[00:00:00] Speaker A: Well, folks, the busy time is here. You're swamped if you're not planting. You will be shortly, but you're definitely putting in those big days. Don't forget about your crop marketing plan. This episode is here to help you with your crop marketing. In the spring of 2025, canola approaching highs that we've seen a few times this year. What are you going to do about it? And I also have a weather update from Brett Waltz of BAM Weather. What do we expect to see over the next days and weeks across North America?
Let's get going.
Hey, folks, welcome to the what the Futures podcast, your quick guide to better farming decisions.
All right, folks, welcome into episode 73 of the what the Futures Podcast, of course, recorded in the UPL studio. All right, folks, it's a. It's a busy time of year. I got my buddy Brett Waltz with BAM Weather. He's gonna chat weather here in just a second. It's obviously an important time of year when it comes to what we need to get done out there. You guys are absolutely swamped. And I'm. I'm optimistic here about the forecast or at least to start the growing season. So Brett's gonna give us a little bit of insight here on. On what he sees. And after that, I want to talk about many different crops. I want to talk about the setup that I see here in this Canola market. I want to talk about what I'm seeing in the wheat market and some of the specialty crops here as well. You know, I want to go into a deep dive into strategy. I don't think we'll. We'll pull it off here today on the strategy side, because in the background, it's an absolute crucial time here for crop marketing. You're busy. You're absolutely busy. What I'm working on in the background is when I look at my crop marketing plan, not everything is a deferred delivery contract. Not everything is pick up the phone. Hello, you're at $14 new crop canola. I'd like to sell some. Like, it's not all like that. You know, there's some of those in there, and then there's some where you're maybe looking at some basis opportunities. Maybe you're looking at some futures opportunities. Maybe you're doing some type of future futures first contract out there. You know that that's part of it as well. You got a mix of different strategies, and then within that as well, you've got your risk management tools. And so for me, on. On the farm, on the crop marketing plan here. You know, I am setting up my spring targets and I pricing ideas. I've got my dates and. And some deadlines that I'm incorporating as well. And then I've got my playbook on where my sales start. What am I executing on here, on the strategy, and what am I going to do if or when this Canola market gives us another 50 cents or another dollar or whatever it may be, what am I going to do? Or if this market decides that, hey, I'm turning now, this. This little rally we've seen is over because history kind of shows us that this thing runs out of gas at some point when you're busy. All right, not always. Not saying that the high of the market's gonna be in the next week while recording this. I'm not saying that at all. But it tends to turn at some point in the next couple months. Could be days, weeks, months, whatever it is. And the strategy that you're gonna execute on there as well. The other thing, too, I can't get into it today. I hope they come on the show here one day soon, but there's a new contract insurance, and I'm basically going through the motions right now of getting that figured out and trying to figure out how to incorporate that into my crop marketing plan this year. And by the way, we are cleaning up 2024 sales. We are focusing on 2025. And by golly gee, I got a text message from my grain buyer that said, hey, Ryan, your November 2026 canola is.
It's not hit yet, but it's getting close here. What do you want to do? And of course, I'm disciplined, folks.
I need a bit more of a rally yet for this to trigger, but my knob. 2026, I told you a couple weeks ago wouldn't take me long. I'd have something on here. And I'm getting closer. I am getting closer. So what. What am I talking about here? I'm talking about navigating three crop years as well. So it is a busy, busy time, folks. Let's get into the weather with Brett and then stick around. Let's talk crop marketing right after that. Brett Waltz. Bam WX all right, folks, I've got Brett Waltz with Bam Weather joining me here once again on the what the Futures podcast. Brett, how's your week going?
[00:05:11] Speaker B: It's going well. It's been quiet weather wise this week, and so it's been a very active spring. We will certainly take that and enjoy the nice weather when we can get it.
[00:05:20] Speaker A: It's Been a bit of a wild ride in the US the last month or so. Hey, like, it's been pretty extreme.
[00:05:27] Speaker B: Yeah, it's been one of the most active severe weather seasons that we've had. I think really the second most active back since 2010, only 2011, which was a crazy year, so that we're not even touching that. But still it's even more active than the last couple of years. And I think where we're at in Indiana, I think we rank fifth for all the US States right now in terms of total tornadoes so far this year. So it has been busy.
[00:05:53] Speaker A: Yeah, well, yeah, and obviously devastating for many folks as well. So we think of them in these times of extreme weather.
So I was down, I was in Minneapolis a couple weeks ago. And from a weather perspective, the world can be a little bit small at times, I would say. Like the folks in Minneapolis were talking about the fourth winter and how cool it was. And, you know, like, I was looking at the forecast, wondering what to pack, and I basically were the exact same thing as here. But, you know, we're a 20 hour drive. You know, that's a fair distance. But going through the same weather, right? Yeah, it's a small world. Small weather world. So it is.
[00:06:43] Speaker B: Well, in this, in the springtime a lot you get these boundaries to set up and you know, if you went a little bit further south, you might have crossed over a couple of counties and all of a sudden it's 25 degrees warmer. And so you get those air masses to settle in where they're at and so can lead to big swings if you're along that boundary. But then, yeah, you can go 20 hours and the weather's about the same.
[00:07:07] Speaker A: Yep.
So we had, we had a snow event here across the Canadian prairies over the weekend, basically. So some folks getting a healthy amount of snow. You did warn me, you know, before April, that April could be cooler and a little bit on the wetter side. And that's certainly what has happened. Do we have more of the same coming here across the prairies the next few weeks?
[00:07:34] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that you all start to see a little bit of a pattern change. I think that we start to see more mild conditions. The next seven days will be a little bit warmer than normal, but getting into that first week of May a good bit warmer than normal, several degrees warmer than normal. I think it'll feel a lot more like spring. And I think that you all have a lot more dry time as well. Now, it's not bone dry necessarily, but I think the next seven days, relatively inactive and probably still staying at or below normal precipitation heading into the first week of May, which again, should be good in terms of getting out into the fields and getting some work done.
[00:08:13] Speaker A: Yeah, we've got, you know, as you travel north, people are starting every day. Right. People are starting more and more planting here, and everyone's looking forward to some warmer temperatures. And traditionally, traditionally, we like to plant in some drier weather and. And then it can rain after. Sure. Yeah. So. All right. I wanted to just talk about planting pace for a minute here in the US Spring wheat planting's going well ahead of normal, and corn planting has been a little bit delayed here, a little bit of a struggle. What do you see happening for those two crops or for the next few weeks when it comes to those crops?
[00:08:56] Speaker B: Sure. So some of the wheat areas will be, you know, they've been dry, and I know that I've seen some. Some post down there of just the lack of. Of soil moisture in general. There should be some rains out there in the Plains, really, in general, especially the further south that you go across the Plains Central and the Southern Plains, there's going to be some rains to help for sure. While areas further east, a little bit of a. Of a pattern change. It's been one of the most active March and Aprils for parts of the Lower Ohio Valley on record. It has been extremely wet in areas like southern Indiana and Kentucky and southern Illinois and Missouri, and there's a fair amount of corn in those areas. And even areas like Iowa and Illinois, it hasn't necessarily been dry either. It's been tough to get extended dry time, really, until this past week to get out into the fields. And so I think that what starts to happen is we do start to see more extended dry time. We start to shift out of that very, very active pattern that we've been in and start to get a little bit more seasonable, drier than normal, even. And I think the planting pace over the next couple of weeks should start to pick up in a pretty decent way next week, maybe not so much next week. There's several little systems that we'll have to deal with, but beyond that especially, I think that we're in a better position.
[00:10:19] Speaker A: Okay. And so, you know, when you, when you look a little bit further out in that corn belt, the crop, let's say, you know, gets planted here in better conditions. The conditions stay kind of ideal as we get to late May and into June, because I, you know, I'm on my Clarity app every day And I see some oranges and some reds and, and browns on the maps. What's it looking like into maybe late May or June?
[00:10:51] Speaker B: Yeah, late May and June, you know, especially after planting is over, is when I'm concerned that things could get hotter and drier pretty quickly. You know, I think that maybe the core of the summer heat holds off until July, late June. July is probably the worst of it, but I think that we start seeing more dry conditions and probably abnormally dry conditions expanding late May and into June. And so certainly concerned about drier potential heading into summer and some of those main growing regions into. In the U.S. in the U.S. corn belt. And so would not say all is is happy and good to go in those areas, even if we have some good planting conditions the next couple of weeks.
[00:11:36] Speaker A: Okay, all right, fair enough. We'll. We'll keep an eye on that because obviously what happens in some of those areas have, has a big impact on the direction of our markets as well. So. Yeah. Okay.
Do you guys have any webinars on the schedule right now, or is that a little bit later on here?
[00:11:57] Speaker B: We do have a webinar that we just launched. People can register for right
[email protected] webinar that will be May 14th. That will be our summer webinar. And so we will go over the full growing season, forecast the summer outlook where the drought concern is the highest, and we'll even talk a little bit about severe weather and hurricane risk as well, because that ended up being a big impact for some of the crops in the Southeast U.S. this past year as well. So we'll touch on all that in that webinar on May 14th.
[00:12:29] Speaker A: Well, if you could do me a favor, just when you're talking to the powers above the weather, I want to say gods out there, whatever it is, just do it for Canadian prairies, what we had last year. Just do the same thing, except when we get to mid July, just sprinkle in like two more rains after that. If you're going to talk to them anyway, just get that for us and then we'll be good up here. All right, we'll be good with what you said.
[00:12:56] Speaker B: I will try to put in a good word.
[00:12:59] Speaker A: All right, man, well, thanks for coming on the show here for episode 73. Lots going on with the weather right now, folks. I got to give a plug here to clarity as well. I was going to just flash it to the camera here. I don't know how it'll play out. But anyways, folks, this is what we're checking out on our farm many times a day, looking at a lot of wind stuff right now and looking for those little green spray signals that we get on the app. Is there any updates for the app? I didn't ask you this earlier, but any updates coming in the app? I guess we're in season now, so you probably don't want to tweak it too much. Anything stand out there?
[00:13:40] Speaker B: Yeah, a couple of, couple of things. Just that we've adjusted a little bit as we've gone into the season. We have made some changes to enhance the accuracy of those spray forecasts. And so that is certainly a big thing on the radar tab on the current conditions. We now have the current wind speed and direction.
And so there's a couple of little features that we've added in there. And of course, for those that didn't start with it last year are GDU by plant date. So once you plant, you can put your, your plant date in and track how many GDU you accumulate across the season. So I think we added that in middle part of last year, so it'll be one of the first full seasons that we've had with it.
[00:14:25] Speaker A: Okay, and would that be for Canadian prairies as well?
[00:14:29] Speaker B: Yeah, it should be.
[00:14:30] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay, cool. I'm just looking here. I forgot about hail tracks and. Oh yeah, hail track how we had a few hail events on the farm last year and not that you want to see where it hailed, but it, it does give you insight and perspective.
[00:14:46] Speaker B: Yeah, we've had to use that a lot this year so far. There was, I think yesterday afternoon 3 inch diameter hail out in Texas. And so.
[00:14:53] Speaker A: Oh wow.
[00:14:54] Speaker B: It has been a busy hail season already so far in the U.S. well.
[00:14:58] Speaker A: You know, fingers crossed here, but if we, if we have a good start to the growing season, some higher prices, I would love to buy plenty of hail insurance this year because it means things are progressing well. So.
[00:15:10] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:15:10] Speaker A: All right, Brett, thanks for, for joining me here again on the podcast and yeah, we'll, we'll talk to you again real soon.
[00:15:16] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:15:20] Speaker A: We are. What are we now? We're April 24th. In just under a week, we're giving away. We're gonna have two winners here, folks. Eighty acres of Aquito. Each of you are going to win. 80 acres plus two flats of what the futures brew. Go to social media like the post. Tell us where you farm and if you want an extra entry, just tag another farmer. That's all you got to do. You got about a week here to get it done. And I will have a winner announced in next week's episode, of course, upl, big sponsor of the SJHL playoffs. And we have melfort with a 21 series lead. Game 4 happening tonight. As of recording game 4 puck drop hours away. Weyburn getting the split in Melfort. We'll see if they can, how they can do here at home losing that first game here to Melfort last night. So we'll see if they can tie up the series. Of course, I did pick Melfort to win this thing, but Wayburn definitely, definitely putting on a bit of a show here. Speaking of hockey playoffs, I there are 75 people in the what the futures playoff hockey pool. 75. And I am in 73rd place.
Maybe it's because my Oilers are down two nothing to the Kings or maybe I just am not great at picking pools. I don't know. I thought I was pretty good, but I'm in 73rd. And Willa, her team, my 4 year old, she's in like 40th place. So she's, she's kicking dad's butt here right now. But we're having a lot of fun. Of course the winner of our, of our playoff pool is going to get a couple tickets to an NHL regular season game of their choice. All right, hat contest we had, oh, I think just north of 30 hat designs came in. The deadline here was just earlier this week. You know, shout out to some of the families that participated. The Sorensons, the Coons, the Blenders, you know, their kids doing designs. Osborne School. We also had some designs come in from, from some of the 4H clubs out there as well. Some absolute beauties. And so if you're listening to this episode, there's a good chance here that on our Instagram, Facebook, on our website, Ryan, Denis, ca, you could go and vote for the winning hat. You can go and cast your vote, strangely enough, the same week as the federal election. So two votes for you here this week. We're going to sell these hats, add egg in motion. All the proceeds going to the Canadian center of Agriculture. Well being, of course big on supporting farmers and those mental health initiatives. And so minimum $30 donation is going to snag you one of these hats. So go vote. There should be about five up there that you can vote on and let us know which one we should move here into production for this summer. I want to see hundreds of you wearing these hats next harvest. All right, that is my challenge to you. You can pick it up at Egg in Motion from what the futures at the Upl booth. There's some beauties in there, man. I love seeing the fleet on farm.
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All right folks, I got a couple things for crop marketing, for what's on my mind in crop marketing here, I'm going to go a little bit freestyle. I don't have this written down, so bear with me here just a little bit. Obviously a lot going on. I'm going to make some notes here that seems to help me organize my thoughts just a little bit. I'll start with Maple Peace tariffs are impacting all of us every day to some degree. It might be in parts, it might be in vehicles, it might be in aluminum or steel. Like it's all, it's all a part of that. But from a crop marketing perspective, you know, if you ask farms like what impact of tariff tariffs had on you here the last few weeks, there's no greater pain out there in my opinion than for the Maple Pea grower, which is not many of you. You know, we can count you all on maybe my two hands and feet. There's not many of you, but there was going to be more of you here in 2025. And so the, the maple pea buyers, they are out there, they still exist. And there are some contracts that are, are being written up at much lower values than what we saw. We saw 16, 17, $18 offers out there for new crop maple peas. I believe the last number I saw was a 12. It's changed. Now what I wanted to mention here is maple pea growers are facing the tariff pressure right now because let's say you sold some $17 new crop maple peas, you know, what are the chances that they're going to be accepted and should I plant them? Right. And so we had an update here from EGT just in regards to if you have it contracted. My concern was that force majeure would come into play and they would walk back, cancel those contracts. Right? Cancel them at those values. But the update we got this week was that, you know, even though they don't know when they will physically take them, they are going to honor those contracts. And from that, any overage we'll have to see what price gets established. But they're going to honor the contracts. They're going to take the contracts at the price that they committed to, which is great news. That's a good story. The problem is we just don't know when that will be. And that's what they've said is, hey, they're not taking anything right now. But this tariff implemented by China on peace is having a negative impact and nobody is putting their hand up to take anything right now. So we don't know when they will move. We don't know what that looks like. It'll be difficult from a cash flow perspective for those farms, especially if you got lots of maple peas out there in the ground this year. But the fact that they'll take those contracts is good. All right. So a little tricky there and definitely having an impact on, on maple pea growers. So I wanted to give you an update on that. Yellow peas, it's also having an impact. Don't get me wrong, it is. It took, you know, prices down 10, 15%. But there are still homes and buyers for yellow peas and values are, you know, hanging, hanging in at the $9 level.
Green peas as well, they face the least amount of tariff pressure here because China does take a small portion of green peas, just not the same volumes of yellows. And in the same percent of those maples. So green peas about, I believe a third. Chuck Benner told me it was about a third of green peas went to. Went to China. And we are seeing 13 and a half dollars a bushel or something like that with act of God. All right, so that's. That's kind of the P. Market rate right now. Now, if we want to switch gears here, for what's on my mind in crop marketing, I, you know, I look at what the canola market's done and it's rallied to the highs that we've seen, what, two, three, four times over the last year or so we've been here before, multiplied by three, typically maybe four. And so that's. That's good wheat. On the other hand, a bit of a. Bit of a dog here. All right. A little bit frustrating and many factors at play. There's a couple interesting things here over the next weeks that we need to stay, you know, quite close to. And you know, I. The Ukraine, Russia, you know, the war in Ukraine, you know, that's a big one that it seemed like an escalation in the war did not rally the market, you know, anytime the last year or so. But when we did see a de. Escalation and talks of peace, the market did pull back. And that was one of the reasons. Now, if you look over there, again, I'm not a political analyst by any means, and I have no clue what is going on, but it certainly seems like it's quite tense out there and not a de. Escalation of that war at this time. And so if you see that continue here into this later spring and into summer, maybe a little bit of premium comes in. If I look at the growing conditions out there, of course, I'm a big fan of Mike Lee's work. Green Square, I believe it's Green Square consulting. Mike is like boots on the ground in Ukraine and Russia when he can. Great agronomists with plenty of great insight. You know, I would say that crops, wheat crops in Russia and Ukraine, they had a tough fall. And now, though, as they have come out of dormancy and we've gotten into the growing season, they've stabilized. They. They have not got worse. In fact, they've improved here lately. And so I'm, you know, you look at that for strength in the wheat market, it's just not there right now. That could change. They could get cold or dry or whatever. It is like it could change, but it's. It's stabilized for the time being. In fact, other analysts have increased the Russian wheat production totals here at the last number of days. Okay. So continuing on with wheat, you know, you got to keep an eye on what's going on in the, in the U.S. and in Canada. In the U.S. we've got, you know, a winter wheat crop that is faced all sorts of, all sorts of challenges here. The start of this growing season for sure. But again, you know, I would look at this Kansas wheat crop and see that, you know, making fresh contract lows, life of contract lows. That crop, even though it's not perfect, also kind of stabilizing here right now. And in fact, you know, maybe some moisture for that crop in the next little while. That crop is not that far away from being harvested. Like it's got, don't get me wrong, it's got weeks to go here yet. But, you know, as we turn the calendar into June, that crop is made and it's kind of getting made right now. The wheat yields are set early and can it fill its max potential? So it's just the Kansas wheat crops not giving us much on the rally side here, you know, at this time either. And then the spring wheat, that's my big area I'm watching when it comes to US Spring wheat and those dry conditions today. Now, Brett Waltz, you know, confirming to me that there is rain in the forecast for those areas here in short order, but it is very much needed and cannot be missed. Now how does that play out into the rest of summer? There is some drought concerns for definitely the corn belt, but does that move west at all? Can that impact spring wheat? I think that's the big, the big storyline here. And then of course we finish off with the Prairies where apparently you listening, you want to plant more wheat in 2025, not much, but you didn't want to plant canola, you want to plant less canola. And I get it, the canola yields have suffered here the last number of years. But yeah, I don't know if you had a chance to make some tweaks at all with these low markets, but Western Canada trying its best to raise production as well.
Now, can we talk about globally, maybe a bit of a tighter supply situation, high protein wheat? Yes, we can. Can we talk about a low Canadian dollar being supportive towards wheat basis? Sure. But what is the US Dollar index done lately and what impact has that had on the direction of the Canadian dollar? So, you know, it's again something I'm keeping a close eye on and if you were part of my presentations late this winter, the Dixie was Part of. Part of what I was. Some of the. One of the three things I was watching here heading into spring. So, folks, I wish. I wish that I had the silver bullet here for your crop marketing plan when it comes to wheat. I. I certainly don't. Canola's making it easy right now, but for wheat, it's one of those things where there's not a lot going for us right now. And so do we see like last year, do we see this wheat market? You know, stay kind of quiet until we get into May, and then wake up, wake up for one of these rips, one of these market rallies where spring wheat finds a buck or a buck fifty a bushel in it. You know, maybe it's us dryness. You know, maybe that's. That's what does it. It almost has to be now. Like, it almost has to be. Either the corn crop is in deep trouble and corn rallies and pulls weed up with it, or the spring wheat area of the northern plains gets into trouble, and we rally from that. From a chart perspective, we have support here, folks. We do have support. I'm not saying it's all doom and gloom and that we go much lower here right now. I don't think we do. But what rips us higher, right? What rips this market to go and find that strength has started right? This time last year, In April, the 23rd, 24th time frame, we basically went up about a buck, peaking at the end of May. And yeah. So from a crop marketing perspective, from what I can see, what I can tell in this wheat market, I need you to be ready to take some bigger bites here in the later part of spring, you know, maybe in the next month or so. You got to try to find where this market's going to rally and when it gives you that opportunity. Folks, I'm not saying it's even at profitability here, but I don't think doing 2, 3, 5% is going to make sense. I think you're going to have to take some bigger bites here. Unless something drastic changes in. In Russia, where that crop gets into trouble. Something in the US Here, we need something. Otherwise, wheat marketing is just not gonna be as fun as we want it to be. Okay, now, last one here or the next one for what's on my mind in crop marketing. Canola. Now, the biggest question I got here this week was, should I be selling canola? Right. And so the easy answer is, yes. The easy answer is, yes, you should be selling canola. All right, let's talk about why, number one the easiest reason to be selling canola is that you are now up against. And I'm going to look at November Canola, you'll maybe argue with me on the July. That's fine. July's got a little bit of Runway here. Now, 7, 10, I would say, is his resistance, but new crop, Canola, we've touched 665, you know, a few times and maybe a little bit higher than that as well, once. But you're basically getting back to the highs of the year. All right, so the. The high that you've seen three or four times, you're. You're back there. So does it make sense to sell Canola just on that alone? Yeah. Now, I'll pair that up with profitability. So why would I sell canola right now? Well, because it pays the bills.
Of course. I don't know what the yield's gonna be. I don't know how things are going to. Are going to play out here from a production side. But pencil in your average yields and your price, you're profitable. That is another reason to sell. Okay, as easy as that. We're up to some type of resistance and we're profitable. That's about as easy as it gets. The other thing I'll say here, folks, is our opportunity, in my opinion, you know, whatever, you debate it amongst yourselves. My opinion is that we have exported a tremendous amount of canola. You know, Kyle Sinclair's been on the show many times talking about this.
You know, I'll give credit to Oil World, which is a newsletter I read regularly, but Oil World has been talking about this on the. On the regular as well. Like, we are setting ourselves up here. Don't forget, we grew the smallest crop, the third smallest crop in the last decade. We're setting ourselves up here to finish this year with a million and change. A million tons of canola, tight. We're going from 3 million tons or. I don't know, what's the vitera number? Eight million tons, maybe, whatever that number, or three to one or one and a half, or maybe vitera, you know, maybe drop theirs down to five, but whatever, something like that. But yeah, what I'm saying, folks, is things are tightening up here. Your old crop, months, they're the excited ones. May and July are excited. They're rallying. 15 bucks a ton, whereas new crops look. And saying, all right, well, I'm going to go up half that. Right? I'm not. Not with you all the way, but I'm going to participate. And so we're getting some good Action on the old crop. We're getting improved basis here this week. I got improved basis levels for new crop Canola as well. Not only did we get a futures rally, those rascals improved basis on us too. Which, what are they thinking? That never happens. Futures go up, basis is supposed to get worse. But you're growing less this year, guys. You're growing less. And so we're getting some action on new crop basis. We're getting message, I'm getting messages from farmers across Saskatchewan saying, hey, I'm getting offered like 1450 picked up on farm for new crop Canola. I got guys saying, hey, I'm Damn close to 15 bucks here for new crop Canola. That pays the bills, folks.
Now would I make my big move here today? No, I would not quite yet myself, but as part of my crop marketing plan, I'm doing some small sales right now. I did a, I was on the podcast, what last week, a couple weeks ago saying consider selling a small amount of canola. I did, you know, 6:36, 35, November. I did a little bit there. Now we're 655, 660. I'm going to do a splash here as well. I'm not unloading the big one quite yet. But you got to be hyper aware because does this old crop tightness of supply, this demand. We haven't seen demand destruction from tariffs. You know, the seed is moving. Export of canola seed is phenomenal year over year. I think oil world had it up. I think they go August to April was the, the, the months and I think we were up like 3 million tons better than this time last year. Phenomenal crush plants that we have. We've had no knock on wood disruption to the US Canola oil is moving still. Canola meals moving. You know this take tariffs aside, take politics out of it, you can't but just for a minute park that stuff. And you've got a very traditional storyline of growing a small crop.
Really good demand for this stuff and prices doing their thing in the spring. That, that is a tale as old as time in marketing in canola markets for western Canada. All right now it's fun and you gotta stay sharp. You do still need to stay sharp. I got a little bit old crop left to sell. I got a bunch of bullets to use up for new crop yet. And like I said moments ago, my 2025, sorry, November 2026. You know, people might sit there and say, you're insane, Ryan. The market's going up and you're going to Sell something for November of 26. Path to profitability, folks. I want to pay the bills in 2026 as well. So that's why I can still be bullish. But I can also get some worst case scenarios penciled in. Now let's bring wheat back into the fold for a second. I think from a wheat marketing perspective, you're going to need to be just a little bit more patient here. Because if you're gonna get that spot, that rally, it ain't happening here in late April, early May. And I expect you're gonna take bigger bites. All right? Bigger bites of that wheat marketing. On the Canola front, you're busy, but the time is now. The time is now for you to prepare yourself. You should have already prepared yourself. But execute over the next month or two here like this is the time.
And watching the market go up and not doing anything or doing very little, like that's the easy part. What happens?
What happens? What are you going to do when this thing turns around and you're busy?
You're busy planting that canola seed, planting that crop. You're busy underneath the drill fixing something. You're running on short sleep. You are putting in those big days, doing it safely and efficiently as well, I may add. What are you going to do when this thing turns around? What is your strategy? And not just one with strategy one, two and three. How are you going to execute here when this thing starts to turn? And by the way, if you're profitable, my opinion, you should already be doing some selling right now. Are we going to plant less Canola acres? Certainly looks that way. Is there a reason to be long term bullish? I'll let Mother Nature figure that one out for us. There is still political risk out there. There is still the chance of bad news coming down. Things can get worse yet. I don't think this is, this is the start of something massive for a rally. I think this is very normal behavior and that we are escaping some of the geopolitical stuff at this time and the market's allowed to act a little bit normal and with that often find our peaks during this time of year. Alrighty, that's just how I'm attacking it right now. That's how I'm approaching it. I'm a busy, very busy Canola person right now. I'm very busy in that area. A little quieter on the wheat side. That may not be the best thing, but I am. And then I am picking around the edges. I'd say we've done some stuff here on some Oats lately. We've done some stuff on some barley lately. I had some malt barley offers come out this week.
You know, there's. There's things happening out there as well, picking around the edges on. On some of those other. Other crops. All right, what else is on my mind here for Crop Market? I know I've gone a while already, but I just, I know you're busy folks, and if you, if you got a chance to listen to this podcast, awesome. Just. Just make sure you're reviewing that plan. And that's going to be in eating your veggies here in just a sec. All right, folks, of course I love positive moments. I love reflecting on the positive things that have happened in my life over the last seven days. And, you know, I hope everyone had a great Easter. Number one, obviously some snow for some of you, which I think was appreciated for many, but we spent the week we were in Cannes more and always nice to get away with the family. Where we stay, there's a water slide and an indoor outdoor hot tub. And honestly, it's just a chance to unwind and not have to worry about cleaning house and doing laundry. Even though our condo we rented had a laundry machine. And I've got a tip for the fellas out there, all right?
For one of you in the relationship, one of the partners, but whoever does the laundry at home, you know, if it's both of you, good on you. But for the one, this is your chance. If you don't do laundry at home, this is my little. My travel hack for you, okay? My little life hack. This gets you in the good books. All right? We had a washer dryer combo in our condo. And every afternoon I'd put Finn down for his nap, and then I'd go and start the washing machine. I put a load in the washing machine. My. We're there for six days. My wife's like, what are you doing? I'm like, I'm doing a load of laundry every day so that when we get home, we are just putting our clothes away and we will have, like, a load of dirty clothes between the four of us. And that's it. But we're going to. Instead of dumping all our bags in the laundry room and having to do six loads of laundry, as soon as we get home, we're just going to put the laundry away. Number one, like, I went up a notch in her books. Like, and I need it. I need it. I'm behind on the honey do list. I went up just one notch. I'll Take it. And it worked. We. We got home, we just put clothes away. If you're renting a condo, folks, I swear this is one load a day. You dry it in the evening. It's quick. Five minutes to fold it up, put it back in the bags or whatever it was.
Just have a think next time you travel. Yeah. You'll be in the good books. All right. Okay. My other positive moment. So, of course we have the YouTube music playlist. What? The futures plant 25. It's not my best hundred songs. I am going in and making tweaks. It's a bit aggressive. Couple of swear words in there. So just take note. For the kids in the tractor with you, there's a couple out of left field, but we were playing it in the kitchen. I put music on most mornings. Part of my. Definitely my. My positivity when I'm having my cup of coffee, getting everything started for the day. I got the tunes playing bright and early. And so Kenny Chesney, she thinks my tractor sexy. That is on the playlist. And it just plays. Finley is with me. My. My two year old. And he loves farming, he loves tractors. We're playing combines all the time, digging in the dirt. Like, he just loves that stuff. And I don't think anything of it. It goes to the next song. And he's sitting there eating his toast and he just looks and he's like, tractor song. And I'm like, okay, man. Yeah, tractor song. What would be a good tractor song?
And I'm thinking about it. I'm like, okay, I'll try to search one. And he said, tractor song. I'm like, I know, man. I'll try to find you one. Tractor song. I get it. I'll find you one. I'll do some digging here. And then my 4 year old comes into you from the other room and she's like, dad, the song that was just on is a tractor song. I'm like, what? I go back and hit it. It's Kenny Chesney. She thinks my tractor's sexy. And Finn is just dancing to that song. So, yeah, check it out on YouTube, folks. Check it out on YouTube. That is my positive moment, that playlist. I don't have the video of him dancing on YouTube. But that playlist, YouTube music and hashtag, plant25, that's the what? The Futures playlist. You can find it. It's already had like a thousand listens or something like that. So you guys are definitely checking it out as you. As you plant crops. All right, folks, eating your veggies here this week. I.
Well, obviously an important time of the year for, for everybody. But I was looking at the crop marketing handbook which I've referenced on the regular now. But so I have in here just a note about planting progress, your progress versus what is expected or normal. I start to review yield goal and actual conditions very early. And I'm not an agronomist by any means, but I try to give myself little pluses or negatives. And it could be, it could be as simple as I think a couple years ago, maybe two years ago, we had a little bit of a issue with our green pea seed. What ended up happening is we ended up, our seed cracked, our seed was not as ideal as we, we had thought. And we actually didn't really realize until we were planting. And that's when we were like, man, this seed actually is a little bit, a little bit off from what we would, what we, we would be like what we'd like to put in the ground. So we started to scale back some of our yield expectations based on that. And then of course that was verified throughout the growing season. Wasn't the greatest pea for us, but I give myself little pluses and negatives and so, you know, what do we see for maybe not so much into April, but we're starting to look for maybe it's temperature, maybe it's moisture, maybe it's, it's bugs or something like that and start to keep an eye on that and just give plus if we think we're going, we're setting ourselves up for better than what we budget and negative. We start to see anything pull back. And of course, we ramp that up in June and July. So, you know, I think for number one, for eating your veggies, I thought that was something. Just keep in, in the back of your mind. Anyways, what I want to say for number one is that, you know, review, review your targets this week and if you sit here and say, I don't have any, I don't have any targets out, well, I think you should. Okay, now that doesn't mean that the price of wheat is 705. And you're like, well, he told me to put a target and I'm just going to do 725. No, no, no, no, not what I'm saying. What I'm saying here is, you know, if you're at a 705, but your break even is 850 a bushel and you're like, I'm busy. I don't, I don't want to sell anything below my cost of production in April, which I agree with you 100%. But still, you can go and put that target out and say, hey, when it gets to my break even or close to it, I'm going to start selling something. All right? So it's a good time to review those targets, make sure they're in place. And I know the canola one's a little scary right now because you're like, well, it's rallying, Ryan. Like, how the heck do you put a target in here again? You can go to past resistance levels and you can look at, you know, where were we last year as a high or the year before, Just see if anything stands out for you. And you don't have to do everything.
You don't have to do a thousand tons. If that's, you know, half your production or 20%, you don't have to do that. You could say, hey, here's a target. I will deliver you a load if this hits. But what's it do? Gets you the email, gets you an alert, gets you a message from your buyer and wakes you up like, oh, that hit. Okay, cool. Yeah, I want to do more. Or hey, I want to put another one in and do more volume. It's. I think strongly that you should have that in there. The other thing that we have in here is don't forget to check prices for delivery in the fall of 2025. But also for this week, I want you to take a look at the fall of 2026.
Like, let's go back to something positive in the wheat market. For, for example, if you want to find a sliver of positivity, like there's carry in this wheat market. Okay, so December of 25 for Kansas wheat, CPS grows here at a 590, while for decent 26 here at a 6 45. There is 55 cents a bushel for you right there. The spring wheat market's going to tell you a similar story. You know, there's good carry there. Let's go out to July. Sorry. September of 26, we're at a 623 on the September of 25, we're at a 670 on the September of 26. Again, I'm not saying you gotta go guns a blazing here folks, for the fall of 2026, but don't lose sight of this and get in the habit of checking prices for both years. Not all your buyers are gonna have them. I understand that. But find the buyers that do and get in the habit of checking that out. So that's number two for eating your veggies for this week. And for number three, folks, it's the start of a very, very busy season. So be safe out there, folks. Get rest when you can. Obviously, it's a dangerous time of year. So I wish you just a great run, a great seeding run, planting run, however you want to say it. You know, have an efficient one out there. Have a safe one out there. Take the time, take the time to get some rest when you can, and take your time as you go through the motions of planting this crop. Which. Man, I'm excited. I'm excited for you guys to go and get all the bushels, put them in the bin this year and pay the bills next winter. All right, so that's it for eating your veggies here for this week. All right, folks, well, that does it for episode 73. Now, if you've. If you've hung in here till the end, I've got a little. A special little announcement for you. It's just something for you to consider if you, if you're calling a bit of a hardcore what the futures listener, if you've made it all this way.
But I am looking for. I. I think that it would be fun to check in with you guys throughout the growing season.
And so I'm looking for, like, three farmers. Somebody from, you know, southern Saskatchewan, northern Saskatchewan, someone. It doesn't really matter. I want to spread it out, though. I want three of you, and I want to spread it out. But I'd like to check in, maybe send you some questions the day before, and then just check in on how your growing season's going, how your crop marketing is going, things that kind of stand out for you. We're not going to give away any of your secrets. We're not going to ask you anything uncomfortable. It'll be all in front of you before we record. And the cool thing about the program I use here to record on is that you can do it off your phone with, with earbuds of some sort, and we can get great, great quality with that. You just need a decent cell service. Cell signal won't take up much of your time. And what I would say as a bit of a carrot here or a bit of a thank you for putting your hand up is we'll get you a free conference ticket for Moosha in December of this year. And if you say, well, Ryan, I already have a ticket, but I'd like to do this, guess what? I know where the refund button is and we can get you that refund and get you that ticket. So. Oh, that's valued at like a thousand bucks. Check in with you, probably as a group, we'd like to do something every three weeks to a month and so probably check in four or five times throughout the year and get you that conference ticket for free. So if you're interested, email me ryanhatthefuturespodcast ca and I'll try to collect interested folks until May 1st. And I'll reach out to you and see if we can get three farmers to join me here and check in from the field or from the farm throughout the growing season.
All right, again, thanks for hanging in. I, you know, I would say, again, just if you get a moment, share this with a friend, a farming friend, a colleague, someone in your, in your community if you think they could benefit from this type of podcast. I certainly appreciate it. If you have ideas for guests as well, I'm certainly all ears for that too. You know, you guys do drive the content of this show and so don't be a stranger if, if you have an idea, love to hear them. It's an important time of crop marketing, folks. I can't stress that enough. You gotta plant this crop. You gotta push yourself to the limit already.
But don't forget to check in with your buyers. Check in on your crop marketing plan. I'm sure it's not all in your head, right? I'm sure you've got it all written down here in a book or on some platform you're using. Maybe you got it on harvest profit like we do for our farm. But check in on your crop marketing plan too, because this is when you secure the bag and this is when you pay the bills. All right, that's it for episode 73.
I'm out.
