“Dad you’re going to clean up the world”

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to episode 30 of the what the Futures podcast. I've got a packed show once again, we go over the hour mark on this one. But I have to tell you, folks, we talk about a lot of important crop marketing stuff. My hot topic, to sell or not to sell. That is the question. Well, it is not actually the question at all. Stay tuned. In the episode, we're going to talk about why. We're going to talk about what you should be doing for crop marketing on the farm. And I know you've been busy at it. You've had a busy spring selling crops. Fantastic. Check out the show. Hey, folks, welcome to the what the Futures podcast, where we break down complex market trends into simple, actionable advice. It's your quick guide to better farming decisions. Hey there. Welcome back to the what the Futures podcast, episode number 30 as always, recorded in the UPL studio. What a week it's been. You're probably wondering, why does this guy sound so excited when markets falling apart? Falling apart around us doesn't make sense. Well, folks, I shouldn't be excited. I really shouldn't be. But I feel that I'm in such a good position from a crop marketing perspective. I've done, and you've done a bunch of heavy lifting, hard work over the last couple of weeks. You were busy planting a crop, busy doing your crop marketing. Rains are happening for most. That was a good thing for a few, too much rain. Okay, I get it was an exciting time. It continues to be exciting. And so welcome into the show, folks. I know, I'm excited. I hope you're excited as well. You did a lot of heavy lifting here the last couple weeks. Of course. My name is Ryan Denis. I have spent my career as a crop marketing coach, advisor, analyst to some degree. Not a very good analyst, though, but analyst to some degree. And I've worked with farmers across the prairie provinces also for a brief time, led a team of advisors in the US and in Canada and taking the show on the road here with what the future is. And we are going to be on the road this summer. We're heading over to egg in motion in just, what, over a month away. And hey, if you want to see what the future is at your event, just reach out. Maybe we can make it work this episode. We've got a lot to cover here. Once again, we've got Sabrina with Upl. She's going to join us to talk about wave in the studio. I've got a new box here in the background. It is called, let me check aquatic plant extract I don't know what that means. And Sabrina helps me out today. So I've got Sabrina, of course, hang in. If you go to that session, we do have a question there, or that segment, pardon me, where you can enter with the correct response to win some way for your farm and see those results directly in front of your eyes. I've got Ryan Copithorne with cows and control, who was basically a guy I chatted with a couple days ago said, ryan Copithorne is your best guest on your show. Now, that's no offense to Chuck and Brett and all the other great guests we have, but it just shows the cattle guys are excited about Ryan being on the show. So he's joining me once again and educating me because we had cows on the farm. I remember we talk about branding day today. I remember branding day. I remember learning what prairie oysters were. I remember playing rodeo out there all the time. But my knowledge is very poor when it comes to cattle. So he's going to help me out today. My hot topic, to sell or not to sell? That is the question. Well, no, no, no. That's actually not the question. We'll talk about that in just a few minutes here. Of course, we got the regular segments, the popular mailbag segment brought to you by pioneer seeds. We have two great questions and I had to ask my pal Darrell with Connexus credit Union to come and join the show. Sorry he didn't join the show. He did a great job of responding to my questions. We'll have to get him on here later this month. Didn't quite work out with all, everything we got going on, but he does help me out. He's my, my expert when it comes to all things interest rate related. And two questions come in and he helps me out there. And of course, we're going to wrap up the episode with a healthy serving of veggies because of course it's the right thing to do. And my favorite one for this week, if I look at it all, I would say we're doing a lot of contract maintenance right now. We're just checking in. We've done a lot of selling, so we're getting organized, making sure that everything's accounted for in our great platform called Harvest Profit and it's setting us up for our next targets and strategies. So stay tuned to the end here for your eating your Veggies section. Now I'll take a quick pause here from a word from our sponsor, John Deere. Of course, with John Deere support, we were able to put this show on and here in western Canada, we see a lot of different crop conditions. Fortunately, our friends at John Deere have a whole new lineup that can handle any crop in any condition. There's three new high horsepower nine rx tractors, a new high tech s seven combine. There's also that new x nine combine. There's even a new c series air cart. Check them out for yourself at Johndier, CA and see what's coming our way this year. That's another reason I'm excited about egg emotion as well, to go check out some of that new John Deere paint. And I also have a couple of experts joining me here over the next month to just talk about the new stuff at John Deere. So you'll hear a lot more from them here in the near future. So let's get after it, folks. Let's get into the episode. Of course, I start off all the episodes now with housekeeping and it's just odds and ends, just little things that I want to touch on briefly and didn't know where to put it. So anyway, housekeeping at the start of the show, it's just odds and ends here to get through. Now, I've been asking for reviews and I don't really know why. I don't know what they do. I don't know what one star versus three stars versus five stars. I actually don't really know what it does. But I hear other shows asking for reviews, so I thought, hey, why not? And I actually got some words coming in. Not just stars, we got a couple more five star, but I got a couple of, just a comment here and it says Ryan has a way of taking complex marketing topics and breaking them down in our in a part, pardon me, in a practical and consumable way. Listening in, you feel like a friend having a chat. I appreciate his positive outlook and theme throughout all segments. Crop marketing can often drag a person down, but I don't feel this listening in. I look forward to each episode. Keep it up, Ryan. Well, thank you so much for those kind words. I may not be able, I might have to use the garage door to exit my studio now because my head is swelling as, as I read that. But for those that know me, I am very much a positive person. I try to be a positive person. And I know crop markets are dragging us down here just a little bit, folks. But now is not the time to be sad or disappointed. Now is the time to execute and have some fun with it. So I appreciate that if you have a review for me or a comment. I'm not going to read them all on here. I just, it was the first one really, in like six months. So I got pretty excited about it. But keep the stars coming in. Again, a one and a two star basically have me thinking of how to improve. A five star just says, hey, you're doing a decent job out there, so keep them coming. I appreciate it. Now, that two star rating that I talked about a couple weeks ago, I did get a message from someone saying that was probably eggfinity that gave you those two stars. Now. Wow. Whoops. I shouldn't have said it like that, but I know I haven't touched on eggfinity lately. I know that some of you may have viewed the last month or so as, as frustrating, hearing those topics, frustrated that we're talking about it, frustrated if you're owed money. I haven't touched on it lately, but I do have to talk about it just for a second. Today, the folks over at agfinity, because the situation has now deteriorated, it has gotten worse. And what I mean by that is at the beginning of May, they said, hey, there's a group of you that are going to get payment. And the payment was very small. Under 10% of what was owed was paid out. Then they told everybody else, you have to wait until the end of May and we'll issue your next payment. So this week I reached out to one of the guys I know that is owed some significant money. They said, hey, I hate to bring this up, but just let me know that you got paid. And the answer was no. The answer was no. And the answer from agfinity was, basically, we are not buying grain anymore. We're just doing brokerage. And so we're not getting the same funds that we had access to. And that is scary. That is scary for all involved. You know what else is scary, though? If you delivered grain to them this week, let's say today, you delay. You're listening to this. You've delivered grain to them. You did a contract through them. They get paid in a week or two from the end user, and that money is not yours. That money goes to pay the oldest outstanding customer, client, farmer. Good for that. Farmer, not good for you. This is, this is getting very serious, folks, very quickly. And I have a few other people I may bring on the show here in the next couple of weeks. We have been in talks with some individuals about how to help farmers out here that are caught in this situation, but this is not good. The other thing I'll add to this, my understanding is that the folks in that office just continue to get paid, which is you work for an employer, you expect to get paid. Right? But I don't know who authorized them to take the funds from farmers and do all sorts of other things with it and not pay them. I don't know how that is legal. I don't know who authorized that as a farmer and I don't know what the answer is. That's all I'm going to say for now. If you're caught in this situation, I feel for you. It's escalating here. It's in one sense, it's just getting a little bit more sickening. All right. Okay. Moving on for housekeeping. NHL playoff pool. Short sticks had a heck of a third round. They're going to get a prize here for their team. I'm about to lose. Like, I've been on the top since the start. I've been leading this thing through three rounds. Willingdon Wildcats is going to come out of left field and just, just. It's going to be like a blind side hit. He's just going to knock me off at some point here in the next couple days. Currently in fourth place. I know this is going to happen and the problem is this guy has done this to me before. All right, Greg, I know you're coming, man. So I'm going to get kicked off right away for music this week. I just. I have one song. We're now switching gears to spray season and I know that's important to you. As you spray your crops, you can go to the YouTube music playlist what the future is. Hash plant 24 again. That's on YouTube. Turn up the radio by autograph. If you just hang in with me here. Your plants need to be. You have to sing to your plants, right? That's what they tell us. We're supposed to sing to our plants. So I think this is a great one to turn up, a great karaoke song, a great one to play while you're spraying your crops. And it's going to help those crops grow and expand. I didn't ask Sabrina if that's actually what happens. I should have asked her. Had an expert rate here and I forgot. But the other thing, too, you could put those boat speakers out. You hear them across the lake. Put those boat speakers out and just have it blasting towards your plants. I could just picture you with a little microphone going, just getting those plants growing for you, getting those big yields. All right. And last thing for the, for the housekeeping for this week, the lunchbox crew. The intake ends on Sunday, June 9. There's a chance that you listen to this after June 9. I apologize for that. But Sunday, June 9, midnight. That is the first group in the lunchbox crew. That's where it ends. This is where you can get weekly analysis and recommend and recommendations from me, more personalized and strategic to your farming operation and how I would classify this or how I'd say it is. If eating your veggies, if that segment that I do every single week is not quite enough for you from a crop marketing perspective, come get your meat and potatoes over at the lunchbox crew. Okay? That's where we get into it in a little bit more detail. It's crop marketing that's cranked up a little bit to help you make those big decisions. Okay, intake ends midnight, June 9. No exceptions. We may open it up in the fall or sometime again, I don't know yet, but you can go to Ryan Dinny CA lunchboxcrew. It's all in there. Can email me if you have any questions. Want more information on it, text the show. Email me. I'll help you out with that as well. Lastly, subscribe to our YouTube channel. Follow us on social media again. Comment I appreciate the comments. Now let's get to our positive moments of the week. My favorite segment, because I talk about my kids a lot in this segment, and I, you get to learn a little bit about me as well, what makes me tick. But I have a three year old that's turning four, and she's such a cool kid. Wilhelmina is such a cool kid. And so I got to give credit to my wife for that because she's cool as well. So I need, when we go on a journey, when we leave the house, when we go and do something, I need to allot an extra 15 minutes now when we go anywhere. Okay? So we're running an errand. I got to set aside a little bit more time, and we spend that time picking up trash in parking lots or wherever, whatever business we're at. If we are walking from our vehicle to the doors of that business, my three year old is going to pick up every single piece of trash on the ground and find a garbage can for it. We will walk distances to find the garbage can. Okay? She takes tremendous pride in this. She calls it her chores. Like, dad, hang on, I got to do my chores. And I'm like, what are we doing? And she's like, I'm picking up all this garbage. I'm like, all right, it's a little intense, but it's great to see. So now, if you could picture it, I'm scrambling. We're in the city picking up trash in these parking lots, and I'm scrambling to make sure that the trash is safe trash for her, that she, it's not like a needle or something really gross. And I'm out there like, like, yep, that's good trash. Pick that one up. No, no, no. Don't touch that one. Dad will do that one. So it's a whole thing now, and it's quite, I'm assuming it's quite the sight. So, like, I'm out there judging the quality of the trash. She's out there picking it up, looking for a garbage can, and it's contagious. And so now I went to an appointment this morning, and here I am in the parking lot mumbling to myself, oh, there's. Look at the trash over there. Oh, geez. Let's go pick that up. I'm mumbling to myself in this parking lot, picking up this trash like, like a crazy person almost. And I'm assuming that's quite the site now as well. But it's on my mind, so it's contagious. I'm doing it by myself. So on Saturday, we're cruising around, and I don't even know where the inspiration came from, this. I don't know if it was preschool or my wife, where she got in on this, but she's definitely wants to help Mother Nature out. And so we're, we're cruising around, we're running a few errands. We're walking back to the truck, and she says, dad, you're going to clean up the world. And so there you have it, folks. My three year old, my motivational coach. Unreal. Unreal. All right. My second positive moment of the week. I have a ticket in my possession to attend the Stanley cup finals in Edmonton. I moved to Edmonton back in 2007. If you remember the zero six cup run, the decade of darkness follows. I moved to Edmonton excited to be an Oilers fan. And then it's the decade of darkness, where we don't get close to the playoffs. So I told myself at the beginning of these playoffs because there could be lots of changes coming with the team. I said, I'm going to enjoy this no matter what. It's been fun. I've been able to go to a couple games already, and the first Stanley cup finals game in Edmonton in, like, 18 years. I'm going to be there win, lose, or draw. I'm looking forward to it. And then my last one, bringing it back to the farm here for a second, is the boys got the crop in. It's not that the crop was ever in jeopardy of not going in, but they had, the guys had. It was a bit of a year. There was lots of breaks in there. Equipment, though. Some new equipment to us, struggled, but they finished in top form. So even though it was a grind and a struggle all along, they finished two days faster than we were expecting, and they finished in top form. They put in those big days, long days. Everyone was going hard and got those 10,000 acres in, and everyone got home safe. So another planting season where the crop got in. Boys did a heck of a job. I shouldn't say boys, all team. My mom very active on the farm. My mom drives sprayer. She does, drives all sorts of equipment. And so the whole team there got it all done and got it in, and everyone got home safe. I won't talk about it today, but it's important, important that everyone gets home safe. Okay, I've got a little bit of a newer segment here as well. As we switch gears, I'm going to workshop this over the next couple of weeks or month or so. Oh, and if you're wondering what's behind me on the screen, it's a tragically hip concert from, I don't know, ten years ago or something like that. I'm a big, tragically hip fan. But anyways, this new segment, I want to just, things kind of pop up during the week, and I don't know where to place them. If they don't fit in the housekeeping segment, they don't fit in prices or news or hot topic of the week, they don't fit anywhere in there. And so my, this is what came across, and it's, how do you guys handle when you're, when you underfill a grain contract? Okay. G three called and said they would be sending a bill to this farm for $600. The contract was underfilled by ten tons, and $600 was the, was the amount. Now, this contract was a large one. So this, this was, this was a very small percentage of what was left. When I used to work at Vitera as a grain buyer, when the market would drop, we would go in, we'd have a list of contracts, and they said at that time, I think anything under 200 or $300, we could close out without question. So we would, we would look at them on down days, and we go and close them out. If they were under the market, we'd go close them out. If they were over the market, you just leave them alone. And we worked like, I don't know if you worked hard, you're just clicking a button. But we kept a close eye on that. And I don't know if I made a handful of calls in two years. I don't know if I made a handful of calls to collect. I can't think of it. I know one for sure because that one led to me leaving that grain buying job because it was, I'll tell the story one day, but it was very weird, very stressful for nothing, stressful for the, for the farming operation and stressful for me anyways. But how do you guys handle it? How do you guys handle this situation when you, when you get this phone call saying, yeah, you haven't filled your contract, we're sending you a bill. And I know a couple years ago, this was intense. This was thousands of dollars in a big rally, and every grain company held your feet to the fire. Didn't matter what it was. I remember farmer was owed like 150 grand. The crush plant, this was bungie. They wouldn't release the funds because they were short 3.4 tons on the contract. And so the farmer's looking for the check and they're like, where? Where's the check? They're like, oh, you haven't filled your contract. Oh, really? We didn't know. What do we owe 3.4 ton anyways, folks, things like that happened back in the, in the big rally of 2022, 21 and 22. But how do you handle it? All right, how do you handle that conversation with the grain bar? Because when I was a grain buyer, we cared about relationship, and so we cared about market share and we cared about relationship, and we cared about buying grain. So we wanted to give as good of advice as we had, which wasn't, and then we wanted to avoid conflict. So again, we just close them out as we could. If it benefited the farmer, we'd do that. What do you guys think now? What's going on out there? Send me an email, respond on social media. I'll post it out there. Let me know what you think. All right, let's move over to the hot topic of the week. To sell or not to sell. That is the question. Well, it's actually not the question. All right. There's only one answer to this, in my opinion at this time. And I've got my friend here. On my left shoulder, I've got my friend discipline. And on my right shoulder, I've got my friend Mister unaware scatterbrained preoccupied. I could have thrown greed in there, but I don't like that. I don't like that scenario. I don't think it, it is about greed if you're, when you look at crop marketing today. So I don't really like that one. I like more unaware, scatterbrain, preoccupied. But as of recording, November, canola's trading at 645. So that's down about $40 a ton. We had that bad day on Monday. Spring wheat continuing its journey of a decline down a dime here. Trading at 737 on the December contract that was $0.50 higher last week. Soybeans, same thing, big drop in beans. And I start looking at corn and corn's down on the December contract, we're down two cent as of recording at 460 and we have lost $0.30 since last week. So we've had a pretty significant decline here. Now, I talked, I've talked about this on the podcast before. I've talked about building this body of work over the last six, seven, eight months now, and then using this time of year to execute. And if you have, if you've executed, then right now you're doing what I'm doing, which is just maintenance, making sure my contracts, I got everything up to, up to speed. I know my percent sold. I know what strategies I've got implemented. I'm taking this time as the market pulls back to just regroup and see if I have any gaps. Am I comfortable with my percent sold? Is there reasons to be getting uncomfortable? Should I be extending sales further? How can I safely do that? But my conversation or the thought process now is I've done a bunch of heavy lifting here, already, done a lot of work. Let's circle the wagons and then make this next plan. I for wheat and canola. I've chatted with some growers here the last couple of months and we put a plan in place in winter where, you know, when we got to farmers day, we'd want to be half sold, you know, at a minimum, which is just kind of crazy. Some of you listening think that's probably an outrageous statement, but farmers stays. I know there's a farmers golf tournament on Friday, but I think it's the official day is maybe next week. I think Ufa sent me an email about June 14. Anyway, farmers day is now. It's right around the corner. And the plan, we've executed that plan here for as best we could here for the most part. So now as you sit here today, the reasons that we had the rally are starting they're coming out. Right. So delayed planting of us corn that's come with the corn crop is what the, what did they say earlier this week? 91% good to excellent. Like, it's phenomenal. The western canadian delay, it's slowed. It's fine as well. Now we get into June and most of the crops in and it's good. Right. And what happened there is that we go from Friday of, ooh, planting is delayed to Monday where, wow, crops look good. Wow, look at that. Crops look good. And the market has just kind of changed their tune here over, over the weekend. It was like, end crops look great, like it was wild. Got a lot of growing season ahead of us. Russia, again, we talked about this last week. Is there going to be another frost? Right. Hopefully not for the sake of the crop. But are the estimates now, are they too low? Are they too high? Where are we at? I read a report here yesterday where this analyst, who has a very strong track record, doesn't think the damage is as bad as severe. So we'll see. We'll know the future. We'll find out. But that story needs more to it now. It needs another reduction. It needs something to fuel this. My friends in the technical space, the smart people out there, the technical traders charts were looking healthy a couple of weeks ago. Not hearing that anymore. Not hearing that this week. Saw some flurry of recommendations come out earlier this week. And people are, I think last week I said, sell the rest of your old crop. Right. But I saw a bunch of that happen here in the last couple days of this week. The sales activity is aggressive out there. I still believe that is the right thing to do, and I don't think it's about to sell or not to sell. I think if you've rewarded the rally and gotten to a comfort level for your operation, it doesn't have to be half, but for your operation, you got to a comfort level that is mission accomplished. And if you're not there yet, then you should still execute that part of your plan. Because we don't know what the next rally looks like. We don't know how far down we're going to go before we recover. We don't know when the recovery is going to be. But what we do know is that you on your farm today, as of listening to this recording, you can make a phone call and say, hey, I'm a little bit undersold. I want to get something done. What is available to me to get something sold. And maybe your bias is to participate in the market for the rest of summer. Maybe it's how do I protect against a buyout? Maybe you're phoning and saying, hey, I'm at my, my comfort level, but what can I do now to protect myself further without a buyout risk? If you phone your viter and say, hey, I got as much sold as I'm comfortable with, but these markers are starting to peel back. I need to lock in more margin, more profit, what's available to me. And hey, they might tell you, hey, let's add some put options to some of your contracts, right? On our farm, pricing at a profit was extremely important. And we don't know the yield side yet. We do not know the yield side of the equation. But we are pleasantly surprised by the moisture we've received so far. And we are in better shape as of the first week of June than we expected. And if you sit there and say, Ryan, you know what, that's me too. That's actually me too. All the more reason for you to be picking up the phone and figuring out your strategies for crop marketing. Now some of my good friends, that farm in Alberta, have seen some very interesting wet conditions. Those guys, a lot of question marks out there yet on what exactly is going to transpire here over the next week or so. And so maybe they're not as comfortable and that would make sense to me. But if you're sitting here, you're generally thinking you're in better shape than what you thought as we entered May, you've had a decent rally. You should still be executing. And if you're behind plan, if you're behind your plan, then you should be making those sales. Even now, even on a pullback, it's the hardest thing to do. I talked to a grower yesterday. He said, ryan, my target didn't hit. Now he's hesitating. And I look at December wheat futures at 737 and then I look back at them in April at 671 and I think, yeah, you should still be selling. Because no matter what, there's a strategy to participate in upside or you have more crop to sell, there's something that you can do here in the next rally. So to sell or not to sell, that is the question. It actually isn't the question. You got to figure it out for your farming operation, for what you want to do. But the information, the stories that got us here that were bullish supporting these markets have come out of this market. Now we're working our way down across all these major commodities and we need to look at what is next. So again, you circle the wagons, you get organized. Again, it's, I had a few farmers like, I didn't realize that 950 target hit and I didn't realize, realize that $9 target hit and okay. Yeah. You circle back, make sure you're on the same page now moving forward, so you don't get too oversold outside your comfort zone. And you make your plan now moving forward, what is going to be the next driving force in this market? In my opinion, the US is looking toasty this summer. The long range forecasts are looking toasty there. There's going to be, according to people, a lot smarter than I am, some pretty interesting heat this summer. And that is your next rally. But I'm not comfortable sitting here and just putting all my eggs in that basket. It could be a genius thing to do. It could be the most amazing thing to do. But that's not me. I'm a chicken. I want to have a profitable farming operation. I want to make sure that profit has presented itself in this rally. I want to take advantage of that and get some of that secured. You all have to figure it out for yourselves. Folks out there, I can't do it for you, and I don't know what the right answer is for your farming operation. And all the crops are different. Like green peas, man. I'd have all my green peas sold. You guys know that. You've heard that past episodes. I'd have all my maple peas sold. All my green lentils would be sold. We're bullish yellow peas. We're bullish red lentils right now. A little bit on red lentils. The red lentil guys just perked up. But just a little bit with Chuck's helper, a little bit bullish there and, but your wheats, your barley's canola, your soybeans, your corn, that is all stuff that you should be hyper focused on right now for your firm in getting that, getting that sold. So that is my hot topic of the week. I didn't talk about the bank of Canada cutting interest rates. I didn't talk about the what, why this drop necessarily happened. Maybe I'll get to that later on this episode. But my hot topic is don't forget about your friend discipline and make sure you get execute your plan, whatever that plan is for your farm. I hope you've, you're executing and continue to execute. All right, let's switch gears now. Let's talk cows. Let's bring in Ryan with cows in control. After that, we'll get to prices, maybe some market notes. Of course, our mailbag segment. I've got Sabrina with Upl as well. So lots coming at you yet, but let's get to pal of the show here, Ryan Copperthorn with cows and control. Folks. I've got Ryan Kopithorne joining me here once again with cows and control. Ryan, I was actually at a farmer's place the other day, and he's got some cattle and he said the best guest on the what the Futures podcast is Ryan with cows in control. So I thought you might like to hear that he's really, really excited about the episodes when you jump on. So that's great, man. Appreciate you joining us once again. [00:32:58] Speaker B: Well, I'm flattered, but I've seen some of your other guests, so I don't know if I accept that fully, but I appreciate, appreciate the comment. [00:33:07] Speaker A: Well, we'll see if we get some friendly internal, not competition, but we'll see if people elevate their game. Now after that comment, we'll see what Chuck and with Brett and some of those guys do. But anyways, that was great. So last time we, we got together, you guys were calving. How did calving go on the farm? [00:33:22] Speaker B: Calving was all right. I mean, we've had pretty decent weather, so, and nothing major in terms of cold snaps or anything like that. So I would say it's going pretty good. We're right in the middle of branding season now, and, and so, yeah, I think everybody had a pretty good spring. It's nice to see the moisture again, too. [00:33:40] Speaker A: So I don't know if you guys caught anything here today for moisture this early part of this week, but I have another rain at our place here happening as we record. So how about you guys? [00:33:52] Speaker B: We're kind of due for some more moisture, actually. Yeah, the grass kind of popped and then it stopped. [00:33:57] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:33:57] Speaker B: And it's at the kind of the critical point where we could actually use a little heat and moisture right now to get the grass going again. [00:34:05] Speaker A: Well, I think the heat's coming the way it looks in the forecast. I don't know about more moisture, what that looks like, but the pasture conditions. Okay, as of right now, you'd say, or what are you thinking for pastures? [00:34:18] Speaker B: Yeah, the pastures are just, they're just okay. Like the, they're having a hard time outgrowing the dandelions right now, but, yeah, it's a lot better than where we were. And the more I talk to people elsewhere, when you get east of Calgary and such, it sounds like it's even better out there. So it's good to hear. [00:34:36] Speaker A: Yeah, there's, there's no one that appreciates dandelions more than my three year old. We, we have these dandelion bouquets everywhere. And our yard. I'm, I'm, I got a little bit of grass, right. And I'm pretty proactive. I got the tools to take care of the, the dandelion problem, but I kind of, I need to leave some grow because it's for her, right? That's what I tell myself. It's for her. It's for the bouquets. Going back to branding for just a second, I, like, I remember branding day on the farm. I remember the, the delicacy of prairie oysters, learning what that was as a young boy and just a really fun day. And in fact, my buddy on their farm, they were branding here over the weekend. Branding, is it, is it like a security thing? Is it like a pride thing, like a brand thing that you want to do? Like what, what is it about branding? Why do you do it? [00:35:26] Speaker B: Well, it is still the most relevant way of identifying cattle. It's because you can't tamper with it. You can always see the track record of ownership with those brands and things like ear tags and eids and such can all be tampered with or cut out or whatever, but it's pretty hard to tamper with brands, so the industry still adopts them as the main form of identification and ownership. [00:35:52] Speaker A: Okay. [00:35:53] Speaker B: And besides that, I mean, the branding is just such a great social event too, for ranchers to get together and help each other. And I hope that never goes away. [00:36:04] Speaker A: Yeah, they, it looked like they were having a great time. It was a nice day and there was a pile of people there as well, so it looked like a lot of fun. Sorry for this question, but is your, is the brand, is it, is it registered somewhere or what's created there? Is that somewhere, like in a central location where everyone's brands are? How does that work? [00:36:25] Speaker B: Yeah, there's a livestock identification services here in Alberta that kind of manages and oversees that. So you have to register and own a brand before you can use it. And they're the ones that sort of police it as well through our manifest system. So whenever cattle move, you have to have manifests and brand identification on the manifestation. [00:36:48] Speaker A: Awesome. All right, well, I know that's elementary for you, but hey, I'm learning something here, so. Yeah. All right, let's. Let's chat cattle markets here. I was looking at futures before we jumped on, jumped on to record here, but what are you seeing from a cattle price perspective, are things backing off at all? Are they exciting? Is there any seasonality to these cattle prices? What do you see out there? [00:37:12] Speaker B: Yeah, well, the prices, they've stayed very strong here in Canada. The futures market has really been chopping around since last fall, since September. We had a bit of a drop after September last year into December, and then it's really just kind of chopped sideways during that period, and I think it was kind of due for a correction. We've had two good years of solid run, actually, three, really. But 2022 and 2023 were exceptional years for price runs, and it's kind of been cooling off, catching its breath. One of the things that I'm kind of putting out to clients right now is that this is, if you look at it from a seasonal perspective, this is actually the time of year when feeder prices go up. Definitely. They go up from now till September. And the live cattle futures on most years, these fed cattle will actually drop this time of year into September. But in bull markets, they don't drop. They kind of either hold or go higher. Both cases suggest that we have a potential for higher prices here in the next few months. And we've been kind of treading sideways because there's a lot of the packers are slowing down their kills right now, and they're allowing these cattle to get bigger. They've taken away the weight restrictions on the cattle that they've, they take in these plants now. So we're making bigger animals and producing the same amount of beef with less animals. So it looks like we have lots of cattle around in these feedlots, but really it's just because we're producing bigger ones. And it's kind of like if somebody doesn't get off the escalator at the bottom, it just starts to pack up, and that's what's going on with the feedlot system. But I think that's going to clear out here in the next little while as these carcass weights will start to drop here. [00:39:02] Speaker A: Okay. And is it, like, is this a trend, like, bigger animals? Like, is it a trend moving forward? Like, in, if we look in five years or ten years, like, are the animals just going to get bigger and bigger through that timeframe, or is this just a kind of a temporary thing? [00:39:19] Speaker B: They have been, they've been getting bigger and bigger ever since the seventies or whatever. They carcass weights grow like seven pounds a year. I've put together some statistics, like carcass weights are growing every ten years, are basically replacing the need for 10% of our cattle. Just by making these animals bigger, we need less cattle. So that is a longstanding trend. I don't know if it's going to keep going or not. I don't know how long it can keep going, but eventually it has to taper out. But seasonally, I think we've. We've kind of seen our max. Like, this is a period of the year where weights will start to drift lower. Now. [00:40:00] Speaker A: Okay. All right. I know in the. In the main newsletter that I received from you, there was the headline, are we short ranchers or cattle? And I don't know if you. If you want to expand on that rate at this moment, but, yeah, I'll turn it over to you on that one. [00:40:16] Speaker B: Yeah. And, like, to me, that's almost the same discussion as those carcass weights, because as we get more and more efficient, we don't need as many cattle and we don't need as many ranchers. And so, as I said, in a decade, we've basically replaced the need for about 10% of the cattle just by making them bigger. And you start to wonder if there's a value decision that needs to be made at some point, where, on one hand, it's nice to be efficient and productive, where we can produce so much beef with fewer cattle. But at the same time, you're also losing ranchers, you're losing forage lands, you're losing grasslands. And, of course, all that grassland acreage is where all the animals and the creeks and the birds and all the things that people like to see out in the environment, they're all held and kept together by cows. But if we're taking away the need for these cows by our productivity, we're starting to lose important things like grasslands and all the wildlife and stuff that comes with it. So I. There's a value judgment that needs to come in there somewhere, and I don't know how exactly to solve it, but I think there's. I think we need to address it at some point. [00:41:26] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. So it's barbecue season. Summers around the corner here. Prices are doing well overall. There's no big red flags for you. I know we talked about, was it bird flu a couple weeks ago? Last time you were on, did you see that they wanted. If you're like a worker, I think it was in the US, if you're a worker that's working with dairy cattle, they wanted you to get vaccinated against this bird flu thing. Did you see that headline? [00:41:56] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. Bird flu won't go away. Like it's, I almost think that I. Well, it's, you have to be careful what you say sometimes. But it's like, yeah, it just keeps reemerging and it's, it's very, it's funny because it's not really a big issue right now at this point in terms of risk to the consumer. It's not a risk to the cattle. They seem to get over it. Even the people that contracted it. It's just like a mild cold or like it, eye irritation. And the, the latest one they had, I guess the guy's got some bronchial such, but it's more like cold symptoms. So they're, but they're making it, they're, they're making it out to be a bigger deal. And so that's always a risk for sure. [00:42:38] Speaker A: Yeah, I saw that headline. I just shook my head just thinking this thing's just not, not fading out of the headlines yet. It still wants to appear so. All right, my last thing I have for, for today on my agenda was just this hedging class that you have coming later this month. Can you tell us a little bit more about Friday, June 14 and what you have going on in Calgary? [00:43:01] Speaker B: Yeah, like I, I got a request from some of my clients that, that I've had new and old that have kind of, they like the services I provide, but they still want more basic training on how to use some of these tools like futures and options and such. So I decided to make a very basic introductory course on hedge training. So how to use, what is the futures market, how to use it, how to use options, how to use price insurance, those type of things. So this one will be a very basic course. Maybe in the future we might get more intermediate where you get into some strategies and things like that. But for now I'm just gonna, it'll be a training, sort of a 101 course on hedge training. I've already filled up for this seminar, but. So I had a really good response and looking forward to maybe putting on another one perhaps later this year. [00:43:56] Speaker A: Yeah, sounds great. Yeah. If you, you get the time in your schedule, let me know and we'll definitely help you promote that. Okay, cool. Anything else you want to touch on before I let you go this week? [00:44:06] Speaker B: No. Just look forward to more moisture and good prices and hope things carry on because we're starting to see now in the industry with this moisture. We're starting to see people starting to retain heifers and keep counts like females on the ranch. And that's a good thing like that hasn't happened yet and it's just starting to happen now in the US and Canada. [00:44:27] Speaker A: Okay. [00:44:28] Speaker B: So that's, that's a good thing. These bread prices have come up quite a bit, so people are starting to see some money in the, in the business and, and, yeah. Want to build their cowherds back up. So I hope that continues. [00:44:41] Speaker A: Awesome. You betcha. Sounds like we definitely need that. So it's good to hear. Okay, well, thanks a bunch, Ryan. Thanks for joining me here once again to kick off the month of June. Have a great hedging seminar there in the, in the next. I guess that's going to be just over a week away. So have a great seminar and yeah, have fun out branding as well. [00:44:59] Speaker B: Yeah, you bet. Thank you. [00:45:04] Speaker A: Always great having Ryan on the show with cows in control. He knows his cattle stuff and I clearly do not. But hey, I learned something today as I usually do when he joins. What the futures. All right, let's go now. Let's go to the mailbag section of the show, of course, sponsored by pioneer Seeds. We continue to give away. Jason won this three gallon bucket cooler and breakaway Bluetooth speaker he won for the month of May. But the fun continues here for the month of June. All you have to do is ask a question. It can be a crop marketing question, a farm business question. It can be whatever you want it to be. Ask a question. You get your name entered in to potentially win this great package from Pioneer seeds. Again, nice little cooler for the summer, Bluetooth speaker tunes. While you're out there doing your thing, all you have to do is ask a question. Ryan, at what the Futurespodcast dot C. That is my email. That is the best way to do it. You can try on social media as well, but just easier for me to track them in my, in my email. All right. I had to bring in the banker, Darrell for some help answering these questions because he knows about interest rates and all that good stuff a lot better than, than I do. A Bank of Canada cutting rates by a quarter point here today. But the question came in. I thought it was super interesting and it was about the canola growers advance. CCGA advance. I don't know how to say it exactly, but the advance system and program, I should say. He was comparing his interest rate on his canola growers advance. I should really google what the name of this thing is. And he was comparing the interest rate canola growers against his. This example was input loan from Nutrien. And don't quote me on specific numbers, but we were looking at like 7% interest with the CCGA, 13% interest for Nutrien. Now, I don't know if that's bang on. I'm assuming it's pretty darn close, but. Cash advance. Cash advance. That's what I'm reading. A cash advance program. Okay. Now, in this situation, this farmer was only going to take a quarter million dollars. Qualified for 700,000 or something like that. Was only going to take a quarter million just to have some cash flow for the summer. But the question was, should I take out more? Should I take out the maximum and then use that to pay down my. My nutrien bill sooner, save some interest cost? And for me, I just think of it in very simple terms, as you guys know, that's how I operate here with the futures. But if I can take 13%, pay that off faster with money that's costing me 7%, I'd say that's a little bit of a no brainer. But I did ask Darryl, and Daryl said. Daryl, of course, is with Conexis credit union. He'll be on the show again one day soon. But he says as long as he doesn't need any of that money till fall, he's fine. But nutrien won't re advance that money, right? So they won't re advance the money. If you pay it off, you can't get it read advanced like a bank line of credit. And so he said, that is the only caution. Just, will I need that money for anything else? Then I explained, was only going to take 250. Now it's going to take 700. And he said, yeah, I should be okay. And with prime going down another quarter point, that's even better for him. So, farmers, something to consider. Again, I reach out to smart people, the experts, financial experts. But maybe you can look at this in a similar light, and maybe it makes sense for you. Again, talk to the smart people that are helping you out with your farm business. But hey, again, if I could take money at 7%, less than 7% now, and pay down 13%, I don't know that that's just an easy little win there for you to consider. Now, the other thing I didn't even think about in this situation was that farmer, and I appreciate the question coming in. Maybe he frees up his nutrien account to go and buy summer fertilizer at very, very cheap prices, or some of the lowest prices we're going to see. I don't know. But that's what comes through my mind on this as well. So, cool. Question and on theme here for the show, because question number two, and again, folks, anonymous questions. I'm cool with anonymous questions. So I don't have to say names, but I got a question about storage. Question number two, I'm close to requiring a bit more storage on my farm, and this is on my mind. Would you consider carrying over a bit of canola to May of 2025? The futures were priced now and you built a bin, but I'm considering that futures would put mean above $16 a bushel for May. Best price that I can see for fall seems to be 15. Now, this question was a couple days ago, folks, so shave a dollar off of these prices. So depending on the basis, you could land an extra dollar a bushel to store it and help out with the cost. So I floated that question over to Darrell as well. And he says, ryan, I've had farmers justify bin purchases with that exact justification. If you are buying a 10,000 bushel bin for $4.50 a bushel, your cost here is $45,000. The interest cost on the bin, using 7.5% interest is around $3,400. Amortize that for ten years. Your payment is 32 40 semi annual. If you gain a dollar bushel on your basis, then it makes sense to buy a bin to store the grain. There are a couple things to consider, though, and he says, if you have to use a line of credit or input, fine input financing until May, you're likely paying 11% on the 150 grand. So again, 10,000 bushels times $15. The interest cost of $75,000 for eight months is $5,500. Interest cost on 150K is 11,000. Right? So you got to keep that in mind. Having that grain sit in storage. Is it causing you to pay interest, high interest anywhere else on the farm? CCGA still also has an interest charge in there, primeless, half a percent. And then he said, what if the grain heats in the bin? That's a concern to store it all the way into May, but people do it all the time. But as you store yourself on farm, that is a concern and something that you obviously will have to manage. Is there a cost to hauling out in that timeframe? Do you have to hire trucks instead? Is there any other cost associated with it? Is it just a clean carry it and you're hauling it no matter what type thing? Are there road bands involved? Is there any cost to that? And what about any additional wear and tear? So there, is there any additional costs associated? But if you have good cash flow. Darrell says if you have good cash flow, don't need a line of credit, could pay for the bins in cash. Could you take that money instead and throw it in a GIC for eight months? What would that gain you? Or for ten months? Five, six grand there. And anyway, so that was the response that Darrell had when it came to that question. He says there's lots of things to consider. Bins are not usually a bad investment, but you need to take in a lot of considerations before you purchase them. And then his favorite line at the end is, my brother in law always told me if you really want something, you can justify anything. So great question. Thanks for sending that one in. Hopefully that helps you out a little bit as well in that decision. And when I looked at it, I thought, geez, yeah, gain a, potentially gain a dollar or whatever that scenario is going to be. Seventy five cents a dollar, one twenty five. Kind of a no brainer. But as you can see, the banker, Darrell, his gears are turning and he's got lots of different angles here to consider. So that's it for questions for this week, folks. Keep them coming. Ryan at whatthefuturespodcast ca I know you guys have questions about these crop markets. I know you do. Don't be shy. You could, we could say your name. We don't have to say your name. Let me know the scenario. If you think I can help, send it in and we'll see what we can do. All right, let's, let's go now. Let's go have a conversation with Sabrina from UPL. This is when you get a chance, folks, to answer a very simple question and maybe win yourself a little bit of wave. Okay. So hang in there. Let's get to Sabrina with UPL. All right, folks, as UPL sponsor of the show, studio sponsor in the UPL studio, they've been doing a great job keeping us in the loop on their new products and also giving away some fantastic products for farmers across the prairies. We had a whole month of battalion switching gears. Now we're going to talk about something that has my head spinning. We've got Sabrina Westra joining us from Upl. Sabrina, how's your week going? [00:54:04] Speaker C: It's going great. It's nice to see the sun out again and I'm just excited for the wind to calm down a little bit so I can get back and spray some trials. [00:54:13] Speaker A: Where are you based out of? [00:54:14] Speaker C: I'm based out of Edmonton. [00:54:16] Speaker A: Okay. So we have the same wind then. I'm, I'm in the garage and the wind is just howling outside right now. So hopefully the microphone's doing its job and it's not picking up the wind. All right, so Edmonton, are you all over, like north, the city, south of the city? Like, where are the trials? [00:54:33] Speaker C: So I live in south Edmonton, but I actually do trials. I chase weeds all across Alberta. [00:54:39] Speaker A: Okay. [00:54:40] Speaker C: Yeah. So I have some trials in southern Alberta and I try to keep them around Edmonton so that sometimes I'm sleeping in my own bed. But, yeah, when I'm chasing some of those Lakota and the Russian thistle and that kind of thing, then I'm usually going down south. [00:54:54] Speaker A: Okay. All right. And what brought you to UPL? How long have you been at UPL? What's your role? And what brought you there? [00:55:02] Speaker C: Yeah, I've been at UPL for about two and a half years. I started in September 2021, and I worked at a retail before that. And before that I was in agriculture research for a nonprofit organization. And then after that, for just for one season with another chem manufacturer. And I had a very research background, research focused background. And then I did. Working at the retail gave me a good commercial, some good commercial exposure for a couple years. And then I did miss being more in the field and more small plots. When that opportunity came along with UPL. [00:55:37] Speaker A: I moved into that nice well, my first job in the Edmonton area, I moved from Saskatchewan back in 2007, and my first job was doing some plot trials just south of the city. And I quickly went into grain marketing after that. I couldn't quite get the timing down. When I was spraying those trials, we had this thing we would push along. [00:56:00] Speaker C: Was that the elderly box? [00:56:02] Speaker A: It was just south of Ellerslie. It was back with BSF back in the day. Yeah. And I almost fell in like this in a well, an abandoned well. I was spraying the plot, and then I like, I'm like, I have to jump over this. I, like, jumped over the hole. And then we had to, like, flag it and they looked down like, oh, wow, that. Yeah, that's a bit of a drop there. So anyway, obviously it was too dangerous for me, so I just moved over to crop marketing after that. Okay, so my head is spinning a little bit. We're going to talk about wave. I think about, when I hear about wave, I think about, like, surfing. And on the box it says aquatic plant extract. What are we talking about here? [00:56:44] Speaker C: Okay, so we are talking about a seaweed extract. And wave is actually a very concentrated seaweed extract. [00:56:52] Speaker A: Okay. [00:56:52] Speaker C: And I think when I talk to growers and other agronomists there's quite a few people, I think, who are surprised with how much research there has been on seaweed extracts as a biostimulant, as something beneficial for crops. And this research has been going on for decades. At one point, I believe it was like the late nineties, where some scientists, they were actually trying to figure out how to genetically engineer crops to make their own molecules that you find in seaweed extracts, because they could be quite beneficial to a crop. So it can help with stress mitigation and with stimulating that plant to some growth processes in that plant. In those plants. So, yeah, I know you see aquatic. What is it? Aquatic plant extract. Aquatic plant extract, what is that? But, yeah, there's a pretty established body of scientific research out there on the beneficial effects of seaweed extracts. [00:57:45] Speaker A: And I'm assuming that you're probably going to like Hawaii or like Florida to test this, right? Some nice location. [00:57:54] Speaker C: We source all of our seaweed from the coast of France, which I would also love to visit one day, but I test them all here, and we do have a big research center in North Carolina where we do a lot of work, especially for more north american crops. But in my role, I'm testing them on field crops in Canada. So we're trying to. We're trying to make sure it's a fit here, and so we're going to test it on local crops. [00:58:21] Speaker A: So let's talk about those crops. What are we applying this on, and how do you apply it? [00:58:26] Speaker C: So it's really easy. That's one of the nice things about wave, is it's very easy to use. So we are testing this on canola, on pulses, on cereals and alfalfa. And the nice thing about especially some of the field crops is that it mixes really well with a herbicide or a fungicide, and so you don't have to do another pass. And the nice thing about it being a very concentrated formulation is that the use rate is, it's pretty low per acre. So one jig of our field crops, when you're applying foliar, is generally about 120 acres. So, okay, this is. It's just in that one jug. So, yeah, so you get a lot of mileage out of one jug. [00:59:16] Speaker A: Awesome. All right. 120 acres roughly for a jug now. So when it comes to, like to timing, this is going in with your herbicide. [00:59:24] Speaker C: So it depends on the crop. We've done quite a bit of research to try to figure out the ideal timing per crop. So, with canola, we generally see the like most that we'll see a better yield increase or a more consistent yield increase when it's going on at a second herbicide timing. If you're not doing the second herbicide timing, which I'm sure a lot of people will be doing this year, but if you're not, then the first pass is fine as well. [00:59:54] Speaker A: Okay. [00:59:54] Speaker C: And with pulses, we find that, again, where we're getting the most consistent positive responses and the best sort of larger yield increases is when it's going on first. Fungicide pass. [01:00:07] Speaker A: Okay, so for canola, it's go time pretty quick here. Then as of recording in early June. So. Okay, now what are we looking at for some expectations or results that you've seen working with this product? [01:00:21] Speaker C: So first off, visually in the field, I think that the crops where we can usually see a bit of a visual difference is impulses. Generally we see straighter crops, taller, straighter. There's usually a. A little bit of a quicker row closure, which helps with harvestability and that kind of thing. Having those straighter crops and standability in canola, I'd say visually, it's harder to see something just because canola is such a sprawling crop. But one thing that I've done a couple of times is I've gone out to the field and I have my square meter, my hula hoop or whatever, and I throw it on one side, throw it on another side, the treated side and the non treated side. And I collect plants from both. Then we look at the roots, and that's where wave is. One of the ways it works is it helps plants to direct more resources into their roots. And so generally we can tell in a wave treated field, okay, yeah, you have some better roots on this side. So of course, there's variability across the field and stuff. But, yeah, like, that's one thing that's been kind of neat, is that you can usually see a better root system on the wave side. Yeah. So for yield, in terms of benefits and yield, if we look at the last four years of trials we've done, I think we have over 60 trials, grower trials and small plot trials that we've been doing. And we've generally seen about a 5% increase in yield. So again, this depends on the crop and it depends on the year. So we've actually seen a more consistent increase in yield and better increases when there is like a heat or drought stress, especially in canola. Yeah. Like, that's just. Which makes sense because that's when a bio stimulant is really going to shine. That's when it's helping to protect the viability of some of the cells, it's helping to kickstart some of these drought mitigation or heat stress mitigation pathways in the plant. [01:02:17] Speaker A: I had a guest on a couple weeks ago and he just mentioned from what he was seeing from a weather perspective with this moisture, he was from southern Alberta. But you kind of get a year of shallow roots, like the crop doesn't have to work as hard here with the moisture that we've had. I guess. I don't know. That was his comment. So I kind of think about this in that scenario. I don't know if that makes sense. But as the heat turns up this summer, how deep are those roots going? What can this do for that root system? So that's where my mind goes. [01:02:51] Speaker C: Yeah, that's an interesting idea. [01:02:53] Speaker A: Now, how is wave, how is it different from some of the other bio stimulants that are currently on the market? Whats the big difference that stands out for you? [01:03:03] Speaker C: Its the two biggest differences between wave and other things that are on the market. Actually, theres three, I think the first is the quality of our seaweed extracts. We source our seaweed off the coast of France and its from an area where our raw material, that seaweed, it experiences so many different types of stress. It experiences cold stress, it experiences, it bakes in the summer. Like sometimes it's totally saturated, sometimes the tide is out. So it's a really high quality seaweed. And the second thing that differentiates us is our formulation process. So UPL is a formulations company and we are a biosolutions leader across the world. So we have a good idea of, okay, like we know when we need to make a product, we need to make it as consistent as we can and as user friendly as we can. So our manufacturing process, it really keeps the integrity, the good quality of the seaweed source that we use, because we don't use heat. And we have a patented process that is basically tries to make as uniform as a product as we can. So when we're dealing with a natural source that's experiencing changes throughout the year as we harvest it, then we have measures in place to try and make sure that those jugs of wave are consistent, to try and have a consistent performance in the field. And then the last thing is just, we've done quite a bit of research on trying to figure out when is the best timing and the best rate with this product. So that's another thing I'd say that sets us apart, is we've got a fairly solid a bunch of research going to market with this product. [01:04:44] Speaker A: Okay, awesome. And one final one for you. What's the best way, if I'm farming across the prairies, what is the best way to test this out? [01:04:54] Speaker C: In my field, I really encourage growers to do strip trials and try and get a couple strips in there. And the half and half is, it's fine. But I think strip trials just tells you a lot more and it's just a better comparison because you're going to have variability in your field. And so if you're not isolating those treatments, then it might be some of those differences might get lost in the variability in your field. So strip trials. And the other thing that I think is really good is to try and be aware of what kind of stresses are happening in your field. So this is a really good opportunity to pay attention to a little more closely to the weather. Like, okay, how many days over 30 is your canola seeing while it's flowering? Like, are there areas in your field where you have some salinity issues? So, yeah, it just. I think it would help you gain a little bit more awareness of what kind of stresses your crops are going through. Just pay attention to that. And then the trial, I think it's the best. Yeah, best way to test that out. [01:05:57] Speaker A: Makes sense. Perfect. And farmers, they can get this product from their local retail. Is that where it's at right now? [01:06:04] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. Yeah. [01:06:06] Speaker A: Awesome. All right, so as we were recording, we get to give away a jug of wave. So I thought about the question. All right, Sabrina. And I think this is going to be the question. Where is the seaweed that UPL uses from? Where is the seaweed from? If you know the answer that I. You farm across the prairie provinces, the answer, it's, you just got to back up the show for a few minutes. You'll find the answer in there. Where's the seaweed from? Send that into ryanthatthefuturespodcast. CA that's my email address or text it into 1855-606-1889 just looking for the country. I don't need the beach or the exact spot, but the country on where they get their seaweed from, that'll get you entered in to win a jug of wave, which treats approximately 120 acres. And we will draw for that on next week's episode. Sabrina, thank you so much for joining me. Is there anything else you want to add? [01:07:05] Speaker C: I just want to say I hope everyone has a. Has a safe and a great summer and, yeah, great spring. Season ahead. [01:07:12] Speaker A: Perfect. Thank you so much for joining the show. Have a great spring out there and take care. Again, folks. This show is just all about me learning, learning about aquaculture, seaweed, all that good stuff. That's why I bring these guests in, folks. Everyone's helping me out today. From Sabrina to Darrell to Ryan, everyone's pitching in for this episode. All right. Thank you so much, Upl. It's, it's great. And hey, we're gonna get some wave out there. I know it's a little bit of a tight supply, but Upl did give me a little bit access here. So one of you is going to win some wave and get to apply it on your farm. Now, we're just about at the end of the show. We just have some prices I want to mention here and, and then we've got our eating your veggies at the end and closing remarks. Thanks again for, for hanging in. This is a bit of a longer show here once again, but from a price perspective. Remember last week and the week before? I think I hinted at like six, what was it? 685. The malt barley prices were picking up. I think it was 685. I know central Saskatchewan was 685. And then we got an offer from central Alberta this week, actually. Let's see if I can pull it up here real quick. I just want to make sure I don't, I don't say it the wrong way here, but I want to say it's got a seven in front of it. I want to say it's got a seven and see if I can pop it up here. Yeah. There we go. $7 new crop malt barley, ten bushels to the acre. I'm a seller of malt barley. I was seller at 685 in central Sask. I'm a seller at $7. If you're a malt barley grower, that is a price that you need to take action on. Have fun with it. Get after it. The other thing I want to note here on prices. So those of you that have soft white or feed wheat that deal into some of these ethanol plants, Lloyd Minster specifically, but some of the other ones as well, theyre slow to react when futures rally. Pardon me, but theyre also slow to react when futures pull back. So I got a great offer here into Lloyd Minster. I think it was dollar nine for old crop soft white or feed wheat for summer delivery. Thats the highest price ive seen there in a very long time. So if you are in Lloyd Minster area and you have some of this wheat, reach out to them. And I want to say the new crop offer was 850 for soft white grower at 850. That's pretty good living there. That's, that's pretty good opportunity. I wanted to highlight that on the show. Yeah, I'm just looking at it. $9 July, August, 850 September to December. And I know those folks, you can, you can work with them a little bit, you can grind them a little bit for some, maybe an extra dime or something to cover that freight. So take advantage of that because futures, it's been a rough go here the last week or so and, and I believe this trend continues for the next couple of weeks. So you want to get after that sooner than later for our soft white guys out there in the northern parts of Alberta, Saskatchewan, yellow peas again, I'm seeing 1250s out there. Green peas. I'm seeing upwards of $15 a bushel for green peas again, folks, you got to be selling that green pea at $15. So I hope you are. But we're seeing that a flax, actually flax popped up to $18 a bushel here for old crop and new crop. It was 17 for a very long time. Now it's popped up to dollar 18 and we've been just a little bit bullish flax with less acres being planted here in 2024, but that was a little bit exciting. Central Saskatchewan, I'm seeing some 550 feed barley for old crop. I don't think anyone's that surprised about that. So a lot. Few line companies getting some coverage there. Again, as I said last week, I'm really cleaning up old crop sales. And again, folks, there's been a wave of recommendations here across the prairies. Cleaning up old crop and extending new crop sales from all the big firms, all the guys you subscribe to. You're getting the emails, you're seeing it. There's been a lot of selling going on on these crops. What else stands out here for prices? Malt barley feed. Barley. Feed grains. Canola. Yeah. Oat prices just falling a little bit behind here in central Alberta. We've lost a nickel this week. I think we're at 505 instead of 510. And I think that'll about do it for prices here. I know I got some messages. Bank of Canada dropping interest rates. That should provide some support. And 100% the interest rate drops. Canadian dollar under pressure. The US doesn't drop interest rates anytime soon. Then canadian dollar gets pressured lower. That's good for exports, for us, good for wheat basis. That's why we did a lot of futures first on wheat basis. We'll see. We not sure how that all plays out yet, but, yeah, maybe we'll get a little bump here in lentil values or a little bump in pulses and wheat basis. We'll see. Will it lead to a canola futures bounce? It could, but I was watching a video today. Standard grain is the guy out of the US brings in some great guests as well. His name is Joe, and they were referencing 2009 for wheat as being a reference year, and they were looking at all sorts of different charts today and analysis, and anything can happen. We get surprised all the time. Rallies happen all the time. But they were just showing the setup and of these charts and some of the downward targets that they were watching and. Yeah, it. I don't know. We'll see. Time will tell. It always does. We always learn. But we might see. It wouldn't surprise me if we just saw a couple weeks of downward prices and then we see where we go from there. So, anyway. All right, folks, let's. My favorite segment now, one of my favorites, eating your veggies because it's the right thing to do. Don't forget, if you want your meat and potatoes, check out the lunchbox crew, right? That gets your veggies and your end, your potatoes and meat over there. But four things to focus on. Well, three things, and then just the plug for the lunchbox crew. But I guess what we're working on this week on the farm crop scoutings is happening. We got eyes out there checking things, honing in on that spray plan on how we're going to accomplish spray, what we're gonna all mix out there and apply. And the guys are cleaning and fixing equipment before they put it away. This. This blows my mind. My brother's all over this, but fixing equipment before he puts it away. I'm old school, man. You put that thing away broken, and then when you need it again, you fix it. Not him. He fixes it and then puts it away. So good on him for doing that. Of course, I handle a lot of the financial side, so I'm just doing contract maintenance, just reviewing all my contracts with all my grain companies for 24 for fall of 25, and that's going to help me decide my next strategies and targets. My. My next part of my plan. I've executed my plan to date, and I'm going to zone. Well, focus in on now on my plan moving forward. I had a bit of a loose plan. I'm going to dial that in now as these crops mature and move along and get sprayed and see how things are looking. And of course, we're applying for our CCGA advance, our cash advance, pardon me, as well. And I think it's a tool out there. Again, I'm not a financial expert by any means, but it's something for you to potentially look at pros and cons to it, just like everything else. But hey, like the example in the mailbag today, I think that was interesting and a good decision there. And lastly, just check out the lunchbox crew again. If you want to work a little bit more intimately with myself there, there's options at Ryanton e ca, and you can go and check out the lunchbox crew there. We're not doing anything on fertilizer right now. We're letting the dust settle between planting season and inventory. So we're staying a little bit quiet there. And then what was the other thing I wanted to throw? Oh, I guess if we want to throw in a fifth year fall of 2025, prices have not fallen as hard on wheat. Kansas wheat, Minneapolis wheat. If you feel like you have to, you haven't done anything. The easy, the low hanging fruit is to go out there and grab more 2025 stuff. Get that done. Wheat specifically canola had a rough go, but wheat is hanging in there. Okay, again, questions? I'm a person. Email me. Reach out to me. Good chance you'll get an answer from me and happy to try to help out in closing, prices may change by the time we record and send out this podcast again. Most recording is done Wednesday. Podcast goes out Friday morning. Prices can change again. Seek out your experts in the space. Reach out to them for help on some of this stuff. Crop marketing, et cetera, financial stuff. This is just a free podcast you tune into, and I was once told I wasn't an expert, so I'm going to stick with that for now. If you'd like to be a guest on the show, send me an email. Head to the website. That's it, folks. Have a good weekend. I'm out of here.