Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: This week, folks, we have Trent Klarenbach with Klarenbach Research. We're going to talk about canola, we're going to talk soybeans, we're going to chat about Durham and Chicago wheat lots going on. We also chat urea, of course, Trent from the technical side. And me, I want to talk about it from the retail side. It is chaos out there in this fertilizer market. So let's get into it. Episode 98 of the what the Futures podcast coming up right now.
Hey, folks, welcome to the what the Futures podcast, your quick guide to better future farming decisions.
Alrighty, folks, welcome into episode 98 of the what the Futures podcast. Good to see ya. Did you guys catch last week Augustine with a little, you know, amazing editor in the background. He, he had the horns going. Different song to end the show. I don't know. It was great, Augustine. It was fantastic. Thanks for putting that in there. I look forward to seeing what you come up with. Thank you. This week. Let's keep it peppy back there, all right? Of course, each and every episode, you know, episode 98 today recorded in the UPL studio. It would be a disadvantage if I didn't mention to you Rancona Trio. All right. One of my favorite UPL products because it is three powerful fungicides, one amazing seed treatment, and the beauty of it, you can use it on cereals and pulses. One product on the farm. Keep it nice and simple. Rank on a trio over at upl. Talk to your local retail about the availability of Rank on a trio. Forgot about positive moments last week, so let's, let's get into it here for positive moments to kick off this week's episode. Because if we're going to be honest, the most exciting thing happening from a business perspective on your farm right now as we get to the end of October is the beautiful fall weather and the field work that you're getting done. That extra work that you're getting tackled, maybe wrapping up harvest. But it has been beautiful out there. Crop marketing, not as much fun. But don't worry, we'll talk about that. So for positive moments this week, I need to start off with. I won't do too many bonus ones for you, but things that stand out for me. Of course. I already talked about the fall weather. It's been incredible.
And I know that changes here over the weekend for many little precipitation. I'll, I'll take it. I wouldn't mind a rain. I wouldn't mind a rain before it gets too cold and some snow in the mix here as well. So weather definitely the other one. Just going to my kids. So we've been watching Blue's Clues. All right, We've been watching Blue's Clues. We watched the Blue's Clues movie the other day. If you're looking for a soundtrack, there's a couple of bangers on the Blue's Clues soundtrack. There's the intro, the rock version of the intro with a solo that is, it's, it's something. All right? It's something. So Blues Clues.
But my kids are in the backseat belting the songs word for word, as loud as they can. It's like they're on stage performing back there. And sometimes I'll turn it down just so I can hear them, hear their powerful voices come through. But the confidence to just let it, let it all out, you know, belt that out, that's a positive moment, all right? I want them to never lose that.
I want them to continue to belt that out and sing, sing with strength at the top of their lungs their whole lives, all right? So I hope, I want them to keep that, that is a goal of mine. Keep that confidence rolling. And I love to see it. Maybe they inherited grandma's genes. My wife was telling me this the other day. Chantel says, like she said, you know, like the kids back there, like, they're not too bad. I'm like, yeah, they're not bad. Like, maybe they got your mom's great voice. Because my mom does have a wonderful voice.
All right, so we got that. The other thing for this week, positive moments. My wife got a much needed vacation. She went, her and her sister went to Las Vegas. They went, they came back. We didn't have to provide any additional collateral or any. No phone calls for bail money. So successful trip. And it's important, it's important to, to go and experience things on your own as well. To go and do things with other people. And like, for me, it, it often is work type stuff, right? Like I, I'll go here and there for work type stuff. But earlier this year, my dad, my brother, we went to Minneapolis, we saw acdc, right? And, and anyway, she went to Vegas, had a great time, and I was home with the kids. All right, all week I was home with the kids. And I had a goal of being dialed in and focused. I've got a five year old and an almost three year old. I wanted to make sure the phone was put away.
And my goal, what I told myself was just to be in that moment, be with the kids, breathe, have some patience and just Enjoy the moment. And we had a really nice week. Am I exhausted? Yes. Is the podcast late this week? Yes. Did I not get all my work done this week with my consulting clients? I'll get there. I still have one more day. I'll get there. All right. But some of that fell off. The other thing, the pro tip I have for, for you out there, go let your partner travel number one. Go and let them travel, experience things on their own. Support that I should say not allow, but support it. I got a house cleaner to come in. It timed perfectly the day my wife is arriving during the night back to Edmonton that day. We had a house cleaner come in for three hours. And if you want to just finish that vacation off with like a cherry on top, my wife came up, woke me up at 2:30 in the morning and said I can't believe how clean the house is. That was all us. That was me and the kids. We spent the whole day scrubbing. So pro tip, there you go. If you something on the Christmas list. All right.
Okay. Other than that, other positive moments, just the last one here because I know, I know that you guys, this happens to you as well. But I've been searching for a piece of equipment, a used piece of equipment, something hard to find, looking for good quality. Of course it's green, of course it's John Deere. Right. But I found it. I haven't bought it yet, but I found it. We've had conversations. It's not listed. I got notification from a buddy that this was potentially available. Gave me the phone number. I reached out. I just need spousal approval, that's it. But I've already, I've got, I have to have that secured. The house cleaner thing, the vacation, this is my time to strike. This is all just aligned for me this week. And so this piece of equipment, fingers crossed, it's looking good. Disposal approval, once I get that signed off on, it will be success for something I've been looking for for like a couple years. All right, all right, that's it for positive moments. Let's get into the show here. Conference update. Not much. What do we have? I wrote 15 tickets available, so 1 5, 15 tickets as of recording more than that out for applications, approved applications. I'm not sure what the hang up is. I don't know why the approved application, you know, for a few weeks. I don't know why you're not buying the ticket after that. I don't know what the hang up is. But you know, just be warned that are we still Accepting applications. Technically, yes, we're not sold out, so we'll keep them, take a few more. But we do have enough approved that, you know, we should be selling out here momentarily. We're not sold out this week, Are going to be sold out next week, who knows? But if you want your ticket to Moose Jaw, you, yeah, you gotta, at some point I am gonna say that it's gone and sold out. All right? So I don't know, I don't want to put any pressure on anybody, but, yeah, you're getting down to the nitty gritty. Well, folks, I, you know, I, I see, you know, I'm following on social media and I see what, what everyone's doing and I see what we're busy with at the farm here as well right now. And it's getting to that time you're trying to get a lot done before snowflies, before freezes. Now this isn't for every, it hasn't been for everybody. This hasn't been everyone's experience in 2025. But for, for a lot of folks, the yields ended up coming in and being a little better than expected.
Lowering those break evens, you know, just a smidge and turning what looked like a negative margin year to maybe, maybe not quite positive yet, but maybe break even, maybe close to it, maybe less negative. I just, lots to talk about next year and 2026 and the outlook out there. And of course, you know, we can see what we see for today, but nobody, we don't truly know what will come down the pipeline to move these markets next spring or next year. What I want to highlight here is that using programs like Harvest Profit, using John Deere Operations center, not just that, it could be, you know, anything that involves analyzing, looking to do better, looking to be more efficient, looking to save costs, looking to enhance yield, looking to enhance crop marketing decisions, looking to enhance or be more aware of, you know, financial positions, cash flow positions, whatever it is, good business decisions for our farm, for me, for our farm in 2025. Harvest profit has been that tool. Check it out. Harvestprofit.com it's farm financial software. Where we track our grain contracts, where we track our cost of production. It's where we track, where we see our farm profit maps as well. So anyways, folks, 2026, we're not giving up yet. There's no reason to give up yet. Lots of things can happen. Know your numbers, know where you want to go. You know, create the plan, execute the plan. It's all part of crop marketing. And check that Out. We got Trent Clarenbach on the show this week. We'll talk harvest Hustle here. Contest in a little bit, the voicemail as well, eating your veggies. We'll talk crop marketing here. But let's, let's get into it with Trent Clarenbach from Clarenbach Research. Let's start with Trent because it's going to lead into some of our crop marketing conversation further on in this episode. So here we go. Let's get in. Let's get Trent into the show.
Alrighty, folks, I've got Trent Klarenbach with Clarenbach Research joining, joining me once again on the what the Futures podcast. Trent, this is episode 98 creeping up towards 100. Yeah, we're getting there.
[00:10:16] Speaker B: Excellent, excellent. Did you have McDavid on for 97 or.
[00:10:21] Speaker A: I sent the message out there but no, no response. They were on the road so, you know, busy, busy.
But I got something fun cooked up for episode 100, so stay tuned for that in a couple of weeks.
How's the week been going? Some beautiful fall weather in Saskatoon. Getting those last. Last at full chores tidied up.
[00:10:42] Speaker B: Yeah, well, there's not much to do outdoors for us. We got things, small yard. Hey, not much maintenance to do and whatnot. So. Yeah, you know, what an interesting day though. I did go for coffee with the first, probably the first person I met in university class.
Yeah, I ended up, we were getting buddies after that and yeah, Econ111.
[00:11:05] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:11:06] Speaker B: Yeah. And so on for coffee today. We keep in touch. But nonetheless it was kind of interesting. So.
[00:11:12] Speaker A: Nice, nice, good stuff. Well, you've been really busy as well. You had me on your show a couple last week or something like that that we get Thanksgiving. So thanks for that invite. I had a lot of fun and, and we, I got some nice messages from folks as well. I got a couple of emails, some words of encouragement. So that was fun. So appreciate that.
[00:11:34] Speaker B: Good, good. Well, there's a comment on my YouTube Anonymous poster on there said that buddy, he made a comment that I have the social skills of a wall and you could have done the entire podcast yourself. I only asked a couple questions.
[00:11:52] Speaker A: All right. So I like to talk, apparently. And.
[00:12:00] Speaker B: I couldn't argue with him. He made some good points. So nothing to sit. Not much of a response.
[00:12:04] Speaker A: Yeah, Internet is. The Internet is always, always right. Hey, isn't that what they say? It's always right or bats a thousand, so. Oh, man.
[00:12:12] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:12:12] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, I got, I did get wordy or I got long on a few of my answers there. So, anyways, but that's, that's all good. Internet comments are fantastic.
All right, Trent, so we got a lot going on here, you know, at the, at the what, the Futures Studios. We got lots of stuff going on. One of the things being we've got a online auction. I, I think we're somehow calling it an online silent auction, but we're going to raise some money for the Canadian center for Agricultural well Being. Of course, I should have my other hat on instead. Here. I should have my hat designed by Paisley Bunder from earlier this summer.
But you stepped up. You're going to donate a subscription for the auction. We're going to kick that off on November 1st. So I just wanted to say thank you for your support and look forward to a great, great event. We've got some subscriptions from, you know, some of the pros in the industry like yourself. My wife's doing a couple jars of salsa and some, some tortilla chips. We've got some hockey tickets. We've got. The list is growing here. So we'll officially launch that in, in the next couple weeks. So look for that around November 1st. So, Trent, you caught my attention this week. Of course, I get, I'm a subscriber to your research. I need to tidy up my special crops side of this, though. I'm not, I'm getting left out on that one. And so I got to tidy that up. But you did catch my attention on a couple things, Durham being one of them this week. What are you seeing in the Durham market? A lot of growers wondering what the heck do we do with our Durham? What are you seeing out there?
[00:13:53] Speaker B: You know, a couple weeks ago there, maybe it was last week, I forget now, but I identified some signs that the Durham market could begin to rally. So my price index rallied here, I think 20 cents since that point in time. So I think there's a, you know, I still consider this a bear market rally. There's a lot of overhead supply. So I mean, we need to, you know, you can enjoy these rallies and, and be some up, you know, have some optimism, but there's a lot of heavy lifting to do before this goes considerably higher, in my opinion.
[00:14:26] Speaker A: So, yeah, yeah, I think today, so we're recording this on October 23rd.
Today was a quite a positive day, you know, a green screen for many of, of the commodities out there. Maybe even, well, let's say many. I can't say all of them, but many of them.
Is anything changing or in your opinion, if you look at the entire basket here, Bear market rally would fall as a more adequate description and grow should be preparing to take advantage. How would you look at it?
[00:15:03] Speaker B: Yeah, well that's just it. So if we want to talk about wheat first, I think the, in my opinion the bellwether is Chicago wheat. It's the largest market, most heavily traded, most volume on the exchanges.
And I had that sell signal in my wheat's trigger here a couple weeks ago, maybe now and I think the prices are probably back at that level, maybe even slightly above that level with this rally here today really. And so that Chicago wheat, you know, that was the bellwether. He was at that $5 level and finding some sort of support, support from that level. And yeah, and we saw that move today.
I, I did look at the chart here and there's a lot of volume, a lot of supply overhead at this 5:16,530 level in Chicago and I think it's going to take quite a bit of work again to get through that and that's going to reflect on hard red spring wheat and in Kansas also.
[00:16:04] Speaker A: So. Sure.
[00:16:05] Speaker B: I mean it's, you know, we like these rallies but this is basically a retest of a, a break of support which is at this point we have to assume that's all it is.
[00:16:17] Speaker A: So.
Fair enough, fair enough. So you know, when you look at, you know, if I even tie back into Durham here on this 20 cent gain, you look at Chicago weed and, and kind of getting back to that level of, of support.
I've been thinking for the last number of weeks or months now maybe of you have to take advantage of the small little bumps in the market, these small rallies, you have to be prepared to sell into them.
Would you agree with that or do you think there's something larger at play here potentially for some further stronger upside as we get towards the tail end of 2025?
[00:17:00] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I would love to say that the market's rallying higher.
It's too soon in my opinion. There's just too much supply overhead that we're still in a downtrend in the wheat market. I mean there's just very little reasons to be optimistic on the longer time frame. So I think I agree with you. These rallies, I think we take advantage of them and if they continue then we utilize those tools in the futures market, which you and I both talk about extensively.
[00:17:32] Speaker A: You know another scenario, well, a couple scenarios presented themselves over the last couple days here, but you know, today's was hey, company A, whatever needs CPS wheat, you know, here's the price.
The.
I don't want to call it special. It's the better price to fill these darn cars. You know, what do we do?
And you know, my thought was, well, yeah, you got to do something. You know, if you, especially if you want to generate some cash for the end of the year, you want to, you know, get a little bit of grain off the farm, maybe clean up a bag or get the bin tops going like it's not fun, but you have to do a little bit of this in this environment. So. And I said same thing. You have a trading account.
Just be ready to use it when the time is. Is here. So.
All right. Now, we've been talking cereals so far.
When you look at oil seeds, I thought you had an. Did you throw something interesting about soybeans out into the, into the world here today or yesterday? I, I know we didn't talk about that pre recording, but was there a comment on soybeans that you had?
[00:18:40] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, like, I've. I think it's interesting anyways. But yeah, there's a chart pattern that's been forming. I've been publishing a little bit of posts on the soybeans and sharing it in the newsletter just to this chart pattern that I've been watching set up suggesting a rally higher.
And I think my post today was about a news event.
It's approaching news event territory. So I believe that news follows price and we're getting at that level where if we can, it'll be a breakout level in soybeans. And if that happens, then there'll probably be some news surrounding. There'll be a catalyst for that or a reason given for that breakout. Yeah, and maybe we'll see a. In Canola's at a, at another level of resistance right now too. So.
And I didn't really look at soybean oil here this afternoon, but I mean, there's, there's some signs of, you know, maybe we get, maybe we get that breakout here sooner rather than later. So.
[00:19:43] Speaker A: Well, after hitting record, I got a notification from Reuters. Trump will meet Chinese President.
Is it Z? Is that how I'd say it?
Next week in South Korea as part of a trip to Asia. So that's been in and out, in and out. Is it happening? Is it not happening? Well, as of hitting that record button, maybe. Maybe it's happening, Trent. Maybe that's the story they'll go with. But anyways. All right.
Okay. So Canola market, a very important time in the market right now, would you say?
I got a little fired up on the show last week saying, hey, Canola's rallied or climbed 20 bucks or 30 bucks a ton from the low here from a few weeks ago. Like, maybe it. Maybe you got to do something or at least get it in your. On your radar, you know, what are you seeing in Canola? We're at an important point. Yeah. How would you tackle that at this time?
[00:20:46] Speaker B: Very important level, in my opinion. I. I thought maybe we'd get a further pullback and maybe we still will.
[00:20:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:20:55] Speaker B: But it's moving in the right direction. We keep pressing up against that 636, 33 level, and sooner or later, those sellers will start to become exhausted and we'll get up to that 640, 660 level that we've had for consideration, I guess, for some time now.
So, yeah, very critical level, in my opinion.
[00:21:18] Speaker A: So you have that. And you also, you know, cash price was improving. Basis was improving across the prairies as well, I think, from what you wrote last week. So, you know, if you could marry those two together, a little better basis and a little pop in futures, man, you know, you could be.
Could be cooking here with a couple of sales. So.
[00:21:39] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, things could be really improving on that front.
[00:21:41] Speaker A: So. All right, Trent. Well, I appreciate your comments on that.
Lots of discussion right now around the fertilizer markets.
It's different, though, right now, Trent. So what, in the summer, it was all, you know, farmer kind of driven, hey, do we buy now? How much do we buy?
Lots of people getting quotes, you know, regularly and price climbing in that environment.
So, you know, buy. I don't want to say farmers were causing it, but they weren't helping anybody relax in that environment. There's a lot of action or a lot of talk of action now it's flipped now. The seller, the retail is.
Is out, you know, driving down the driveway, pounding the pavement, you know, at the kitchen table, in the office, you know, trying to get some. Some sales going. They're tying in all sorts of things. They're tying in canola seed. You know, buy your fur, get your canola seed. We'll do a whole package thing, a big price discount, you know, payment terms. Don't worry about it. We'll kick those down the road. Zero percent interest. It's getting, it's getting wild out there in, in a sense.
What are you seeing in the. In the urea market if I bring it back to fertilizer? What's going on with urea these days?
[00:22:59] Speaker B: Well, you know, to your point, we had that rally late summer and that looked, yes, well, not promising, but in terms of the chart, bullish for urea.
And, yeah, that sell off's happening. And I, you know, I don't see. I see very little support below these levels on the chart.
[00:23:22] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:23:23] Speaker B: And that might. That might explain why they're more aggressive on the selling side of things.
[00:23:29] Speaker A: So.
[00:23:32] Speaker B: Yeah, it's like we're in a downtrend right now, and I. We're below some really key moving averages.
I don't see much reason to think that we're going to find support or nothing. I'm not seeing anything on the chart that suggests that at the moment.
[00:23:44] Speaker A: So. Yeah, well, I had four. I called it for the lunchbox career, I called it fertilizer confusion because I had four different quotes from four different retail locations, four different companies as well.
One of them saying, you know, the lows are here, so you have to buy. The lows are here.
Big, big player as well. Another big player.
The price is about to drop. That was a quote. The price is about to drop. Like it has been dropping, but about to drop. I'll take that.
We got one saying the market is what it is. We've already filled up, and so our price is what it is right now. So they're not willing to move one way or the other on price at this time. And then I had another company that just talked about reownership of urea coming in, you know, in the 775 to 785 level. So they would buy it for that price, tack on their margin on top of that, and come at you with a quote, which from all the quotes across the prairies, that even seems a little bit high because there are some quotes in Manitoba coming in below that 775 level for urea. So anyways, there's a lot of confusion out there.
And it doesn't feel like, as a farmer, you really are holding any leverage right now because prices are high. It doesn't feel like leverage. When foss is at 1250 bucks and urea's around 800, like, that doesn't feel like leverage. But there's confusion out there.
It's tense, I would say, from the retail side, a little bit of tension in there as well.
And yeah, I just say it's something that farmers can use. They can use the tension, they can use the confusion, they can leverage it. And yeah, we'll see over the next few weeks what happens with price. And again, doesn't feel like good leverage right now, but I'd say if you're wearing the farmer hat out there.
Yeah. Ball's in your court right now to use this. So anyway.
And what do you think?
[00:25:49] Speaker B: Well, it's interesting. You get the different messages, you know.
[00:25:52] Speaker A: Oh, I love it. Yep.
[00:25:53] Speaker B: And, you know, so. And I don't understand the business and with any kind of sort of intimacy, but, you know, if you got a position and you've already got that position, he can take that loss in four or five, six months from now rather than take it now, you know, take a loss, you might as well delay that loss as long as possible. So there's no urgency to sell.
And I'm not sure why the seller is sending a message it's going lower unless they don't have any to sell.
[00:26:26] Speaker A: I don't know what.
[00:26:28] Speaker B: Right.
[00:26:29] Speaker A: Yeah. Yep.
[00:26:30] Speaker B: There's some, you know, it's just games is maybe just the way it is, or there's all sorts of messages being sent for a lot of different reasons.
[00:26:39] Speaker A: And what's given me confidence to be in this industry and in this space over the last number of years is that you get comments from individuals and maybe, you know, maybe someone is, is has a great lead on some information and wants to share that with the farmer and, and like in the price going lower example and, and, you know, becomes a trusted source and a trusted person. Like, I can understand that. But what gives me, what gave me confidence to be in this space is that, you know, there's some people buying those statements that live and breathe this every single day. Lots of smart people in there as well, I would assume. But nobody really truly knows. You know, you don't really know what's going to happen later today or tomorrow or what price, what, you know, where it's going to go. And so that gave me confidence to put my hand up and say I could, I could kind of jump into the fold here. If nobody else knows what's going on, I could jump into it as well. So anyway.
[00:27:39] Speaker B: Well, when the seller of fertilizer has bought at a higher price than today's values, you know, it just shows you the difficulty of predicting the direction of the markets.
[00:27:48] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And you, you correct, like in one example, this one, this, you know, this. I chat to a very, you know, quite a detailed level with a number of growers, like, you know, an intimate level of. On numbers with these growers. And, and I know for some of these locations, like you, you set the market, you, you're going to go and set the market at the slower price. So it's not just about selling to one farmer at this lower price to go and match the others, because they're way. If you took 10 quotes and had them in there, they'd be the highest. Right. And they're not willing to change. But if they go and match that or go and compete, then they've just taken that entire position and moved it down to that level. And at this time, you know what happens with fertilizer, Traditionally between January and the spring, it goes up. So for them, they're going to step away from these first, you know, these first sales. They're going to be super quiet. They're not going to be out there knocking on doors saying, hey, do you want to buy some of this stuff that we have? They're just going to hope that their normal customers stay quiet and sit back. And then all of a sudden, January 1st rolls around or Christmas rolls around, or something's happened and the price has climbed. They could say, ha, See where we're in the game still. We're here now. We're. And we've only lost a few sales. So I get it. If they go and chase this thing, though, who knows how big their position is.
It's too big because they're not willing to chase it. So it's, It's a little too big. Right? Yeah. Yeah. So.
[00:29:15] Speaker B: And you can, you can blame them. It's just business.
[00:29:18] Speaker A: Oh, 100% here.
You can't blame them. And, and, but also, don't blame, don't blame the grower either. Don't blame the farmer for doing their due diligence on price discovery, on negotiation.
You know, maybe someone has bought for you from you for the last decade and they decide to go elsewhere because it's going to save them 20, 30, 40, 50 grand.
Don't hold that over them either. Like, they're. We're all business people here. And it, and you know, it should work both ways. So that's.
It gets sensitive out there. Chen, I know people, they'll hear us talk about fertilizer, get sensitive. Same thing with a few of the other inputs out there. But anyways. All right, well, I appreciate coming on the show. Anything else you wanted to chat about? I didn't even bring up cattle, but anything else you wanted to chat about for this week?
[00:30:11] Speaker B: Well, that cattle market has pulled back, but the uptrend is still intact, so maybe that'll change by Monday. But right now the trend is still moving higher. And yeah, diesel fuel, there's a little tidbit. I haven't published anything on diesel Fuel.
Keep an eye on your diesel fuel needs and purchase it.
[00:30:33] Speaker A: I was getting a quote for diesel.
I started getting them. Well, I get them every week. I kind of check in with a few folks, but got to a price that looked quite attractive.
And the only thing was the, you know, the winter mix isn't quite fully in there yet, so a couple more weeks and we'll have that winter mix in. But you're trying to time this thing to get, get a good buy and also get the right stuff in your tanks, so.
All right, Trent, we'll watch for that. We'll keep an eye on Diesel with you. And thanks for coming on the show.
[00:31:06] Speaker B: Always a pleasure. Ryan, take care.
[00:31:08] Speaker A: You bet. Thanks.
All right, folks, of course, always appreciate training. Trent, joining the what the Futures podcast. It's interesting because Trent and I, we're just. We look at Marcus completely different and completely different ways. That's one thing that I really appreciate is the different. Just the different approaches and he points things out that I'm not seeing and hopefully vice versa as well. But at times. But it's great to have him on the show. I wanted to have him on this week because, like, crop marketing is. It's not fun out there. I was looking at a bunch of bids before hitting the record button today. And, you know, like, you're looking at, I don't know, let's start with the feed barley market. That an oats, like, what have they done the last couple weeks, right? Nothing great. You look at some of the pulse markets, we did see some strength. Yellow peas did have some demand there. We did see some strength. And that's kind of backed off now. I'm not seeing that same sizzle out there. I hope you sold a little bit of those yellow peas in that little spark. I know we did another 10% with the lunchbox crew. I hope you did as well.
You know, you, you look at, you know, lentil markets right now. You look at, you look at anything, folks, it's. It's a bit of a grind out there. The, the positivity or the, the action occurs like it has for the last number of weeks. But we have cars. We need to buy this for wheat or feed barley. It's been wheat lately, but it has been feed barley or yellow peas in the past. And here's our price again, I don't want to call it a special, but here's our price and do you want to help us fill these cars? And if you're in an area where yield was below average or below expectations, you Know, look at the northern parts of the prairies for Manitoba, Saskatchewan. I'll smaller area in Saskatchewan, but yeah, Alberta, the Peace region. Not as much, not as much selling happening there. And then you go south and some of you pulled off whopper crops and there's more active selling to fill those cars. Once those cars are filled, it disappears again and you wait for the next opportunity. So you know, as Trent said, we're in a little bit of a bear, potentially a bear market rally here. I've been talking about, you know, crop marketing the last couple of weeks where I believe that over the next four weeks a lot of marketing is going to happen. I believe I'm going to be doing a lot of marketing over the next four weeks.
You know, we just don't have the, the.
I don't think we have the financial luxury to hold as much into the spring and summer as we'd like. But you know what, that's what the trading account is for. That's why we, we have that available to us.
But we like to move grain during the winter. We like to get the work done.
We like to get the bins emptied before planting. More often than not we'll keep some stuff back. But we do like getting the work done because for some reason once April rolls around into October. Yeah. There's just not as much time as you'd want for delivering grain. All right, so. So crop marketing, you know, I look at futures, you know, as Trent mentioned, like interesting with this canola market. I'm hyper focused on that. I hope you are as well.
Same thing with the soybean market. You know, this week we have, I would call it a renewed focus on the war between Russia and Ukraine. There's some things happening here. Look at, you know, what crude oil did the later part of this week or ultra low sulfur diesel.
What's going on? Some of these, some of those markets, like there is something's happening here, maybe some tension coming into the geopolitical space and causing commodities, some of these commodities to spark here a little bit, to rally. I'm not sitting here saying there's a big rally going, but as you get little opportunities as price climbs, you're trying to line up these sales to meet your cash flow obligations. So it's a busy time. I said it last week. Now, you know, everyone has time to do this.
Maybe tongue in cheek, everyone's been busy doing dirt work this week. But yeah, there's more sellers available as well. So those opportunities may be a bit more short lived. You want to sell in these, these bounces, you want to try to sell these markets. And then if there is something bigger happening, if there is a bigger, you know, more strength, then you want to reown the thing on paper. All right, now, I did get an email this week.
I'll just say his first name, but from Paul. It's a great email. I got a pile of emails actually, so thank you for that. If. Don't be shy. I haven't answered all of them and I haven't completed the tasks on all of them. Crop ranking calculator, I have a couple versions of it, but we're trying to make it just a little cleaner for those receiving because one of the neat things we're trying to do. And I'll get to Paul in a second, but the crop marketing calculator, I keep a version going. And so some folks said, well, I, as you updated, we'd love to see the updates. So we're trying to figure out the best way for me to have my version to update that you can look at at any time and, and for you to have your own version to, you know, play with, manipulate the numbers and all that stuff. All right, so I, again, I appreciate the emails, Ryan, at what the Futures podcast. Ca is fantastic. Keep, keep them coming. But Paul sent an email. I'm going to focus on this over the next, you know, in the month of November here, but just about some of the strategy, some of the discussions and, you know, just the consideration on farm size. And so, you know, my goal here is, regardless of farm size, is to provide context, strategy and ideas that you can feel comfortable executing. Okay. Paul's email was well worded and just said, hey, you know, we love the show. We love what's going on, what you're doing.
We've had some experiences in the past, you know, many of us did, you know, with, with some buyouts and stuff, like we experienced it on our farm and just, you know, kind of the comment around, you know, wish we could take advantage of more of what you talk about.
And so, and when I read that, I was like, oh, I want further, you know, further discussion around this because I want, I want everyone to know how simple and how effective these tools can be even when used in smaller increments.
There are minimums on some of these contracts, some of these strategies for sure. You know, I think about, I got another great email this week about where are you seeing $8 wheat for next year? Ryan, you're nuts. I'm not finding this.
And so I messaged the grower and, and just gave them the calculation and where to phone. In that scenario, you do have to do 5,000 bushel increments. Like that is the minimum. So of course, depending on farm size, that could be an issue. But my goal here is to just work on strategies to give you guys some comfort level around.
You don't have to be doing a big lot. You don't have to be doing hundreds of tons or thousands of tons or tens of thousands of bushels. And so, Paul, I appreciate your email because it just kind of gave me a little light bulb moment to say, all right, maybe take another swing at some of this stuff, some of these strategies and, and you know, make sure that they're talked about in different size, different scale. All right, well, just to wrap up with Trent. So lots going on, lots of things for you to watch. Chaos in the fertilizer market right now. Absolute chaos out there. And I love it. I know retail, listening to this, you're cringing and you're, you know, maybe you're getting a little red in the cheeks. Maybe you're getting a little fired up that we're talking about fertilizer on the show. It's a commodity that's traded. It's just like talking about canola. All right, if we can talk about canola or talk about lentils or whatever, you know, we can talk about fertilizer. But there's, it's chaos out there and it's not going to be chaos forever. So as a grower, you know, now is your time because there is enough discussion going on and enough variance in price out there that nobody can say with confidence that a price is being offered or not. What I mean by that is in neighboring locations, you know, I've got a urea price on the high side. I'm going to throw the 895 out there on the high side, all right? And then within a very reasonable range, in fact, the way the freight works, it should. This makes it even a little stranger, but there's a urea price of 825. The Foss prices are a little bit different as well. Even 820 maybe on their urea in that area. In fact, sorry, these numbers are just updating regularly here in Alberta. I think there's an 800 on the table as well. I worked in retail, but not. I didn't. All they let me do is blend the stuff. I didn't get to. Wasn't smart enough to do anything else. So I got to blend all the stuff together. But anyways, you Know, in meetings that I was a part of in the past, like, the price discovery comes as part of the meeting, and everyone's looking at the quotes and, and trying to figure out this market, you know, where you've bought at. And Trent mentions it, and it's not, you know, it's not here to say you've done anything wrong. You, as a retailer, you've bought it, you bought it. Like, we all.
We all go through this. We all go through this. Maybe. Well, every day, every year on the buy. And the sell side is a farm. So it's not here to say that you bought at the wrong time. I don't necessarily think you have. But the prices out there are different. And you're going to make a couple phone calls and you're going to see that. And then for some reason, if you surprised yourself and decided, I usually deal in this area, I'll phone them. And then you said, well, you know, I'm going to phone my buddy over here and see what he's getting, or I'm going to phone another hour down the road and see where they're at. You might surprise yourself. There's a lot going on. There's chaos, and to me, that's just opportunity. All right, so again, it's. Oh, man, it sucks to be, you know, trying to think you hold leverage when urea's 7:50 to 8:50 and foss is 12:50 to 13:50. Like, it doesn't feel like you're holding any leverage at all, but in this moment, you kind of are.
All right, let me know what you think on that. That's a bit of a bold take. Let me know what you think. All right. Okay. Harvest Hustle contest is closed. All right, thank you so much. Over 60 entries, so, you know, job well done.
Hats off to you. You know, at one point we had 17, so 60 people all entered. Some great photos as well. Like, fantastic photography that.
That doesn't. The best pictures, you know, quote, quote, unquote, the best picture may not actually be the winner. We've picked some favorites in the background. Yvonne picked her favorites. Amanda's picked some favorites. I've picked some favorites, and we're putting all of those in the draw. And so there's a short list here.
You will have received an email from me confirming that you have made it into the final draw.
And we are going to do this. I'm looking at my schedule. I've been kicking this around a little bit, so I apologize for that.
But October 29, 8pm Mountain. I'm going to go live on YouTube and X. If we can get on Facebook and Instagram, we will but that's been glitching for us.
Eight o' clock Mountain.
I will go live.
I will announce our winner.
I will text our winner as well. That's not going to work, sorry. It's going to say I'll text our winner and see if they can come on the show. But is going to be a spin the wheel draw so I guess I'll have to get them on for the next week. But anyways, I'll announce it live October 29th, 8pm I'll talk crop marketing a bit as well at that time. And we will pick our harvest Hustle winner of course going to the Olympic Curling Trials, Halifax, Nova Scotia, November 22nd to 30th.
The winners there will be representing Canada for curling at the Olympics.
You've got meals, transportation from AI3, a little airport, transportation from AI3 and tickets to all the draw every game. Can't remember how many there are, but there's a pile of them. All right. So thank you everyone that entered. All right. Voicemail this week, of course, sponsored by the Lunchbox Crew.
There's five of you on the wait list so I'm going to message you guys. I just forgot about that. But of course Lunchbox Crew is my version of, you know, kind of crop marketing. It's a community of for crop marketing and farm business and of course we do cap the group so we do have some space right now. So I'll certainly message you folks. So thanks for for doing that this week we've been talking a lot of fertilizer within the Lunchbox Crew. There's farms from across the prairies, lots of dialogue and it's where I put my marketing thoughts as well. My deepest, darkest, also positive crop marketing thoughts. Go in there. Alrighty.
So voicemail. All you have to do, go to what the futurespodcast ca it says send voicemail. Just click that button and give me a gojsgo World Series participants first time in 30, what, two years. I think they said go Jays. Go, go Blue Jays. Hey Ryan, I farm here. I'm watching the Blue Jays. You know, let's bring this world championship home, whatever it is there at the World Series so let us know, you'll get entered in to win our October prize, which again eludes me. But it is a wonderful John Deere package. All right. Okay. Eating your veggies for this week. Number one, you're on high alert. You're on high alert.
Maybe you've got some targets out there. I know our farm. Put a few targets out, you know, nothing too crazy. Got some targets out there looking to capture some of this movement here, get some more grain moving. So we got some targets out there. We've got a few strategies dialed in as well, keeping a close eye on our futures markets, our futures moves, because we have some things that we want to do there as well.
I had a pile.
We sold canola calls. So we wrote calls. Talked about this with John DePape, you know, weeks ago. But these strategies of selling these calls, collecting these premiums, these are all expiring here. They have expired now by the time you listen to this, we, we just cashed those, cash those checks, just took that premium again. It's not perfect. It's not a strategy. That 700 strikes, all those, we just cashed that and moved on. All right? They work very well. That's all I'm trying to say. Okay, so right now is your time to get dialed in here on strategy. I still believe we're the end of October. I still believe over the next month here, there's going. There's going to be some. A bunch of good crop marketing that's going to happen. All right, number two, keep your pulse on fertilizer prices. I again, chaos out there. Keep in tune with the chaos.
You might surprise yourself with a great deal again.
Oh, I shouldn't say great deal. It doesn't feel like a great deal.
Great deal compared to next spring, maybe we'll say that.
But yeah, I got ferts going lower from one. I got ferts going higher. The lows are close. Like, it's chaos out there. So keep close tabs on it. All right? And then number three, take some time. You have not stopped. You have not stopped. You harvested. You've been in the field. You've been cruising along here. Sit down, Watch the baseball game. Watch the Blue Jays game this weekend. I don't get to watch a lot of baseball. To be honest with you. I wish I could watch more. I love watching baseball. I just don't have the time to watch a lot of baseball. But it's playoff baseball is fantastic, especially when you have a team involved. It's great fun. Okay? So take some time. Watch that baseball game. You'll. You'll appreciate it. You'll enjoy it. And you need the night off anyway. Okay. All right, folks. Well, that's basically it for this week on the what? The Futures podcast. So thanks for hanging out. I appreciate it. We've got the hundredth episodes coming up here in just a couple of weeks. We got gonna do something a little different for that one. You haven't made it when you hit 100 episodes by any means. There's folks I chat with that have thousands of episodes. But it is a milestone. So we're gonna celebrate it on the what the Futures podcast. Yeah, keep talking crop marketing here. Hit that YouTube subscribe button or subscribe to wherever you get your podcasts. Certainly appreciate that our YouTube videos have more of. You seem to be enjoying them lately anyways, the way it looks. So that's great and I appreciate you doing that. So for the what the Futures podcast, my name is Ryan and I'm out of here.
