Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: November Canola's flirting with $700 as I record this week's episode. I've got Trent Clarenbach. I catch up with him in Camrose, Alberta, of all places to find out, is this rally over? Are we turning a corner here? Are we getting more bullish on commodities? How should we be handling this rally? That and so much more in episode 112. Here we go.
Hey folks, welcome to the what the Futures podcast, your quick guide to better farming decisions.
Well, folks, I spent part of Wednesday morning in the lion's den, or so I'm, I'm calling it, of course. So welcome into episode 112 here, recorded each and every week in the UPL studio.
I talked about Battalion last week. We're going to have Sabrina with UPL join me in just a moment. So she's working on some wild oat research, how to get rid of those wild oats, how to attack those wild oats. And she's going to share some of those insights with us in just a moment.
Like I said, I did spend a part of the week in the lion's den.
Now I was hanging out in cameras at the Crop Management Network, their business seminar, which is a really nice event. I encourage all retailer retail locations to consider something like this.
And of course, good friend of the show, Trent Clarenback was about to take the stage shortly after we recorded. Anyways, I say the lion's den because we on cup of Coffee this week we had Josh Linvale. We're talking fertilizer. Josh's plea was for you to, if you haven't bought fertilizer yet, you know, go and have that heart to heart with your retail location and get a game plan. I haven't, you know, been necessarily kind to the fertilizer retail spots here in Western Canada, but I also sympathize with them as well. All right, I, I just, as Josh and I talked about what we, I preach risk management to farmers each and every day. What's our retail network doing to manage their risk on urea and on fertilizer in general? Right now it's a hand to mouth situation.
They buy it, they sell it to you. There's not a lot of time in between. Can we change that? Can we change that to benefit the whole industry? Anyways, maybe we'll talk about that on another day. I got Trent Clarin back. We're going to talk about these markets. What's going on? Is there a change happening? Are we getting more bullish or is this an opportunity that we need to Take advantage of. I also have a packed mailbag I want to get caught up. The cool thing about the Tuesday show about cup of coffee is that the mailbag gets nice and full and then I can tackle some of those on Friday. You know, we're talking about questions coming in about hedging canola, questions coming in about scenarios on, you know, I should be X percent sold but what, what bushels, you know, what happens if I'm 30% sold of what I thought would be a, a 50 bushel estimate and that turns into a 35 bushel crop. You know, what do we do in that situation?
Same thing with yields. Lots of, lots of real emotion in some of those questions. And then again, this comes up, this is coming up a lot. But who do you recommend for a futures broker? So I'm going to talk about that a little bit later on in this episode as well. Now before we get too, too far, if you are enjoying the the what the Futures podcast, please hit that subscribe button. Wherever you get your podcasts or on YouTube certainly helps us put more content together and to stay relevant in the space. So I certainly do appreciate that. And of course this show grows by you talking to your farming neighbors and your community.
And so I appreciate you doing that. And if you could continue to do that, I thank you. That's how the show grows. Now, cup of coffee. This week was a bunch of fun. Got our tech stuff figured out. So fingers crossed it was a part of it was Internet connection. But you can speed up an Internet connection and the one way to do that, of course Veronica and the good folks at Pod Sound School helping coach me through some of these tough moments. Apparently if you have 70 browser windows open that that might be a bit of a little bit of a lag there or a little bit of a problem. So we shut down all the tabs, rebooted the computer and fingers crossed, I think we, we have it sorted out. Like I said, the mailbag is full this week so we'll get to some of those spillover questions. When we were recording, you know, cup of coffee, you know, the live chat was just kind of buzzing and the questions were coming in. Those kind of take priority at that time. So, so that's great.
[00:04:55] Speaker B: Other thing I want to do, of
[00:04:56] Speaker A: course I'm wearing my hat designed by Paisley Bunder. Last spring, of course, this was the what the Futures podcast hat making contest. We gave these away at Egg in Motion last summer at the UPL booth. UPL stepping up with a very generous donation to the Canadian center for Agricultural well Being and same thing here for this year. UPL stepping up. And so we are launching this contest. March 1st go to Ryandenee CA.
You can download this form.
Hopefully the, the lights don't blare that one too much for you. I'll back it up maybe just a little bit. Anyways, Ryan Den, check out the hat making contest details. Kicks off March 1st goes until April 11th and as Paisley did last year, you're going to design a hat. You're going to design a hat. A what? The futures hat.
There's no.
The creativity is all up to you.
What happens is we get these back. You can see on the website how to download the form, how to submit it. We get them back, we'll pick our, our top five, put them to a vote and then after that we have a great hat partner double portion supply there out of Maui, Hawaii which is kind of strange of of all places but they are the ones that help us design or pardon me, help us create these hats. A great partner and looking forward to this one. Yeah, like I said there there's no rules.
We we're going to be giving these away at the UPL booth again here this summer. So more details on that. We don't sell these hats.
All the the funds raised go to the the ccaw. So you have been taking donations and of course UPL and what the future's handling the majority of it as well. So appreciate that. Now the cool thing about this hat, take my earphones off here but in, in the middle of this hat it's pardon me, in this, in the inside of this hat.
Of course you know Paisley's design. We got Farmer's Rule here on, on the back. We got the UPL logo here as well. But the most important part is the farmer crisis line is right in the center of the hat here. All right, so if you're out and about and and you're having a tough moment, very easy to take the hat and take a look. You can see 1-866-Farms that's FAR M S01. That is the phone number 247 Farm Crisis Helpline for Canadian farmers. So don't forget about that. And that's the most important part of, of this app. All right, Much more on that over the next number of weeks. Now before we get to Trent Clarenback I want to give a shout out to our sponsor John Deere. John Deere Operations Center. I did see at crop at the crop management seminar we had UPL there. We had Brett Young there We had John Deere deckled trucks in the parking lot. The whole family was there. And of course, John Deere operations center, a key part in our management on our farm.
It's obviously a very user friendly, free to use, easy to set up and helps you manage those critical farm operations, helps you reduce errors, gain efficiencies. And one of my favorite parts here is just analyzing last year's results to improve this year's plan. All right, so let's get into it now. Guest appearance by Trent Clarenbach down in Camrose.
After that we'll get into positive moments and.
Yeah, hang on, that mailbag segment coming up here in just a moment as well. So here we go, Trent.
[00:08:46] Speaker B: All right, Trent, we're down in Ken Camrose, Alberta, Canada. You made the big drive yesterday from Sunny in Saskatoon.
[00:08:55] Speaker C: It's Sunny in Saskatoon. Perfect.
[00:08:57] Speaker A: Perfect.
[00:08:58] Speaker B: I need to ask what, what was playing through the speakers of the car or the truck yesterday? What, what is there a band that you, that, that you hit the repeat button on or audiobooks or what do you got going on?
[00:09:13] Speaker C: Oh, well, yesterday was basically five hours of phone calls. But if I'm on the road, you know, I'll listen to anything from Red Rider, Tom Cocker. I love Pink Floyd, but I've been into this Norris Viking chant music here lately. So that's, that's kind of cool stuff to Ryan. You might like it yourself.
[00:09:34] Speaker B: So does that, that pump you up or does that get you more level? What's the given?
[00:09:38] Speaker C: It's, it's pretty, it's pretty chilling, man. It's kind of soothing. You really, yeah. Get into it. It's, that's pretty cool stuff.
[00:09:44] Speaker A: All right.
[00:09:44] Speaker B: I got a big range as well of music, so yeah, that could definitely fit.
[00:09:47] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:09:48] Speaker B: All right, so we're, we're recording this on Wednesday. It's got to be what, February 25th maybe or something like that.
[00:09:54] Speaker C: I think it's the 25th.
[00:09:55] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:09:56] Speaker B: I looked at markets before we hit the record button. I saw Canola was down nine bucks a ton.
[00:10:02] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:10:02] Speaker B: Kansas City Wheat's been down the last couple of days.
Any, any initial thought thoughts on again, it's just one day of one pullback on Canola. What are you thinking?
[00:10:13] Speaker C: Yeah, well, what I'm, when I'm seeing the markets, I had that conversation with your buddies there last night. I just see some, I see a lot of the markets, oil season, grains at a level of, I call it a level of interest where I think there's going to be some sort of resistance level. They all seem to be kind of converging on it at the same time, which gives me just some idea that we're going to see a pullback in all those markets. And that 683 level we're at, Canola today is very, very important to me. So we want to see if that holds.
[00:10:41] Speaker B: If not, it's y.
[00:10:42] Speaker C: It's got to hold that for sure. I'm not, I'm not ready to get too excited about pullback yet, but it's.
I think it's eminent.
[00:10:49] Speaker B: So, yeah, I think, well, today's a big down day. Friday was a, Friday was a big down day on Canola or Thursday maybe there's a big pullback.
It had recovered by the time we got to, to close. But it just seems to be trying to give us a signal here to stay sharp and stay on our toes. Yeah, you've been talking some strategy the last couple of weeks about how to attack this rally. Has that changed at all or you still been layering in some sales and some protection?
[00:11:18] Speaker C: Yeah, the strategy, my strategy, it remains intact right now until, until we, you know, at 700 level, that's a psychologically important level. Until we get above there, we have to soon that's going to act as resistance. So, yeah, I think it's a good opportunity. These are the highest, well, could be the highest prices of the crop here.
[00:11:38] Speaker B: I, I had a grower ask me yesterday, said, ryan, is this our spring rally? Is it happening earlier?
And you know, obviously, you know, for me, I watch, you know, what's the weather going to bring, what are growing conditions going to look like that that can rally a market as well.
But to me, this isn't one that you sleep on.
[00:11:59] Speaker A: You have to take advantage of this.
[00:12:00] Speaker B: And you know, I've been telling my growers, whatever, no matter what the market does, if it tanks from this level or if it goes up from this level, you have to feel really good in both those scenarios.
[00:12:15] Speaker A: You have to be positioned today to
[00:12:17] Speaker B: feel really good about both those scenarios. And some people say, Ryan, you're insane. You can't it do.
[00:12:21] Speaker A: Do that.
[00:12:22] Speaker B: Well, yes, you can. You can protect yourself against downside and leave some upside open. You can secure some worst case scenarios. But for me, this is the time. Our margin on our farm is in the Canola acres this year.
Can't screw that up.
[00:12:37] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. If you can make some profit and book it some profit that, you know, we worry about missing out. The whole FOMO idea though. Fear of missing out, but that giving back those gains will have a lot stronger impact on our psyche and our, on our memory than, than missing out on a profit. So I think you're right.
[00:12:56] Speaker B: So I wanted to ask, are we, we've had some strength in some of our commodities now.
Do you think we're leading into a more bullish year in 2026 or do you still think, you know, that we're in a bit of a bear market rally and that we need to be cautious?
[00:13:17] Speaker C: I think it's still a bear market rally. The longer term trend remains lower, but you know, there's some levels that considerably higher than they are right now on the grains and oil seeds. But if we start making new highs above those levels, then I think we have to reassess that bearish sentiment and consider maybe we're into a stage two market. But right now we're, we're still in a longer term downtrend. We have to assume that longer term trend is going to hold. That's my opinion.
[00:13:41] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:13:41] Speaker C: I'm, I'm still, I'm still bearish prices in the next couple years. So.
[00:13:47] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, no fair. I, I, I think that's again, when you do see, because markets don't go
[00:13:54] Speaker A: up forever, they don't go down forever.
[00:13:56] Speaker B: When you do see opportunity, you gotta strike and you gotta take it. Maybe you don't like the setup in, in wheat today or in yellow heat peas or green lentils, but the canola
[00:14:07] Speaker A: market's showing us something.
[00:14:08] Speaker B: Even the wheat markets have shown us something.
[00:14:09] Speaker C: Absolutely, absolutely.
Yeah. And you know, you have to like strike when iron's hot, feed the ducks when the ducks are quacking. You know those, you know those, those terms we use. But yeah, I mean if, yeah, yeah, you have to know your time frame too. So you know, maybe even if you're bullish wheat, but if you have to sell grass drain in the next month or two, I mean that doesn't really, you have to know, you understand your time frame and where the price action is likely or high probability to, to move in that time frame as well. So I'm with you on that. I think there's opportunity to take some profit, make some sales here.
[00:14:44] Speaker A: So.
[00:14:44] Speaker C: Yep.
[00:14:45] Speaker B: All right, now you're gonna get in front of the crowd here in Camrose.
You got any? I guess. What are you, what are you going to share with them today? What, what's your anything stand out in your presentation that you're gonna bring that point home today?
[00:14:59] Speaker C: Well, I think what we're going to do is we're going to, you know, this I don't think this audience has heard or heard me talk about the cheat code for grain marketing and the four stages of market structure, which I think is the secret to on any time frame in any commodity. And then we're also going to look at my studies of farmland values. I'll look at Alberta, I'll look at Saskatchewan and I'll just kind of give some ideas and you know, where we are in those cycles and maybe we can make some more better informed decisions because of that.
[00:15:29] Speaker B: So, yeah, great, great stuff. I, speaking of farmland, I, you know, I'm very disconnected from or maybe too emotionally connected to what the market does. But anyways, I was listening to the Wealthy Barber podcast, David Dave Shelton, I
[00:15:49] Speaker C: think, yeah, that's his name.
[00:15:50] Speaker B: And yesterday's episode was about the large drop in, in retail homes in Calgary. The large drop in price in Calgary, Vancouver, Toronto. Like some of these markets that had just gotten crazy.
[00:16:06] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:16:07] Speaker B: And I know they're different, but yet in the back of my mind I just kept thinking about how the storyline sounded just familiar about a blow off top or a big.
[00:16:20] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:16:21] Speaker B: And then a big ral or a
[00:16:22] Speaker A: big climb and then that pullback.
[00:16:26] Speaker B: Yeah. Again, you know, your research has been well documented here the last six months or so. I don't know if you have any new information to share, but we can
[00:16:36] Speaker A: save that for another day too.
[00:16:37] Speaker C: Well, I'm going to be publishing, I quit procrastinating. I'll publish my Iowa farmland value study, which I think, I feel that it's got, it's going to share some insight into what's happening in Saskatchewan and Alberta. Land values too.
[00:16:51] Speaker A: So.
[00:16:51] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, it's.
Yeah. But like you're to your point and I believe the charts will give us some idea what's going to happen or what could happen. But there's always some catalysts and you're probably seeing that in the housing industry right now.
[00:17:02] Speaker A: So.
[00:17:03] Speaker B: Yeah. So Trent, one more question here for you.
So we've seen obviously a rally in oil seeds here the last little while, a rally in wheat values.
Specialty crops seem to be struggling though.
You know, I look at, you know, lentils, you know, even peas to some degree. I think everything's a touch higher. But are you seeing a, a disconnect or from the technical side, is it telling us something about specialty crops here for 2026?
[00:17:34] Speaker C: Well, I think we're off some of the lows and some of like we are in large grain mantles and maybe even canary seeds. Slightly off the lows there, of course, green Peas and yellow peas had some sort of rally there. You know, there's some disconnect maybe, but, you know, I think a rising tide just raises all ships. And, you know, I think if a wheat's rising, then I anticipate the specialty crops will to some degree also. The one market I'm really interested in is corn. Corn hasn't had the same action that wheat has had. And corn, in my opinion, drives the rest of those markets. So I'm really, if corn doesn't get going, I'm really kind of second really have my concerns about this rally in wheat.
[00:18:13] Speaker B: So for, for cup of coffee this week, I was just looking at the charts before I hit record and looking at bean oil and canola and soybeans and then I looked at corn, I pulled up the corn chart and I was, I like refreshed it and I'm like, corn's not doing anything compared to these other ones. Like, this is brutal. I was like, oh man, is this a wake up call?
[00:18:33] Speaker A: Like, you gotta pay attention to this.
[00:18:35] Speaker C: I, I think so. I think so. I don't know what the. I haven't done a correlation study on what the correlation is with corn, other crops, but the general thesis is the corn leads the other, other crops.
[00:18:45] Speaker A: Right? So, yeah, corn is king.
[00:18:47] Speaker C: So, yeah, so maybe, you know, I. The special crops, they could just be late to the party a little bit, but we'll see what happens.
[00:18:54] Speaker A: Yeah, all right.
[00:18:55] Speaker B: Fingers crossed for that one because a lot of us need those special crops
[00:18:58] Speaker A: to perk up just a bit more.
[00:19:00] Speaker B: Well, I've got you in person, Trent. Thank you for talking to Neil down in Kindersley. He joined the Lunchbox last week.
[00:19:08] Speaker C: Great.
[00:19:08] Speaker B: He's come in with lots of pep and lots of questions and lots of insight as well. So a nice addition to the Lunchbox crew. So I appreciate you spreading the good word.
[00:19:17] Speaker C: He's very intelligent, he's well read, he knows the game quite well.
[00:19:23] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:19:23] Speaker B: I reached out to him after the first week. I'm like, how you, how you liking it? How you finding it? And he's like, do you put that much information out every week? I'm like, no, that was a bit abnormal. It was a bit extra, but we tried to. So it's been good.
[00:19:37] Speaker C: So, yeah, he'll be a great addition. Yeah, absolutely.
[00:19:39] Speaker A: Thanks, friend.
[00:19:40] Speaker C: Okay, thanks.
[00:19:45] Speaker A: All right, folks, positive moments for this week.
[00:19:48] Speaker B: I got a couple, a couple of
[00:19:51] Speaker A: like show ones here. So if you guys remember, Jordan was asking about his Nextera contract. He was looking to price some canola, take Advantage of this rally and price into the future, into 2027. And he ran into a snag. His locations at. Sorry, you can't do that. And that was a bungie location. Well, we did a little bit of sleuthing, we did a little bit of checking and we found out that yeah, you could actually set a target and price that far out. And wouldn't you know it, Jordan went and and got some of that Soldier took advantage of this rally. And the cool thing, the positive moment is that the network that is built around what the futures played a big part of that. Right. Jordan asked the question somebody other listener hears. Do we do a little bit of digging as well find out?
[00:20:41] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:20:41] Speaker A: You know, here's a solution for you. And there you go. Jordan gets to. To sell some highly profitable canola for his farm. That's just really cool. It's how it works. I also got. This is actually the first time for this, I would say. But I got a message from Southern Alberta from Landon and all Landon was doing this week was just sharing good news, just sharing that. Hey, Ryan, I sold some feed barley at the highest price of the year. We like what you do. Figured we'd give you this optimistic info. That is cool, folks. I like that. I really like seeing that and I do appreciate that because of course I like price transparency. I like hearing what's going on out there, but just sharing back and forth, which is really cool to see. I think that's kind of a first time for something like that. All right. A second positive moment. We went.04 at the Bond spiel this last weekend, but we were in. We had some four enders. We had a chance for a five ender. We were. We played a lot of offense. All right. High scoring games. We could not figure out our defense. Offense was. Was ticking though. And we had a great time. We had a great time. Everyone got through the weekend with few injuries. There were a couple, but we got through it and we had a good time at the Tofield men's bond spiel. All right, last one for me here. Oh, it looks like I got two more written down. Taking my kids to the monster trucks this weekend. So we got the new earmuffs, ear protection. Just came in here today and we've been. I've been showing them on YouTube what they can expect and they're jacked. So I'm pretty excited for that here on Sunday afternoon. And my last one here, I wrote down Saskatchewan crop insurance. The prices came out.
That. That can't be right. That. Sorry that's not a positive moment, guys. Let me just. Sorry about that, guys. Not, not a positive moment. But crop insurance prices did come out. We now have prices, AFSC prices in Alberta. Saskatchewan prices are out. Manitoba has been out for six weeks or so. What I would say is that specialty crops really, really getting beat up. I know out there people are talking about beat up wheat and say, oh, that wheat price, brutal. Like I'm, I'm going to take some wheat acres out.
Okay, you know, I get it. But it, and it is down 10% from last year. At least the Alberta number here, because they have the percent change beside it just makes it easy for me. But also, you know, amber Durham's down 10. Anyway, a bunch of these are down soft. White Springs up 18%.
You know, again, 640 is not going to get anyone super excited.
But you know, the big ones here, green peas down 31%. Yellow peas down 21%. Green lentils down 43%. Red lentils down 23%. Canary seed down 39%. Right. Those are all, all tough. All tough. The specialty crop, acre in the prairies.
Crop insurance is very, very.
Protection is very thin on those.
All right, other comments have come in about insurance here this week. I don't want to get too far down the rabbit hole right now, but some farms mentioning, you know, some of the highest premiums they've ever seen in lower coverage. So not a great mix.
On the positive side, Canola coverage In Alberta still 1349, but up 3% from last year somehow.
So that was a slightly positive one. Malt barley is up 2%. There's a couple here that are slightly higher than last year. But when Canola just triggered at $15 a bushel in my backyard for September delivery, that 1349 isn't getting anyone super excited.
We, you know, we are digging into our insurance a bit more this week. Again, folks. It's, it's an interesting and somewhat complex scenario in a way, but we're just kind of looking at, you know, our premiums being, you know, I guess, same as everybody else, quite, quite high coverage. Not great.
What, how can we tackle this and get, you know, the best coverage and try to do it as efficiently as, as possible? So I guess we'll talk about that more in. Yeah. In the future.
All right, folks, let's get into, let's get into what's on my mind for crop marketing here this week and then we'll do the, the mailbag here.
Now, Canola, as I said, right off the top, $700 canola for November of, oh, 2027. Right, forgot to mention that extra year in here. Now, November of 2027, canola traded as high as 706 here on Thursday morning you're gonna say, ryan, why are you talking about a crop year, you know, like 18 months in advance? What are you doing?
Well, I just want to highlight that there is open interest, there is volume trading, 17 contracts traded. That's nothing volume wise, but the action is there. You can start to put your targets out for NAV of 2027 at 7:05.
That is 13 bucks a ton better than this November. You can start your 2027 crop marketing plan right now. Okay, that is what's on my mind, guys. I'm doing a lot of 2027 thinking right now and I just, just let me know you heard that. 2027, November north of 700 bucks. All right, there's carry in the Kansas City wheat market that you guys need to take a look at. Cps, growers, CP plus, you know, utility wheats. Don't, don't forget about that. I'm not saying that I'm out there gunsling and taking big risks.
I'm not, I'm not sitting here in February making these big bold decisions. But I'm building a base. I'm building stability for next year and I'm taking advantage of what is profitable. Situations based on normal type yields. All right, that's what I'm talking about right now.
So that's what's on my mind for this week. Again, this Canola market, there are a couple of days now where we had big down days and then by the time we got to the end of the close of the market, we've recovered nicely.
But it just, to me, it's just sending a little bit of warning shots at us, a couple warning signs that we just need to be very close to this. And I continue to execute hedging strategies with the farms I work with. Not a day goes by right now where we're not doing something.
And again, protecting downside, keeping our upside open, ready for a rally, but just making sure that our, our worst case scenario is, is covered. All right, all right, so the mailbag segment here, we've got five that I want to tackle here today. Of course, the last one being who do you recommend for a futures broker?
So let's get into it here. First one, talk about futures. First protection with a put option. Well, what I think you mean by that is talk about how can I use a put option to protect my canola because there was a follow up. If you were to hedge Canola, would you go November or would it make sense to go further out to March or May basis never seem strong and fall. So that, that was a two parter. Now a put option basically gives you the right but not the obligation to sell it that strike.
So you're basically saying that, you know, I'm gonna buy the right to sell it here if I, if it's November, canola's at 700, I'm going to buy a put option. That is the right. I'm buying that right to sell it at 700. But for some reason if it goes to 800, well I'm not going to exercise my right. I'm going to sell it for 800 instead. And that premium I paid for the $700 put, well that's just gone, you know, lost now.
It's not gone and lost completely, but I don't have time to get into all that with you here this week anyways. A put option is basically just a way to say, hey, I want to protect this value. I don't want to sell physically. I don't want to sell more bushels maybe I don't want to take on the risk of selling futures in my hedge account.
Put option is just a nice way that you know your risk, you know your premium, it's not going to change and you can protect against a lower market. Now futures first, that would be selling just futures at a grain company.
So you would have, you know, risk on that on, on a buyout. And of course your downside is protected, but your upside is also capped. You have no upside because you've sold it. So that's a, the futures first contract.
So I hope that makes sense and yeah, appreciate it. Keep them coming. The next one. Would you sell new crop Canola in November or would you go further out? Well, this comes back to your cash flow plan and your delivery plan. You know, do you need some fall space? Is Canola the crop that you're going to move?
Because if it is, then you're going to lock some of that in for fall. You know, if you're sitting here saying, I like moving my other crops in fall, that's my style, that's my plan here.
Then yeah, go further out. There is some carry in this market as well. Like you can go to March and grab a 707 Futures instead of a November 696 and you can capture, you know, some basis gains that, you know, often, more often than not happen during the winter. Months and into spring. So definitely now there's only a couple bucks between March and May of next year. So you really need to figure out your basis gains on that one, what you're looking to do. But certainly if you can avoid falling, avoid harvest pressure. And the other thing too, folks, a lot of people are selling canola, which is great.
And of course those fall months are getting kind of booked up, right? They're getting kind of, kind of full. So basis is not friendly.
Basis is terrible at the line companies. Absolutely terrible. Brutal. Probably gets better there. But crushers are getting some good coverage. They don't have incentive. And I don't expect crush basis to improve unless we have a dry spring, which is the expectation. That's when I would anticipate fall basis getting, getting better. All right, so there we go. First two, third one.
I always get caught up on selling crop as we make a plan before we have a clue of what we're going to get. So I'm selling crop before I know what I'm going to get. Are we supposed to be 30% sold on a 50 bushel crop or will it be 40 or 60?
So am I going to get 40 bushels or 60 bushels?
How will I feel if it's actually 38 when we're done harvesting and we sold 50% of a 50 bushel crop? Well, I don't know how you're going to feel, but I'm assuming you're going to be a bit frustrated because you don't have as many bushels to sell after that. And if you have a 38 bushel crop and you were planning for 50, then hey, maybe the market's rallying as well because the weather wasn't great.
Now this is the problem with percent sold. Percent sold is a, you know, a guide that many analysts use out there.
I, I try to go back to bushels per acre.
You know, you should be, you know, five bushels price. But when you're talking about a wide range of area, percent sold is just the safest and easiest thing to do. Because how do you tell somebody that's experienced nine years of drought that they should be 10 bushels to the acre sold on something and then another person farm who's pulled off three years of phenomenal crops and tell them to be 10 bushels sold. It just, it doesn't really work, right.
So you know, at the end of the day, I start with your crop insurance average.
And if you don't have that, then you start with your records, you know, John Deere Operations center coming in for the win here and you know, how have I done the last five years? What's the high, what's, what's the low?
And kind of get started with that.
Now for this farm that asked this question, what you are really highlighting to me here is that you're not very comfortable physically selling or, or it's something that you know that is in your mind, you think about it a lot.
And to me you're again, you're the perfect example here of a hedge account of having the physical side on the farm. You managing, growing those bushels, protecting your bottom line on paper, protecting your scenarios on paper. Because then you could, you could have all 50 bushels protected over here, you know, or, or whatever, 30 bushels or 40 or 50 or 10, whatever the number is. And then you can grow those bushels, see what you have, and away you go, you've got the protection, you've got the physical bushels to sell. You don't have to worry about percent sold as much. All right, now it says follow up question with yield. You know, what do you base your yield off of when you're thinking about selling 20% of a crop?
10 year average, 5 year average, use the neighbor's average. You know, what's the thoughts around that? Again I go back to crop insurance number one, John Deere operations center number two, you know, you know a lot better than I do what your average is, has been over the last number of years, what the extremes are. Try to take some of those out, they do happen, but you could kind of put those aside and just figure out that average. All right, yeah, if you want to do a 10 year average, go for it, but you'll have some extremes in there and if that's what you want, then there you go. Five year average should be sufficient as well.
All right, last one here for the mailbag. Who do you recommend for a futures broker. When it comes to a futures broker, the first thing I'll say is that what I would recommend doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be a fit for, for you.
All right, I think you should meet with multiple organizations and multiple individuals because this is someone that you're going to be communicating with regularly and you want to be on the same page. And I've run into it just like any, you know, just like anything else. Like, you know, you go to, we're looking at vehicles right now, so you go to a dealership and you know, we've driven this one brand of vehicle for six years.
You know, we love the service experience. We love the brand. We love everything about the vehicle. We just want to upgrade vehicle.
And you know, they of course, turn over new staff, new sales, and you know, the kid walks in is like, well, if that's the one, you know, there's multiple appointments on this thing and you have to act now. And we're just like, all right, man. Like, we know we've picked everything. We. You don't have to sell us on anything here. But that does not work for us yet. I don't care if it's sells in an hour to somebody else. We'll wait for the next one. It's not a big deal, right? Like, and then the next rep comes in and is like, oh, no, no. Let us know what you want when it comes in.
You know, is this, this is close. Like, just people, right? Just people things. So it's same thing with a broker. Like, yeah, I might say this one's amazing. But, but you, you might not jive right now. What, what I will say one thing that's kind of popped up here the last six months or so, maybe even longer than that now. But, you know, as we get transitioning with, with folks, like, there's, there's some folks, brokers that have done this forever, great people doing a great job, but a little bit of a disconnect between the different ages, I would say. It's not quite jiving. And so one conversation I run into often is, you know, maybe, maybe you need someone that is, you know, closer in, in age to you, that is kind of speaking the same type of language, going through the same life experiences. Like, I, I think that's been helpful.
And then there's also situations where it's like, you know, what, partner with somebody that's been doing this forever because they're going to guide you and, and help you along here even more. Now, you know, my account, I've disclosed a lot of stuff on the show. I work with, with Tyler and Devin, with this Simpson Caputo group there, uh, with. With Bert and Kevin and those guys. I've worked number of years.
A lot of my clients work with those guys as well. And, you know, it, it works for us. It. It's a good relationship and it, it works.
Yeah. And one of the reasons I, I went that direction is just the, the, you know, the, the paperwork side, the effort to get paperwork done.
It was helpful and got. Got through that, that burden for me. So that's, that was one of the reasons. And then as it's gone on, it yeah, just somebody you chat with regularly. Right. So it's gone well, the second one, a lot of lunchbox crew guys, they're working through, you know, through Simple Hedge and, and through JGL Capital as well and hearing lots of positive experiences there. And so I, you know, when someone asks me, those are the two that I kind of have people start with, you know, go chat with JGL Capital, go chat with rbc, have a conversation with them, meet with both. And, and, and if that doesn't fill your need, then we'll keep going down the list. Right, okay, so that's, that's who I'll put out there for, for brokers, I think, doing some good work in, in Western Canada. All right, folks, let's bring in Sabrina here with upl. We are going to tackle Wild Oats and I'll have Sabrina take it away.
[00:38:58] Speaker B: All right, folks, I've got Sabrina joining me from upl. We're hanging out in Camrose today at
[00:39:03] Speaker A: the Crop Management Network business seminar.
[00:39:06] Speaker B: Sabrina, how's it going?
[00:39:08] Speaker D: Oh, it's going really well. Yeah, Good turnout here.
[00:39:11] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, nice turnout.
Now, you've been on the show twice before, have you?
[00:39:16] Speaker A: You been.
[00:39:17] Speaker B: This is the third time.
[00:39:18] Speaker D: Twice, maybe even three times.
[00:39:19] Speaker B: All right, so, you know, I talk about deadlines, I talked about grower rewards programs. I've talked about products.
[00:39:28] Speaker D: We've talked about WAVE a lot.
[00:39:29] Speaker B: We've talked about wave. Yeah, wave, which talked to my brother the other day. We've got some WAVE in the plan here for 2026. We're excited about, excited about the Canola
[00:39:39] Speaker A: market and our potential margins here. So want to make sure we do everything we can. Anyways, what do we want to talk about today? What are you working on?
[00:39:47] Speaker B: Because your role, you're, you're here supporting the booth, supporting growers.
[00:39:51] Speaker A: But what do you work on day to day?
[00:39:53] Speaker D: Oh, I have a very.
My role kind of covers a lot of areas.
So I work kind of half in research and development and then half in tech services, kind of, you know, helping out the sales team with technical support and talking to growers and kind of giving that advanced technical support.
So it's nice because, you know, I get a few years of working with some of our products out in the field, getting to know some of our new products, working with some of our current products and just trying to figure out how ways to use them even, you know, even more effectively. And then I can use that field experience and knowledge to help support the territory managers and the growers in the field.
[00:40:37] Speaker B: So, Sabrina, are you the person that gets the phone call when like something really strange is happening or like something very complex and they're like, all right, we got to bring Sabrina in here
[00:40:48] Speaker A: to figure this out.
[00:40:49] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah. So usually the territory managers, honestly, they, they deal with 99% of the issues. But it's one of those things where it's just like, okay, you know, we know as growers done the right tank mix. We know this grower has, you know, done everything right and we still can't figure it out. And then that's kind of when I come in and try to look at it from a different perspective.
[00:41:08] Speaker A: We're coming with your cape and your superhero and there you go.
All right. So what are you working on these days?
[00:41:14] Speaker B: What research have you been, you know, I guess passionate about this last year? Obviously it's cold out and snow, so maybe research is a little quiet right now. But what'd you work on last year?
[00:41:25] Speaker A: Or what do you want to talk about?
[00:41:26] Speaker D: Yeah, one of the projects that is very near and dear to my heart, I've been working on it since I started with uvl has been herbicide layering.
So really we're focused on that group one and group two resistant wild oats. Some of those wild oats are now showing resistance to that group 8:15 mode of action as well. So that's probably one of the biggest pain point for growers. And yeah, we've been doing a project where every year we have 10 or 12 different treatments where every treatment is kind of a whole herbicide plan from pre emergence to post emergence, you know, potentially to post emergence applications.
And we try to see which one is the most effective at lowering the wild oat population in the field.
This year, my colleague in Manitoba, Laura Schmidt, she actually did a really great job with, she got yields from her trials as well and she was able to calculate return on investment for some of these different herbicide programs. Because generally what we find no surprise here is that if you go in with a pre emerge herbicide, like you know, something with a group 15 approximately cell phone, or you know, something with like, like an avidex before, and then you come in with a group 2, like a flucarbisone product, and then you follow it up with a group one that seems to be the most effective at lowering wild oats. But of course your average grower is going to be like, wow, how much is that gonna cost me?
[00:43:02] Speaker A: Right?
[00:43:02] Speaker D: Is this gonna be worth it? And yeah, so, so we were really trying to answer that this year was getting to yield information from Some of these plots, and these are, you know, all replicated for replication, small plot trials. So my colleague Laura, she was, she was able to do that with hers this year. She had a good field for getting some good yield data off her wheat. And. Yeah, and that was pretty interesting because she kind of found that, you know, going with all of those chemicals and she was in a field that was like high pressure, they knew there was high resistance.
And she found that again, throw in the kitchen sink did the best at lowering the actual population of wild oats and she was able to capture that in the yield data. But the best return on investment in terms of, you know, what yielded the best and then measuring that out against the chemical was either going with a pre burn or pre merge product, you know, in addition to glyphosate.
So one of those group 15 or, you know, Avadex product, like I mentioned, or then coming in with a group two and.
Or doing, you know, just glyphosate pre emerge and then coming in with the group two and then following it up with penoxidin. So those two are actually the best for return on investment. So it depends what your goal is. Right. Like if your goal is, I just want to lower that wild oat population, then throw everything at it. If you're more thinking of return on investment and, and I mean, there's, there's more, we can go into that in terms of, you know, like, okay, how much wild oats are you leaving in for the next, the next field season? So maybe it's still worth going in with that, that, you know, full, full pallet of chemicals. But it just gave us a new way to looking at the data, which was really exciting.
[00:44:43] Speaker B: So is this research specifically for wild oats?
[00:44:48] Speaker A: Like, is that the.
[00:44:49] Speaker B: Or is there any others?
[00:44:52] Speaker A: I guess wild oats is obviously a big, big one. Right. So is it wild oats the main, I guess, priority of this project?
[00:44:59] Speaker D: For this project, yes. Just because we are trying to look for ways to support our flucarbisone products or Everest and our batallium. And you know, we're trying to be able to answer the question for growers. They say, I have resistance, I've gotten tested, I have resistance in my field to flucarbisone. Can I still use it?
And we want to make sure that we're giving an informed opinion and we're not setting growers up for failure when we say, yes you can or no you can't. Or what we're also trying to do is help growers be proactive. On maybe they don't have those resistance issues yet, but they're probably coming. So. Okay, how can we set you up so that you are keeping that wild oat population at bay and you know, you can extend, extend the length of how long you can use that product and hopefully keep resistance at bay, you know, as much as possible. So now the concept of herbicide layering is something we could probably apply to any weed. I think it would be great in the future if we can expand to something like Kochia.
So yes, that's obviously. And I think, you know, we're already seeing a lot of products that, you know, have group sixes. Group 27s are applying that layering concept in terms of which is the best, which is the best program for Kochi.
Yeah, I think that's maybe a step we'd like to take in the future, but we're not there yet.
[00:46:21] Speaker B: So. I'm going to go back to something
[00:46:23] Speaker A: you said right off the hop just
[00:46:24] Speaker B: to help me a little bit because I'm not, don't ask me for any agronomy stuff, folks.
[00:46:29] Speaker A: It's not me. I'm not good at agronomy stuff.
What do you mean by layering, like product layering? Do you just mean, you know, a package of three or four different products
[00:46:39] Speaker B: throughout the growing season or what, what
[00:46:41] Speaker A: does that mean specifically?
[00:46:43] Speaker D: I think that's knowing your actives that you're using and making sure that you are using multiple actives effective on that weed in the season. So and also what I think we're learning from our wild oat research is using that at different times as well. I think can be helpful because wild oats are weed that they flush several times throughout the season.
So I mean, sometimes I think there's a strategy of putting a few different actives in the tank at once. But with wild oats, I think we find that it's, you know, it's really good to go in with a pre emerge that has some residual activity on the wild oats. So your glyphosate doesn't have the residual activity. So putting in something else that's going to have the residual activity and then coming in with a group two that hopefully also has some residual activity, you know, like Everest and Batalium. And then if you need to, if you still have another flush and you know you have a field that's just that population is so high or you get that flush towards the end of that application window, you come in with a phenoxidant product.
So that's what I Mean by layering.
[00:47:51] Speaker B: So this might not be a good
[00:47:53] Speaker A: question to ask, but I'm going to ask it anyway. When you are looking for your research sites, you like driving around in the, in July and like, oh, this guy. We gotta, we're this farm, we gotta go and talk to them like. Or how do you find like where the wild oat issue may be?
[00:48:07] Speaker D: I live in south Edmonton, so I'm very close to that, you know, highway to Leduc kind of area. That's sort of like the wild oat capital, I think of Alberta.
[00:48:19] Speaker A: So lots to choose from.
[00:48:20] Speaker D: It's lots to choose from. Yeah. Generally I, I don't have trouble finding it.
No. And I think it's just, you know, talking to growers who, yeah, I think pretty much any grower in that area is encountering some wild oats. And so it's. But I mean, yeah, I do, I have, you know, I already have my site picked out for next year because I got to see it, it was a fava bean site this year and, and they were trying to manage the wild oats and so now I know, okay, next year that's going to be, that's going to be a good area. We'll have a good population to work with there.
[00:48:50] Speaker A: All right, so a little bit of pre scouting going on. Sounds good.
[00:48:53] Speaker B: All right.
[00:48:54] Speaker A: Now within the UPL portfolio, you know, I'm, I'm looking at, of course there's a few new things going on too,
[00:49:01] Speaker B: but what's the one that stands out
[00:49:03] Speaker A: when you, you know, when you want that nice clean field and wheat field, cereal field, like what's the go to within the UPL portfolio for 2026?
[00:49:12] Speaker D: You know, I think especially around like central Alberta Edmonton area, I think Batalium is just a really good product because we're starting to see a lot of Group 2 resistance in those broadleaf weeds. So Batalium is, I mean, has the flucarbisone in there for the wild oats, but in terms of broadleaf weeds, you know, it's got the bromoxenol, the MCPA and the fluoroxapyr. So group six and really powerful group six and two group fours.
So, yeah, I think last year in the summer I got a lot of questions about, okay, how do we deal with group 2 resistant smartweed? Seeing Kochia come up, which we know doesn't get controlled with, you know, with a Group 2 product. So I think that's a really standout product in terms of getting both the efficacy you need on the wild oats and Then also going after those weeds, which for a few years they weren't a problem, but now they're really creeping back in. Like I saw, yeah, a lot of smartweed last year.
So Those that Group 2 resistance I think is getting stronger. And the nice thing with batalium is it was designed so that every weed has at least two modes of action on it. So it's designed with that layering concept, this time in one tank.
But yeah, it's designed with that concept in mind.
[00:50:34] Speaker C: Perfect.
[00:50:35] Speaker A: Thanks for your time, Sabrina. I really appreciate it.
[00:50:37] Speaker D: Okay, thank you.
[00:50:41] Speaker A: All right, folks, we are getting down to the, to the nitty gritty here. So we've got eating your veggies and then we can close it out. So for eating your veggies, of course, these are action oriented items here for you to consider.
Number one, I have heart to heart with your retail shop on fertilizer. If you have not bought your fertilizer yet, then time to have a heart to heart and figure out what your needs are and your game plan with them. Prices between now and spring.
Unfortunately, not a lot of lower prices expected here between now and planting. Number two, crop rankings. Talked a lot about crop rankings on the show, but now that you have insurance prices, it's a healthy exercise to take those values and put them in to your crop rankings. All right? See how insurance could influence your planting decisions and see what stands out on the positive side and what gets a bit more beat up and how you want to tackle that in your crop plant. Right. So I like taking insurance prices and tossing that in my crop rankings.
And last one, you know, if I could stand on the stool without falling and still stay in the camera shot here as well.
Just do not screw up your canola marketing this late winter, early spring. Get those two strategies dialed in.
You know, I'm not saying you gotta go guns ablazing, selling everything, but just get your strategies. How are you gonna protect this market when the rally is over? It's not over. As of recording, it's not over. Today we have, you know, good news, quote unquote, potentially coming here. But once that news is in, what's going to feed this bull? Maybe it's weather, maybe it's something. Maybe there's some other demand out there. I just, I can't, I can't say it enough.
Plan, plan how you're going to attack this market. Educate yourself on your strategy or two strategies that you're going to use and then be ready to execute when the time comes. All right. All right, folks, thanks for hanging out this week.
Send in your thoughts, questions, comments to Ryan at what the Futures Pod. Thoughts? Yeah. If you found this episode useful, please tell your neighbors. Of course, if we talk prices today, those can change by the time you listen to this episode. For the what the Futures Podcast. My name's Ryan.
I'll see you on Tuesday on Cup of coffee and I'm out of here.
