmers are certainly have always been concerned about, you know, crop cost of production, wanting to make sure that, you know, they're being profitable. And, and I think agronomists are keeping that mind in mind as well. I think how we differentiate ourselves is just kind of making that more directly integrated. I guess you could say in, in the process of choosing both the crop that you're going to be seeding and then the fertility rates. Right. And so I think just as an example, you know, the question comes up, what's the right rate? Right. This is the eternal question when it comes to fertilizer selection. Right. And so I think the status quo paradigm would say, what is my yield target or yield goal for this given crop? Right. And then you fertilize to that yield target. But what that framework doesn't account for then is what's the basis of forming that yield target? Is it tradition? Is it, you know, something that I read in a book somewhere?
Whereas our system, we would want to determine what's the yield potential for the site? You know, we're measuring soil characteristics, we're integrating environmental conditions, moisture, precipitation over the growing season, heat, stress.
And within a given crop, we're modeling, you know, what's the yield potential and then fertilizing according to that.
So that's one hand. But then you bring in the economics where we're recognizing that the maximum yield isn't always the most profitable yield. Right. And so that's where I guess that, that direct. Right. In that decision support tool, you know, as opposed to a PDF sheet of paper.
Right. In that model where you can, you know, and then we can run what if scenarios. You know, what if, what if the. My selling price for wheat is. I mean, I'm not even going to throw out prices because you, you, you know, all those prices. But what if it's going lower?
[00:55:17] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:55:18] Speaker D: What if it's X minus 5, you know, or whatever. Right. And so just by, yeah. Directly bringing that into the decision. Yeah. Is much more meaningful, powerful.
[00:55:28] Speaker A: Would you find that. And again, this is a crop marketing guy asking agronomy related questions. So forgive me, but do the farmers like, did they, when they, when they come up with a fertilizer program or the agronomists come up with a program like, what's the, is the main thing like budget, like, I'm gonna spend a hundred dollars an acre and give me the best kind of mix for that? Or, or is it different than that? Is it, is it about, oh, I took this out of the soil, I'm gonna put it back now this next year. Like is. Or is it somewhere in between?
[00:56:01] Speaker D: Totally. Yeah. I think it's, you know, the short answer is yes and yes. There's definitely folks that of course would have, you know, their, their static, you know, this is my fertilizer budget. You know, my accountant tells me I've got this much to spend, you know, what can I do with that? And in fact, we do have a tool within our software that says, okay, I have so much money to spend. What's the optimum, you know, blend? We can do that. Right.
But you know, further to your other side of the equation, we, I think there is, you know, this aspect of do I want to build my levels of fertility? Do I want to maintain this level to replace what's being removed, you know, from the previous crop? Do I want to build my fertility level? You know, so there's that other kind of mindset as well. And then let's also not write off the fact that logistics, of course Weighs into this too, right? I mean, you can come up with a theoretical, you know, optimum blend, but if it simply isn't going to work according to, you know, your, your drill, your, your fertilizer delivery method, you know, your time to cover ground, certainly that's going to weigh into it as well.
[00:57:09] Speaker A: So do you find, like when you, when you pull up the, the crop caster, so you've come out, you've jumped in the jeep, done some soil sampling, you know, you're sitting down at the farm going over the crop caster software for the first time. Is there like a consistent theme? We'll talk about Denis Farms in a second, but is there a consistent theme that kind of jumps off the page, like right away, or is that a fair question to ask?
[00:57:35] Speaker D: Yeah, it's a fair question to ask. I think, you know, in terms of consistent theme, the one thing that we do generally get is just because our, our model is dynamic. You know, it's quite appealing to folks because, you know, of course, a lot of people understand that, you know, you add more water, you're going to get more yield potential. You add heat stress, you're going to reduce that yield potential. We know this intuitively, but there's not a lot of places where people can visualize this. Right. And so that's one of the utilities of the crop caster as it relates to the, you know, demand side of that equation. What is the crop demanding for nutrients and then, you know, for, you know, what is the soil supplying? That's also that dynamic process. So I think a lot of people, you know, they know that these things influence nutrient availability. But again, looking at a static sheet of paper, you can't see that. Right? So. So that's one of the themes that we definitely see, I think, you know, in terms of the nutrient where there's probably the most conversations related to that is nitrogen. And again, it's just by very nature that, you know, the nitrogen cycle is very dynamic. Right. And so, you know, the processes of, you know, mineralization, immobilization, losses due to denitrification, right. All these things are constantly changing the supply of nitrogen in the soil. And so, you know, there's going to be times where we're sitting down with that farmer and you know, in the context of nitrogen, let's say there's going to be times where maybe we're providing a recommendation that, you know, they've never considered that before because maybe the, their idea of yield target wasn't really realistic with yield potential. Right. And so it could mean, you know, we're recommending a higher rate of nitrogen. Sometimes we're recommending a lower rate of nitrogen. Right. But it's just understanding that dynamic nature of it.
[00:59:30] Speaker A: All. Right. And I forgot to ask this one earlier, but when you were going and asking for like a yield goal or, or yield potential, like if I, if my crop insurance, for example, tells me I'm going to grow 54 bushels an acre of canola on farm, and I came at you with like a 35 or I came at you with like a 75. Like you would kind of call it out and be like, okay, you know, why, why are you going down to 35 here? Because we see more potential or okay, that's a high goal. What's kind of changed here because we see a slightly lower potential. Like does that, is there like a little ground true thing that kind of comes in.
[01:00:06] Speaker D: Totally. And I mean, this is all part of, you know, asking lots of questions when you're sitting down with that, you know, customer understanding. Yeah. History. What's kind of their normal paradigm and everything. And again, really we also recognize. And one of the things we try to, you know, present that's sort of a counter to this idea of, of yield target. Like, so let's, let's just assume grower has a yield target, you know, 40 bushel canola. That's my, that's my yield target. Is that your yield target for your entire farm across all different soil characteristics that might be on the farm? Even just differences, you know, we all know, you know, the home quarter, it always gets an inch more rain than, you know, the quarter down south or whatever. Right. And so these things all influence that concept of, of yield potential. Right. Rather than just, you know, oftentimes the other end would be, you know, a yield target that I'm going to, to apply, you know, across the, this crop for the entire farm. Right. And, and I think it's again, just thinking about, because we do have that ability, we're accounting for the local soil conditions, you know, texture.
[01:01:14] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:01:15] Speaker D: Salinity, stress, you know, ph.
Then we have the ability to inform, yeah, what is that yield potential realistically for this site? And again, there's going to be times where we present a yield potential and growers might kind of get, you know, a look like, wow, I've never considered that that's my yield potential for the site. Now the other thing I should also mention in this, in this kind of, in the frame of the yield potential again, that that's, that's assuming that there's good agronomy, you know, being practiced to achieve that yield potential. Right. So as an example, sometimes it's a wet spring. We're not able to start seeding as early as we might want to.
That could cause another factor that would reduce that yield potential. You're not able to do your pre burn again because it's too wet or whatever weed pressures that would reduce your yield potential. So you know, those are the nuances that definitely also go into the conversation to come up with. Yeah. What, what is that realistic yield potential?
[01:02:22] Speaker A: Well, I've got, I've got the Swiss army knife if you're a little behind on spraying. I got the Swiss army knife here. I got uplift upl support in the background. So they'll, they'll help you get caught up. But Blake, I want to, I want to turn, turn the conversation into a bit of the process. And, and so Nathan Kuhn, you know, friend of the show and friend of the crop marketing Make Cool conference kind of, you know, put us in touch a month or so ago and he's been with Western Ag. I'll have to ask him next week when he's on the show, but been for a minute now and, and had lots of great things to say. Let's just talk about the process a little bit here like when, when do you show up and just walk us through what to expect here for, for 2026 and then we'll talk about Denis Farms after that.
[01:03:10] Speaker D: Yeah, you bet. Really, we do want to position this not as, you know, a one and done sort of interaction. You know, as is common in the industry, of course, it's about a full season approach to, to how we're handling this. So yeah, in terms of, you know, the regular cadence, the vast majority of our soil sampling occurs in the fall and really that's just, you know, in terms of helping logistics and everything happen so that we can come up with for spring seeding. One of our professional agronomy consultants is called. Our agronomists are going to be going directly to the site. They are collecting the soil samples and then our samples are sent back to lab and this is where we do, we use our plant root simulator probes. And so you know, we can talk more about, you know, how that's differentiated from a conventional extraction as sort of the conventional approach to, to soil testing. But, but in any case, so we, we do our analysis, then that information is fed directly into the crop caster, our decision support tool or software. Right. And so oftentimes that that's where, you know, you and I and Colin kind of pick things up at the table in the shop and we're, we're going over the, the crop cast. So the results and the important thing there is, you know, we have the soil analysis from our plant root simulator probes, but that doesn't really mean a whole bunch until we contextualize it to what your farm is actually like. And that's where in the model again, we're bringing in, you know, what do you expect for average precipitation over the growing season? How much heat stress do you usually get? You know, canola is at 30 degrees during flowering. You know, less, more, that kind of thing. You know, what is your soil texture like? You have salinity pressures, etc. And then the economics, right, and we're, we're then optimizing that fertility plan.
[01:05:07] Speaker A: So just to interrupt so you're, you're like, we this year did a little differently because of when we started our conversation of doing some sampling here in the spring. But you're, you're harvested and then you get the samples and you're starting to, to create this plan throughout the winter months is what would normally happen, right?
[01:05:26] Speaker D: Yeah, basically, you know, as soon as the combines, you know, cleared off the field, our agronomists can get out there, collect those samples. And yeah, a lot of those kitchen table, shop table meetings are happening over the winter. And again, you know, that's largely just from the logistics standpoint. Then you can, you know, get your fertilizer on site, etc, hit the ground running for spring. Then I guess in terms of where our process sort of maybe differs from the, from the conventional approach is we, we have what's called a mid cast and this is where we can bring in our friend Nathan into the conversation as well. And so the idea with the mid cast is, you know, we've planted the crop, we know, you know, we have an ability to see what we are actually getting in terms of, you know, growing season conditions, rainfall, heat stress, et cetera, etc, and we can, then we can update our model to reflect that. So whereas because we didn't know what the growing season was going to be like, we said our yield potential for canola was 55 bushels an acre. But now that we know what the spring was actually like, maybe it's 60, maybe it's 45, you know, and so the power, there's lots of power in that. And, and Nathan had mentioned, you know, he really values that from the ability then to use that as additional information to market his, his Grain just because of the confidence that we have in, in coming up with that yield prediction.
[01:06:56] Speaker A: Yeah. And that's why you're on the, the, the what the futures podcast is, is the, is the going through this exercise throughout the year.
And that's what I want to see for myself as well is we, don't get me wrong, we are changing how we're doing things, like from jump street, like we are changing how we're doing things. But I'm also just curious to be dialed into crop caster throughout the, the thick of it in the growing season and then how that can influence crop marketing on our farm. And even think about it today it's, you know, the first week of June, Canola futures are flirting with $800 here on the November January contracts. How long is this going to, to stick at these levels? You know, will it go higher, whatever. But you know, if a market starts to turn in the summer, which they often do, can I get a bit more confidence in my crop marketing by having a tool like the crop caster in my, in my back pocket here? So yeah, yeah.
[01:07:56] Speaker D: Kind of close, close the loop on our cycle. The last piece of the puzzle then is what we call the back cast. Okay. So we've we crop casted over the winter, we mid cast, you know, in season, and then we back cast. And the idea here is, you know, you've harvested that crop, you know, grains in the bin. We run the model in reverse. So again, we know how much rain did we get over the growing season, you know, was there significant heat stress, etc. And then we compare, how does our yield prediction compare to actual yield? And we're pretty proud of the fact that within 90% of this circumstances, our yield prediction is plus or minus 10% of actual yield. And, and so again, the importance of validating that model, I mean you can have a model for anything, but if you can't ground truth it or validate it, then it doesn't mean a whole bunch. And so that's what we find really gives confidence in terms of what we're doing.
[01:08:57] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. The fact that you get to review the year and see how close things came in and, and you know, what impacts occurred to maybe change numbers like have that discussion. And I would assume there's some pretty good learnings and takeaways from that going into the next year as well.
[01:09:15] Speaker D: 100%. And to that point, that back cast does lead very naturally into the next season where we hope to start the cycle all over again. Right. But at least we kind of are already thinking about how did again that actual yield relate to our prediction. If it was, you know, close, great. If it was. And part of the value too, if it's, if there's deviation there, that really helps us to dive into it and see where we can make improvements as well. Maybe there were non fertility related challenges that did influence that yield. And you know, it's great learnings and great conversations for the next year.
[01:09:53] Speaker A: Yeah, you bet. All right, well, if we dive into, into the farm here, I've got in front of me, I've got a snapshot of, of the crop caster here and we will show this as a visual for those that are following along on YouTube as well. But Blake, is there, was there anything that stood out in, in the meeting with our farm as like, oh, these guys are doing something crazy over here or, or yeah, let's start with that.
[01:10:23] Speaker D: Yeah, you bet. So I guess maybe being that we'll have the, the visual on the screen for folks that can see it, maybe I'll just kind of describe what are the key components of the crop caster first. And so again we're, you know, starting with what are the soil characteristics? Right. We collected that soil sample, we're doing our analysis on it. And so what are the main things that we want to account for, I guess in terms of understanding what does the soil actually supply for nutrients? So we're thinking about soil texture, you know, sandy soil, clay soil.
Is there a root restricting layer? Do you have a compacted soil as an example?
Ph and electrical conductivity. Right. So we're accounting for these things.
And then we're bringing in the growing season, you know, moisture. How much rain do you expect over the growing season? Heat, stress. And again then we're establishing this, you know, what is the soil supplying for nutrients? What is the demand for nutrients? Okay.
So yeah, in terms of, you know, Denise Farms. So we're on Leo home. Is it Uncle Leo or. I'm not sure it's Leo.
[01:11:33] Speaker A: Anyways, yeah, my dad's name is Leo. So we have like home home and then we have an Uncle Leo as well. So we get both. But yeah, this is Uncle Leo.
[01:11:42] Speaker D: There you go.
Yeah. So anyways, in terms of, you know, how do we, how do we actually make the decision then of how much fertilizer to apply? You know, we're bringing in the economics. But again, we're largely looking at nutrient response curves. Okay.
We all know intuitively that again, you have a soil. Let's assume your soil has no nutrients at all.
You Add nitrogen, you're going to start building yield. Building yield, Building yield.
At a certain point there's going to be, you know, the law of diminishing marginal returns. Right. For every additional unit of nitrogen you're adding, you're going to be increasing yield, but at a much lower rate. Right. And then again in the context of wheat, let's say, of course we're, you know, building yield and then at a certain point we're going to be looking, we're going to be contributing more to like protein versus yield as an example.
[01:12:35] Speaker A: Right, sure.
[01:12:37] Speaker D: So, so yeah, within the context of GENIE farms here generally, you know, seeing lots of good things happening, but the biggest kind of take home message I guess we would see is this field in particular. We saw our model, our crop caster was showing a pretty significant response to added nitrogen. Right. And you know, your soils were a little deficient in nitrogen. And again, this is bringing in the context of last growing season. So I know last year ended up being pretty good in terms of some, you know, productivity. And I think what's going on there is we just removed a lot of nutrients out of that, out of that field and out of that soil. Right. And so I guess what it meant in this context is our, our nitrogen recommendation was maybe a little bit higher than what you folks might have thought of in, in maybe previous years. And again, I think that's, you know, due to, again, you removed a lot of nitrogen from the field. But then it also speaks to again this dynamic nature of nitrogen availability. And because our plant root simulator probe, we're not, we're not doing a chemical extraction to understand at one instant what is the available nutrient level in the soil. We're doing a 24 hour incubation. And so we, we have our plant root simulator probes, we insert those into our soil sample and then under standard conditions of temperature and moisture, we're measuring what is the cycling of nutrients from the soil to that probe over that period in the same way that a root is seeing those nutrients and essentially we're accounting for the processes of mineralization. So again that conversion of nutrients from the organic form to the inorganic form, where they're taken up by the crop and also nutrient diffusion, how those nutrients are actually moving through the soil to get to the root.
And then the other, so we talked about nitrogen.
The other interesting learning, I would say, from your guys fields is sulfur. So this field that we're looking at now, it is canola stubble and we crop acid for wheat.
And so what we saw is, and you can see in the shape of the response curve for sulfur, essentially no crop response to added sulfur. And I think this is another instance where, you know, when it comes to canola, of course, everyone knows canola has a high demand for sulfur, right? And we typically tend to fertilize canola accordingly.
But while canola takes up a lot of sulfur, there's actually relatively little amount that leaves the field in the grain. Right. A lot of that sulfur is retained in that crop residue, in the canola residue. So it's going out the back of the combine. And a lot of that, too, is then can be recycled back into the soil. And that's another instance where, because we're accounting for that mineralization, our PRS analysis picked up a pretty healthy supply of sulfur. And so in the case of. Of the context of Leo Home here, we had a recommendation for no added sulfur to this wheat crop, which, again, I think differed from maybe your traditional approach to fertilizing your wheat.
[01:16:08] Speaker A: Well, thank goodness it was sulfur, because I don't know if you've seen Blake, but there's a.
There's an issue in the Middle east right now, and it's holding back some sulfur.
[01:16:17] Speaker C: So.
[01:16:17] Speaker D: Yeah.
[01:16:18] Speaker A: Yeah. All right, good. That's good news for us. Save a bit of money on some sulfur here. When it comes to how we were doing it in the past and how we're attempting to experiment here and make some changes for 20, 26, are we taking a giant leap or a small step compared to past years, to what we're working on this year?
[01:16:42] Speaker D: You know, I think.
I wouldn't call it a giant step, you know, and I think it speaks to, you know, you guys are doing good things, and you had a good approach that you've been successful with. But I think the point of what we like to bring is, you know, even these, you know, relatively small but incremental changes can make a big difference. I mean, you think of in the context of sulfur, I can't remember exactly, Maybe it was 20 pounds of sulfur that we were able to pull out of. Of that blend. But, I mean, that's money there, right?
That's a direct saving. In this case, in the context of the nitrogen, I think we maybe only made an increase of, I think, 10 pounds of additional nitrogen per acre. But again, because you folks were able to get your nitrogen timely in a way that it was at a pretty good cost. I mean, that extra 10. That extra 10 pounds made a big difference in terms of yield, potential, difference in profitability.
And. And again, I think this speaks to in any given year because of again, that dynamic nature of nutrient availability. You know, there are at least those incremental changes to look at now. There can also be huge home runs. And that's one other thing that we can talk about particularly I guess in terms of nitrogen is one of the things that a lot of our customers, it's been quite meaningful for them over the last years, particularly in some of the areas of the province that have, you know, had drought of the prairies, that have had drought conditions over the last number of years. It's had quite a, quite a significant impact on the nitrogen recommendations that were that we're making. And the main reason for this again is because we're doing this incubation, we're accounting for nitrogen mineralization. There's a phenomena in terms of nitrogen soil nitrogen dynamics called the Birch effect. Okay. And so what you can see is if you have, you know, a soil that's, that's dry going into the fall, drought conditions, a lot of that microbial activity kind of goes into a dormant state. Right? They're just struggling to survive. There's not enough moisture. So we're shutting down microbial activity.
If you do get an influx of moisture, good spring moisture conditions like we do tend to see with, you know, the spring snowmelt, of course, we see this burst in microbial activity and that's our test picks up on that because again, we're counting for that mineralization. And so there were in those drought years, in certain situations, you know, we were measuring significant nitrogen supply, power from these soils. And you know, that, that of course, nitrogen, costly nutrient, can have a big impact on your, on your profitability.
[01:19:47] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, for sure. Okay, interesting.
There is one more visual here, the mulch layer.
Have we covered that yet? I don't think we have. What?
[01:19:59] Speaker D: Yeah, no, that's.
[01:20:00] Speaker A: What's this kind of showing us here again?
[01:20:02] Speaker D: It's just, I guess the question when it comes to our approach to soil sampling is, you know, where do you take that soil sample and how do you take that soil sample? So I guess we are, we're pretty proud of the fact we use a very low tech soil sampling method of a shovel. Shovel and. Yeah, shovel. And so, you know, pretty robust technology. You can throw it in the back of the jeep, which works well. And anyways, when we're collecting that soil sample, we're mindful that we want to collect the, the crop residue that's in a state of like it's already starting to be broken down, decomposed Right. So not a lot, you know, fresh right off the back of the combine, but some of that mulch layer, that thatch layer is what we'll see on the slide. That is a source of nutrients. Right. And so again, because our soil analysis is accounting for that, you know, turnover, that breakdown, that cycling of nutrients, it can have a pretty big impact, particularly with potassium. So potassium is a nutrient nutrient that's quite unique in terms of the vast majority of the potassium in the crop at the time of harvest is in the straw compared to the seed. So relatively little is harvested from the, from the field in the seed. And so again, you're blowing that straw out the back of the combine. That's a lot of that potassium can be cycled. So in terms of the visual, just the sort of the quick and dirty on it, you'll see they're labeled. There's, there's two figures which, so the, the nutrient supply, the gas gauges, how we like to present the analogy of, you know, how much nutrient do you have? And so again, on the, on the screen here, you see those red bars. So you think if the red bar is on the far left side, that's an empty tank of fuel. If it's on the far right side, that's a full tank of fuel. And so if the thatch layer removed, one that's labeled that way, if we dis, if we discard that thatch, we, we don't include it in the soil sample. You can see the impact that that had on the nutrient supply. And so things that, yeah, are quite noticeable is the potassium. It's roughly, what is that, about 27 pounds of potassium per acre. And you also see a relatively low micronutrients of copper, zinc and manganese. Now on the, on the other side, if we include that thatch layer, so two, two soil samples collected in the same field side by each one the thatch was removed, one, the thatch was included. And you see now in terms of that potassium supply, it's no longer, you know, that 26, 27 pounds per acre. Now we're at 66, 67 pounds per acre. Right?
[01:22:51] Speaker A: Yep.
[01:22:52] Speaker D: And we're seeing a similar increase in our micronutrients. So, so again, that's just the, the power, the utility of accounting for, you know, how is that nutrient cycling actually occurring. And again, you think of the context of profitability. I mean, that, that could mean the difference of having a broadcast potash application, another pass over the field, you know, dollars in that potash versus not maybe needing it.
[01:23:18] Speaker A: So Yeah, I want to also just add here, like Western Egg's been around for, for a long time. You know, like, what, where did, where did this kind of start? And just kind of quickly, like, who's the guiding kind of force behind this?
[01:23:36] Speaker D: Yeah, that's, I'm glad you asked. We're really proud to, you know, stand on the shoulders of some, some intellectual giants that, that went before us at Western Egg. And there's a couple names that I'd like to call out specifically, so Professor Dr. Jeff Shaino from the Soil Science Department at University of Saskatchewan. I'm sure some of your listeners know of Jeff, have maybe heard him give a presentation over the years, but he was, yeah, soil science professor in the early 1990s doing research on, you know, nutrient cycling in soil.
And just recognize that the, you know, conventional approach, you know, nutrient extractions, wasn't accounting for this dynamic nature of nutrient availability. And so he was the one that invented the plant root simulator probe. And so we've, we've got another visual. I got some really, you know, it's a paper from 1993 by Jeff Shano and some of his colleagues. And in this paper you can see for the macronutrients, nitrate, phosphate, potassium, Sulfate, how a 1 hour incubation compared to a 24 hour incubation changes the nutrient supply. And again, this is the same soil. We haven't added any nutrients. But again, it's just in that difference of time you're accounting for, particularly for the nitrogen and sulfur, that mineralization, that turnover from nutrients. And for potassium and phosphorus, it's speaking to you, just the diffusion of the nutrients, the physical time it takes for that nutrient to move through the soil, and then also accounting for moisture. So if you have a completely dry soil and you add moisture from 15% field capacity up to saturated, again, you're increasing your nitrogen supply. So, Dr. Jeff Chano. And then there's another really neat Saskatchewan story. A scientist named Stanley Barber, who was, yeah, grew up on a dairy farm, I believe it was in Saskatchewan.
[01:25:46] Speaker A: Okay.
[01:25:46] Speaker D: And he did some of the really early work in the science space, what we call a mechanistic understanding of nutrient uptake. So really, at the, at the, at the fine level, how do plant roots take up nutrients? What are the processes involved? What's the matter? Math. You can basically figure out all the math on how this occurs. And he dedicated the entirety of his research career to understand this, largely at Purdue University. He was on faculty there.
And so we're in our crop caster. We're accounting for these mechanistic principles that control nutrient availability to the crop. So again, just understanding. Yeah. How moisture temperature influences nutrient availability. So yeah, really, really thankful. And then Ken Greer, our founder at Western Ag, of course, packaged all that information together in the crop caster software.
[01:26:42] Speaker A: Awesome. And so Saskatoon based. Right. Lab lab in Saskatoon. Is that correct?
[01:26:47] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, yeah, you bet. Yeah. We're largely a lot of our operations on the Canadian prairies. We do have some presence in the northern US as well. And then on a research side of things, like we, you know, we. Our conversation has mostly been focused at the farm gate level, but we do offer our tool to the research community as well and it's used across the globe in a research context.
[01:27:10] Speaker A: Awesome. Sounds great. And you know, if people want to pick up this conversation, continue this conversation with your team, what's the best way that they can get a hold of you guys?
[01:27:19] Speaker D: Growmore profit.com check us out. You can get connected in not too long is egg in motion. And I'm sure some of your listeners will be there. We will have a booth at the show. We'd love for anyone to stop by and have a face to face chat.
Yeah. But those be the two best ways to get in touch.
[01:27:39] Speaker A: Well, the listeners, there'll be a pile of them there because they're going to come grab their free T shirts from me. So there'll be. There'll be a bunch of them there, but. Awesome. Blake, Well, I appreciate your time. I appreciate you and Ian kind of getting us going on this journey here in 2026. Looking forward to that midcast here coming up sometime in July. Of course, we got started a little bit late for. For planting, but you know, fingers crossed, the day we record this, if it goes just normal, all we'll have left is a quarter of barley for tomorrow. So that'd be. That'd be good. June 3rd finish would be something that we didn't think was gonna be possible two weeks ago. So there we go.
Awesome. Blake, appreciate your time and look forward to following up.
[01:28:24] Speaker D: Hey, thanks so much, Ryan.
[01:28:26] Speaker A: Take care.
Alrighty. Well, again, I love getting the agronomy folks on to learn. It's out of my wheelhouse, so I certainly appreciate their efforts on helping me out just a little bit and learning. Yeah, we're excited to give this a try and see what differences that we can see here in 2026. We had to make a change on the farm. We had to make a change and yeah, we'll keep you guys in the loop on how it's going of Course, before I get to strategy talk here, I do want to give a shout out to show sponsor John Deere. Of course, this is the crucial time I've got in the crop marketing workbook here in the handbook. You know, I've got. I've got some paperwork stuff to do. I've got some data management to do. I need to reconcile our seeded acres. I need to update our yield goals based off of what we're seeing out in the field. Now, I also need to review my contracts and outstanding targets. A great place to do that is a program called Harvest Profit.
Helps keep you organized, helps take some of the emotion, the decision as well, which certainly can be helpful here in these times.
All right, you can check that out. Deer ca. I know some of the dealerships put on clinics as well with John Deere operations center and, and pardon me, and Harvest Profit. So, yeah, check that out. Deer ca or Harvest profit dot com.
All right, strategy talk here, guys. I'm going to keep it short and sweet for you. Actually, Canola is dropping as we record, so it was 800 bucks. I'm now seeing a 797 on the screen here.
But from a strategy perspective, this is where you get to go and have fun with this. It's $800 canola, guys.
You're swamped, you're tired, you're frustrated.
I need you to find that extra gear, all right? Figure out how important $800 canola is to you and what you're gonna do about it. All right? It could be as simple as the sale, you know, doing a little something. It could be more complex with a hedge. It could be, you know, I'm gonna do a bear put spread.
You know, I'm gonna buy a put, sell a put. I don't, you know, maybe I don't believe the Canola market's got, you know, weakness below a certain strike.
[01:30:52] Speaker B: Right?
[01:30:52] Speaker A: So I'm going to consider the bear put spread. I could do that. Something, you know, find something reasonable for 25 bucks a ton or protect $800 canola. You know, maybe you're the one who's going to sell this and say if my crop turns questionable, I'm just going to replace it the risk with a call option. Or maybe you're going to call AG I3 and review forward protect. I actually have in my calendar in one week, I have a pop up about Ryan, go buy for protect. So we'll see. We'll see what happens that day. But it's, it's about important times of the year for crop Marketing and how you're going to lock in the opportunity without exposing yourself to a buyout. That's what it's all about right now. All right, so go figure it out. There you go. Eating your veggies this week. We kind of talked about the handbook already here a little bit earlier, but I like doing a crop progress report. Like, would I put a plus or a minus beside yield? And why, if I'm farming and just got six inches of rain, what impact does that have? Probably putting a little negative in for now. If I got a nice 2 inches of rain on my dry crop that, you know, it was needed, I'm probably putting a plus sign there. So just reviewing my, my crop, my crop progress and, and also at the same time, I'm checking my bias here a little bit, right? Because how bullish are you? Why are you bullish? Are you bullish on every crop that you're growing? You know, have that discussion even internally with yourself about what your bias looks like.
And it's amazing you could sit there and say, I found enough reasons today that I'm not bullish, but forget to sell or to hedge. So, you know, try to have that conversation with yourself. I also, you know, number two, I guess we'll call it hedging some canola this week.
Right?
And then number three, I've been an aggressive feed barley marketer seller. Moisture in Alberta just makes me think even a bit more barley's going in the ground now. So I like getting barley sales done outside of that from a price perspective, like flax, peas, oats, lentils.
I don't know, guys. Kind of quiet out there. Kind of quiet from what I'm seeing anyway. All right, so I'll leave it at that.
All right, folks, I hope you enjoyed this week's guest again. Thank you, Susan. Thank you, Blake, for joining me. It's tense out there for different reasons. It's also exciting out there for different reasons. Wherever you are, I hope you are having a good weekend and. And having some fun with your crop marketing. Yeah. If you have any thoughts on the show, questions, comments, again,
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if you found the episode useful, share it with a friend, a neighbor.
Prices can change, strategy can change. By the time you listen to this, most of the stuff's recorded on a Wednesday or Wednesday night for a Friday send off. So just keep that in mind. Yeah. From the what the Futures podcast. My name is Ryan and I'm out of here.
