Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Well, folks, this week I've got Maury Miklitch with Pro Grow Agriculture. He's going to join me. We're going to talk about type stuff. Fertilizer is touch more expensive. So we're going to talk about that. We also have Chuck Penner joining me this week fresh off the beach. Chuck is going to cover acreage ideas for Canada. We're going to talk about should we pump the brakes a little bit? Should we slow down when it comes to marketing the 20, 26 crop? That and so much more. Right around the corner. Episode 113 of the what the Futures podcast.
Hey, folks, welcome to the what the Futures Podcast, your quick guide to better farming decisions.
All right, folks, welcome into episode 113 of the what the Futures podcast, of course, recorded each and every week in the UPL studio. And I need to start off here with a disclaimer right off the bat because my wife looked at me this week and said, who's Tony and why are you wearing that silly hat? I have to just clarify that no Tonys were hurt in the recording of this week's episode.
And Tony at upl, for those that know Tony works in marketing at upl. This, sorry, dude, this was not meant for you. Chantel got my head kind of spinning when I, when I put the hat on and she, she said that was more. That's a morbid hat. Ryan. Who is Tony and what is going on? Tony, you're safe. This is not a message to you at all. All right, you're good. All right, folks, again, I hope everyone's having a fantastic week. It's been a wild one. Of course. After putting out last week's episode, we've now have a major conflict in the Middle East.
Something that, you know, some folks out there, some analysts, some experts calling the, the next big old bullish commodity run of our, of our generate, not our generation. That's not the right way to say it, but the next big one, right? The next big one talks of where crude oil is going to go here.
Talks about how this is going to progress in Iran across the Middle East. Not just Iran. You've got the news pouring in faster than you can update your phone. There's a new headline, a new story, something urgent. And it is, yeah, it's a bit of a mess now. You know, for me over here, I obviously the, you know, on cup of coffee on, on Tuesday, we talked through some of the stuff. But I, I also just want to remind folks, there's, you don't have to look at all the headlines. You don't have to read every single thing about what's going on.
You know, do do as best you can out there, but just remember to bring it back to the farm, bring it back to your farming operation.
And something that we talked about going all the way back to December of 2025 was just taking advantage of, of markets. You know, when they, when they give you a reason where, when you see that sharp rally and they give you a reason to take a peek at that and take advantage of that. And then when, of course, they dip and, and, you know, fall off the cliff to, you know, be patient. Right. So this is one of those events that, hey, is this the next golden age, golden era of, of commodities? Heck, I don't know.
Canola trade over 700 bucks. Bean oil climbing higher, along with crude and heating oil and ultra low sulfur diesel. You know, it's, it's interesting and it's, it's fun times to see canola over 700 bucks. All right, this episode's pretty packed. We got Maury with Pro Grow joining me. We, you know, we chat farming. We chat, swap maps, efficiencies. Always great and candid conversation with Maury. I also have Chuck Penner fresh off the beach from Puerto Vallarta. The man, the myth, the legend stares down the cartel in Puerto Vallarta, enjoys his vacation.
Great time on the beach is what Chuck said. Didn't even notice the smoke around him. And back to tell the tales and survival of Puerto Vallarta. I shouldn't kid because it was stressful for a lot of people and obviously a painful situation. But now Chuck was there. All right, so we're going to talk acreage numbers. We're going to talk about, you know, some of the crappy new crop bids out there and what to do right now if you're, you know, looking at planting these crops in 26. Now, what to, what to do? All right. Okay. Now I want to get into a quick, positive moment here before we get to Maury.
And the first week of March for myself and for my family is. It's always a tough one. It's a tough one. If, if you have followed the show here the last couple of years. My daughter eva was born March 3, 2019, 1:58am and, and sadly passed a few hours later that same, that same morning.
And so, you know, my experience and my journey through baby loss is.
I'm sure you can find it on, on past episodes or if you check out Trent Clarenback's the episode I'M on with Trent. I talk about it there. It's a week that, you know, Evo is turning seven. Would be seven this week. And it's just one of those complicated weeks.
It's one where you sit there and you celebrate seven years old. And as a family, we decided years ago that we would celebrate Eva's birthday and we would celebrate it as a family.
And so we made cupcakes on. On Sunday.
We decorated them all together on Monday. Monday night, we decorated the house with happy birthday. And the kids, you know, just super involved and. And as they get older, lots of. Lots of questions. Will has had questions for a couple years, but Finn now is at three years old. He's got some questions about Eva and his big sister and. And what's going on. So Eva, you know, looking, you know, taking care of us from. From up in the stars as we. As we say to the kids. And this week, the, like, we have a.
A cabinet of. Of mementos. If I'm not gonna go to great detail in.
In this, but this is the most important stuff in my life, essentially, is what's. What's in here, because it's what I have. It's what I have left of. Of that.
Of my. You know, of my daughter. Right? So we made a book, our story, Eva's story and that journey.
And so this.
This week, we put her stuff and. On the table and the book and. And all that stuff, and the book was gone. The book was gone from the table, and I could just hear in the background, I could hear Willa reading the story, and.
And I look in. In the other room, and Finn's sitting beside her, and Willa's five and a half.
[00:07:47] Speaker B: She.
[00:07:47] Speaker A: She, you know, she's starting to pick up reading and stuff, but, you know, but anyways, this kid is sitting there, and she's flipping the pages and telling her little brother, you know, the story of. Of Eva. And Finn's asking all sorts of questions, and Will has got answers. And honestly, I wish. I wish I would have been able to record it, but.
But it was. It was pretty special. So we. We went to the water. Water park, the. The wave pool on. On Tuesday, we went out for birthday lunch, and. And we celebrated. And.
And, yeah, it's just a, you know, a bittersweet week, more bitter than sweet.
But again, I, you know, I put the phone away for the day with everything going on in the world. I messaged the lunchbox crew and said, hey, you know, this is the. The story. This is the day. And you Know, it's one of very few that I park the phone, but it's an important one. So park the phone. Spend time as a family. And that's one of Eva's gifts to us is that we, you know, as a family take time to be with each other and talk about her and yeah, celebrate her birthday. So in honor of her. In honor of Eva, I wanted to do something a little bit more this year. This has been on my mind here for, for quite some time, but we're going to do a, a little charity auction. It's kind of last minute and we're going to go over the list here in a second, but we're going to auction off some items over the next week or so.
And we're going to send 50% of the. The monies collected are going to go to the perinatal bereavement program at the lowest Hole Hospital for Women in Edmonton, Alberta.
And the other 50% of the funds are going to go to the Briar Patch Community Preschool where my kids, both my kids attend preschool right now. And in a very like, weird coincidence, the first time that I had, you know, professional counseling after losing Eva was in that space in that room where my kids go to preschool now. That's where my first counseling session was. So.
So anyways, I, they've got a few things that they're saving up some money for. I don't know what those are. I will share that as we get going here, but, but that's what we're going to do. And then for the lowest whole hospital for women again, every hospital has a version of this.
But if you like many Canadians and folks around the world, but many Canadian, Canadian families go through and experience baby loss. There are a team, you know, of people that are trained at the hospitals to guide you through this type of journey. You know, in our case, we received, you know, a baby blanket, a little hat. Little baby hat.
We received teddy bear and just like a box of.
Of of.
Yeah, I don't know if mementos is is the right word here, but just items that, that you end up cherishing for, for the rest of. Of your days because that's what. It's what you have. Right. So the money collected goes to that program and it can be as, as simple as, you know, restocking the, the teddy bears or some of the supplies. And it can be as, as, you know, complex as refurbishing the rooms for the families that are going through those events.
There are a couple of different delivery rooms in that Hospital that are set aside that if a family is going through that type of event of suffering a loss, they're decorated a little bit differently, they're set up a little differently, they're larger and it just gives you a bit more comfort as you're going through that. So funds can go to that in honor of baby Eva. So we're going to do that this week. We've got some hockey tickets, four tickets. Edmonton Oilers versus the Anaheim Ducks on March 28th in Edmonton, Alberta.
So if you want to take the family to a hockey game, we've got a lunchbox crew subscription, one year membership and it comes with the, the actual steel lunchbox is that. Actually there's one behind me in the studio.
We've got two tickets for the Crop Marketing Make Cool conference in Brandon, Manitoba. Uh, we've got a, uh, curling, uh, jersey actually. Uh, if you remember the Lebras, uh, from northeast Saskatchewan. They, they went to the curling trials, came back with a signed extra large jersey. Brad Jacobs Bright Galant signed that. And so we're going to auction that off. They sent that in the mail to me as a thank you and said, hey Ryan, you know, if you want to use this in a fundraiser, go for it. I also have the last hat from last year's fundraiser with UPL and the CCAW and a crib board as well. That was from Moosejaw from our event there. So a couple of items and again folks, if I appreciate everyone's bids and everyone's efforts in helping me raise a bit of money here, but don't be a stranger. If you have an opportunity, if you've got a couple of bucks this week, you can go to your local community hospital, your local hospital where they deliver babies. They will have a program like this in your local community. And I just encourage you to seek out that those folks and if you have a couple bucks for them, I'm sure they could use it as well. So thank you so much for, for listening to my story here as we kick off, get into the episode of, of this week and yeah, in honor of baby Eva. It just, honestly folks, just helps. I'll be able to talk about, about her for another week or two as we go through this. And just something you don't get a chance to do as often as you'd think or as often as you get to when you go through something like this. So I do appreciate that.
Now just to segue out of that, we did launch March 1st. We're doing the hat contest again in partnership with UPL and the Canadian Centre for Agricultural well Being. Now, this last year's winner was Paisley Bunder as well.
Well documented. She's a heck of a job. And we're doing it again. We're running it back again. So you can head to Ryan, Denis, ca. Go to the website, print off the. The. The picture here. Basically, hard to see with my wonderful bright lights, but we'll get the editors to throw in an image there.
But it's basically the hat. You get to design this thing. We're not going to tell you what to do, how to do it. You pick the colors, you pick the. The design.
We're going to narrow that down to five after April 11, we'll do a vote on it. Everyone will get to vote. We'll pick a winner, and then we'll send them off, send the design off to double portion supply in Maui, Hawaii, of all places. And they're going to bring that hat to life for us.
You can only get it at the UPL booth at Egg and Motion in July. That is it. Those three days, that's how you get your hands on that beauty of a hat. All right.
Okay.
This week's cup of coffee with Quinton from JGL Capital was an absolute blast, folks. I don't have to tell you, this is the time if you want to hear somebody cooking, if you want to hear that sizzle on the grill, it's the brokers out there, it's the farm advisors out there, you know, spending every waking hour, every waking moment cooking up strategies, figuring out how to manage, you know, crop sales in this environment and, and quitting with a couple of dandies in this week's episode. So go and check that out. It's. If you don't, if you can't catch it live, it does get sent out as a, as a podcast and as a YouTube video later on that day. So go check that out. There's some good, some good sizzle in. In that episode. All right, well, while I got you on that topic, why don't you go ahead and hit that subscribe button for me on YouTube or wherever you listen to your podcasts. And this community grows through you. It grows through you telling your farming friends and neighbors. And I certainly, I do appreciate that. So if you want to, if you enjoy the work here, then please, please pass it along.
All right, folks, shout out to show sponsor John Deere.
John Deere Operations center is, uh, a key part for our farm. When we look at, you know, efficiencies, when we look at analysis, going over previous year's results to help influence some better decisions for this next year. Monitor, monitor job quality and productivity. You can do that in real time. It's just a key tool on our farm operations. So head over to John Deere, catch. You will find more info on John Deere Operations Center. Of course, it is a free to use program from John Deere and anybody can give it a whirl. So go ahead and, and check that out.
All right, let's get into it now with Maury Miklitch from Pro Grow.
All right, folks, I've got Maury Miklitch joining us here once again from Pro Grow Egg Proro Agriculture. Mory, it's, it's been a minute. You helped us with some planning back in the fall when I like to get work done. But how's your winter been? How you been keeping good?
[00:18:02] Speaker B: We're both still standing, so that's good news. He's both back, so that's always good to see. None of us have bit the dust yet.
[00:18:08] Speaker A: So I, I think last time you were on, you were either wearing a Red Sox jersey or a Blue Jays jersey or something like that. I think that was the last time. Hey.
[00:18:18] Speaker B: Yeah. No jerseys today. No. The Oilers are not playing good enough for me to justify wearing an Oilers jersey.
[00:18:23] Speaker A: So I surprised myself this morning when I woke up and saw that they won in overtime. That was not the score when I was shutting down last night.
[00:18:31] Speaker B: So oiler fashion. Typical oiler fashion.
Yeah.
[00:18:36] Speaker A: So, you know, you're chatting with farmers, you know, across like central North, Central Alberta. Well, maybe even further now since we last spoke. But you know, how, how's it been going out there? How's the planning been going and what themes are you kind of picking up on?
[00:18:52] Speaker B: This year is going to be the year where we try and find as many crumbs as we can. It's, it's, it's a year of trying to mitigate that risk, any unnecessary risk. We want to take that off the table. It's.
I wouldn't call it a mindset, a mind set reset. Kind of a tongue twister there.
[00:19:15] Speaker A: Yeah, put that on a T shirt.
[00:19:17] Speaker B: Yeah, but just changing the way a guy maybe thinks a little bit, it's, it's okay, let's slug it on and hope for the best. I don't necessarily know if that would be the, the best philosophy this year. It's more of a mathematical, okay, where do we want to be dollars per acre?
Fields that have consistently underperformed maybe should finally start getting that special Treatment and us being realistic on this particular set of land that we never really have before. So just a bit of a mind shift almost. That's, that's been kind of the, the big thing this year.
[00:19:51] Speaker A: The growers you work with, I, I'll make the assumption here that, you know, they're working with you, so they're, they're quite dialed in.
Have you seen, like, precision, you know, analysis on, on that quarter by quarter like you do, Obviously you're working with, you know, variable rate technology or, you know, you do swap maps. You're, you're out there making sure you put the right stuff at the right spot. Has there been even more focus this winter on that precision or is it kind of been the same as past years?
[00:20:28] Speaker B: Yeah, honestly, a lot of that will boil down to just the quality of data the farmer provides himself. So, like, everyone likes to come back to yield data. Yield data is good to ground through some of this stuff.
If you're not calibrating monitors and, and that sort of thing regularly, maybe isn't the most accurate. If you're not calibrating your, your moisture, like, pretty tough to get an accurate gauge on what's actually occurring. If your moisture is way out of whack, if your yield is way out of whack and not calibrated, those things help a lot just to calculate kind of your profit analysis. So say this particular, the field went 50 bushel.
This particular part of the field went 35. Well, how much am I in the negative here and how much am I in the positive here? It helps break down the, the financial aspect of it and sort of ground truth, what I'm doing.
But for me, for the most part, I'm basing off of, on the VR fert side, it's where are we likely going to run out of moisture?
Just kind of make life easier on the, on the agronomic, on the ground side and at the same time when you know, all right, this is Sandy, if we don't get rain, it's gonna cook off. We probably shouldn't be doing the same rate there as we do in some of the better stuff. It just, yeah, there's. Honestly, there's a lot it. Every farm is different. I would say. I don't have one single farm that gets treated like the other. Everyone has their own recipe, if you want to call it that. And that's what it should be. No farm is the same. No land is the same.
It's. It's kind of unique.
[00:22:06] Speaker A: So more you like go time for you Is like you barely get the combines, you know, cleaned off and put in the shed and it's go time for you and your organization.
I need to ask, like, is it too late now in March? Like, is it already too late? If someone wants to work on, on the VR side and get, get some efficiencies for 2026, can they still, like, reach out to you and, and try to put a plan together last minute? Or are we just kind of past that for the growing or for the year?
[00:22:41] Speaker B: We're kind of spring stuff. I typically, if a guy has never done it or just isn't familiar with the process of what I do or what like the SWAT map process is, I would typically only do a quarter or two just so they can try it and get comfortable.
[00:22:55] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:22:56] Speaker B: And then make the decision from there. I really do not like it all unless you've been around it. It's not a well, do everything. Usually that doesn't work great.
It's more of a try it, you know, feel it out, see what it looks like and go from there type of thing. So I would maybe do a quarter or two and that's even that. Like, I really do not like doing spring stuff because I'm like, when I take the mapper out, there's ruts. I get stuck. Like, it just is not. Yeah, not great.
So it's possible, just a little more temperamental.
[00:23:33] Speaker A: All right, fair enough. All right. No, now I want to ask, you know, you're really, you know, dialed into the, the local ag community. You hear a lot of stuff like, what do you feel or do you get the sense that most farms were bought up on FERT before the U.S. attacked Iran here this past weekend, like, or did you see Monday some scramble out there? And I don't know if that's a fair question to ask you, but I know that you are quite dialed in most days. So, you know what, what, what do you think around that comment?
[00:24:03] Speaker B: I would say most probably 75 to 80% are done. Like booked up done.
You always have a certain block that will be spring pick, spring pay. And that's. That's fine. That's just the way it is for some farms. Cash flow, whatever. There's no like, whatever. That's just the way it is.
I no one really like, I had some. I was dealing with one guy this morning. He just stopped following the. After he booked in August, he had just stopped paying attention to what was going on.
I was like telling them today, like, yeah, urea's 1050 a ton.
Oh, I guess I booked pretty good. Then it's like, well, yeah, it's kind of funny how some guys just drop off and don't follow it. So I, I wouldn't say there's a bunch of panic. It's. Some are actually looking forward to next year.
[00:24:49] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:24:50] Speaker B: It's say I have a farm who's three quarter mapped.
It's okay. Book us in for the last little bit. Even though it is like short term rental or whatever. It's just to try and get ahead and save. Whatever. If there's room to save, if they can try and save that. Everyone's looking forward to that.
I would say optimism for the next year is this year is low. I would say next, like looking forward is the same. Everyone is starting to pl. Like it's crazy actually. Just moving, looking the goal post into 20. What would that be? 20, 27.
[00:25:25] Speaker A: Yeah.
A little more optimism.
[00:25:28] Speaker B: Yeah. It's trying to get a plan together anyways. Like not realistically. I haven't talked to one guy who's optimistic that we're gonna see like, yeah, it's the farm. It's not re. Like the retail saying it. So I, I get it. No, like there's not a whole lot of optism. We'll see urea with a six, so. Oh, yeah. Even if it. Yeah, even. Even if it's with an 8. Like it doesn't take long to start saving money on 800 a ton.
[00:25:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:25:54] Speaker B: So guys are just looking at that. It's future planning now.
[00:25:59] Speaker A: So future planning, expenses staying higher and trying to be as efficient as. As possible on those acres. Looking into 20, 27. Yeah, I, I'm. I'm feeling a little more optimistic. You know, maybe I'm drinking too much tea here. I don't know what's going on at my house. But you know, I am trying to feel, and I'm feeling more optimistic that margins are going the right way. Maybe I'm a little early, um, but I don't know. I'm trying to be more optimistic. So there we go.
[00:26:30] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:26:31] Speaker A: All right.
Anything else going on with. With program that knew from when we chatted you guys were going hard all winter. Yeah. Anything new on the business front?
[00:26:42] Speaker B: No, still just trying to, like, I'm not trying to be a big thing. Like I want to treat every customer the same. Everyone gets that same experience. So that like that is my, my winner. It is. As soon as the sampler stops, it's behind the computer talking with everybody.
That's my. Up till April when I'm delivering Everything that is what it's going to be. So it's. I probably need more help but just, just to provide the experience I want everyone to have it. It's pretty time consuming so it's rewarding. In the same time it's just I, I don't break any ground speed records.
Yeah, it's. It's small shot like typical small shop experience. Like it takes a bit more time but at the same time the service you get makes it worthwhile.
[00:27:34] Speaker A: Yep. Yeah, no, I get that for sure. I get that on, on the, on you know, when working one on one with farms that, that's certainly appreciated.
I was going to ask one more thing. Oh yeah. So, so now it's like the planning has been in. In motional winter but now you're. Now you deliver right like you deliver the. I don't know what even the prescriptions. I guess the, like the magic kind of happens now as, as people get the, the. The four wheel drive fueled up and the. And that new John Deere drill out of. Out of the shop. Like that's.
[00:28:11] Speaker B: You get things loaded up depending on, depending on brand like John Deere Seedhawk or I guess Vader Stad. Now the new BOR goes. I don't even really have to see the tractor. It's all done over the cloud.
I'll just go out and drop off their Bibles, their rate sheets, kind of instructions, that sort of thing.
Some other drills you still do have to use the usb which is fine. I have to, I hit every farm physically regardless. It's just to get that Bible, instructions and troubleshooting tips, that sort of thing. And I, I just like it like that's the best part of the job is going out and seeing everybody and seeing the machinery, working with the machinery. If it wasn't for that, I, I think I'd have it. Like I'm kind of nerdy, whatever. But the, the social aspect is the best part of the job. So it's good to see everybody and all that planning. You can see it as soon as it boots up in the monitor and it works. That's a.
Okay. All the hard work paid off and it's actually looking like it's going to work.
[00:29:09] Speaker A: Relief.
[00:29:10] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:29:12] Speaker A: Good good stuff. All right man. You farm as well. You know, any big, any big changes for the farm in 2026, you. I know what crop you really liked last year.
Assuming those acres stayed in for this year. But any, any acre changes, anything big happening on the farm for 26 gonna
[00:29:34] Speaker B: be a lot of Drill cleanings. A lot of drill cleanings. I think we got five or six different crops on the go for this coming year, so we're usually pretty flexible on the crop rotation anyways, but barley's come back, oats has come back, acre has grown.
My brother seems to have flax on a quarter on paper, so we'll see if that one holds, but good. Yeah, just. Just trying to spread that risk out a little bit. Like, you look at that. Yeah. That wheat dollar, it's like, oh, man, if I can find. Like, if I can find something to help take something other than canola, I should say to help take some of that red away, that would help a lot because. Yeah, even at 7, what you can get 770, 780 now, like, off the combine, that's.
You still need a pretty strong crop to get that dollar up there to where it needs to be.
So.
Yeah.
And see what happens.
[00:30:34] Speaker A: I need a lot of crop to make that number work on our farm for sure, so. All right, man. Well, appreciate it. I like the strategy. Spray the field with some different crops, see what happens. And of course, you know, some of them come with some starting points for pricing that maybe. Yeah, are. Are terrible that you can get started on some of these crops, so Not a bad thing. So awesome, buddy. Well, I appreciate you joining the show this week.
You know, when you're out there, keep the retail. Keep that fertilizer market in check for us. You know, get. Make sure you. You grind them down for us a bit and get these prices lower, because this is baloney.
We need to save some money somewhere. So.
[00:31:13] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. This has been a year where I thought I was fairly in tune with all the markets, all the products on the marketplace. It was a rude awakening this year. There's a lot of stuff that's being pedaled around that.
Well, I have never heard of that before, so it's. It's been quite interesting.
[00:31:29] Speaker A: New and improved. Just use this and your problems go away.
[00:31:33] Speaker B: Yeah, rebrands. Yeah, I would call it. Some have had a strategic rebrand where it's like, oh, what is that? And then you read it up. Oh, they just changed the name.
[00:31:44] Speaker A: Oh, man. Yeah, everything. Everything's out there this year for sure, but.
All right, man. Well, appreciate you being on the show, and we'll stay in. Stay in touch.
[00:31:52] Speaker B: Yeah, thanks, Ryan. Thanks for having me.
[00:31:57] Speaker A: Well, thank you, Mori, for being on this week's episode for crop marketing. We're going to. We're actually going to do a little bit of a.
A change here. I think, I think unless there's like a, a tremendous amount of uproar, I think eating your veggies is going to, is going to disappear or transform it to something else. All right. I don't know if it's a mix of grain prices, market headlines and strategy, but I'm, I'm rethinking eating your veggies again. If you think that eating your veggies should stay as a segment on this show, let me know. But it's been like two plus years of eating your veggies.
And I was thinking the other day, I don't know if that. I don't know if I should be.
Maybe I should rework that. All right, so that, that's been on my mind here for March anyway, so let me know, hit me up in the comments if we should keep that segment. But for this week, for crop marketing, what I'd like to just highlight here again, number one, I continue to preach until I'm blue in the face that, you know, figuring out strategies, figuring out how to tackle, how you want to tackle your crop marketing this spring, having those strategies that if the market turns on you again. It's been a great couple of months here, guys. Like, it's been awesome for canola wheat. Markets are waking up a little bit. We're not that excited about them, but they're waking up.
There are things you can do to prepare yourself for some. Something weird happens where the market just falls out or even strategies where. Now for me, you know, you break above 700 here and you say, okay, well, I did do some sales the last few weeks. Am I confident enough that I want to go and take on a little bit of a re ownership type strategy? Am I confident enough to go and say, you know what, maybe this thing does have 20, 30, 40 bucks a ton in it? Or maybe I don't know what's going to happen in the Middle East. I don't know how intense this war is going to get. I don't know what's going to be impacted from shipping corridors or resources or are our country is going to wake up and say, oh man, you know what? Like, we got a major event going on here around the world. Maybe we want to stock up on some stuff. Maybe we want to stock up on some commodities. Maybe we want to. Maybe we're worried about the flow of traffic and we want to have a little more barley on hand or a little more weed. Like that would be amazing if we were to see something like that, right? And so you can even look up strategies on those. Just little re ownership type stuff. The other thing too, buying diesel. Right now, a lot of farms are pulling the trigger on the weekend, on Monday, trying to buy before that big price increase. Maybe you didn't get a chance to do that. Maybe you're staring down a buck 35 a liter on diesel instead of 97 cents.
So do you buy it? And if you do, if the price goes up, you're fine. You sit there and say, well, thank goodness I bought it. But for some reason, if it dropped, what strategy do you have in your hip pocket to execute on if it drops? Because that is the painful stuff when you buy it. Expensive and then it drops. Or when you sell it cheap and then it goes up. Right, so those are strategies that you can look at as well. All right, now from a headline perspective here, where we're early March, it's all about the Middle east right now. You've got the uncertainty and you kind of have that initial.
I don't know if you guys remember Ukraine, Russia, how you guys felt during that time. I know how I felt. I remember like the sleepless kind of nights watching the, you know, social media, trying to get a handle on what was going on.
Kind of a similar thing this weekend. Man, it was busy this weekend, I think. Lunchbox crew.
We were chatting about this all day Saturday.
Saturday night I was late and I was like, you know what, guys, I'll do a pod first thing in the morning. And then I gave like a homework list. These are four things you need to do.
And.
And then we. And then we did those four on Sunday and then we had four other. Some were a duplicate of Sunday, but a couple new things to tackle on Monday as well. So anyways, it was a busy weekend. Lots going on. We don't know. Right. We don't know where this is, where this is all going, but you've got a little bit of a pullback here.
Maybe not a pullback, but certainly prices weren't as exciting as I record this Wednesday evening as they were earlier in the week.
And then what's next? You know, is this a softening for a few weeks? Does the war get more intense and then we see it spike back up?
Yeah, some people are speculating that this is a very normal pattern when these events break out. There should be a little softening here. And then it gets even wilder again, folks, I wish I had the answers, but, you know, you can do yourself a lot of help yourself out a lot by just figuring out your strategies now in both situations. You know, how to play defense if this thing starts to pull back, how to remain on the offense, you know, on the offensive side of. Of the ball, per se, if this thing finds even more strength to it. Yeah. All right, folks, let's get into it here again. Fresh off the beach, I believe. Chuck said he crushed four books on the beach, and I did ask if they were Archie comic books, and he said no, so I didn't actually get the titles of those books, but I will try to the next time we chat. So here it is, my interview with Chuck Penner of Left Field Commodities.
Chuck Penner with Left Field Commodities joins us here once again on the what the Futures podcast. Chuck, welcome back from vacation.
[00:37:59] Speaker C: Well, it's good to be home, sort of.
[00:38:02] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:38:03] Speaker C: Came home, they had to do some snowing, snow blowing and things like that, but yeah, that's not bad. But it is good to be back again. We were in Puerto Vallarta and. Well, close to it anyway. And.
[00:38:13] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:38:14] Speaker C: Realized how distorted the. The media and social media both are or how deliberately misleading, not just to get the story wrong, but. Yeah, like they know their lot. They're. Anyway, whatever.
[00:38:27] Speaker A: That's so what you're saying.
[00:38:29] Speaker C: Or they were safe and sound, dodged the bullets and all of that kind of stuff.
[00:38:33] Speaker A: Yeah. So you were in Puerto Vallarta when. When things got exciting and you're here to tell the story. You're here.
[00:38:41] Speaker C: I can tell you stories, Ryan. Boy, oh boy. Yeah, we lay on the beach and didn't hear a thing and. Yeah.
[00:38:47] Speaker A: Well, that's good, Chuck. That's good. Nice. Nice that you got away and probably. What a little quieter on resort for you? Did you guys kind of have the whole place to yourselves or.
[00:38:56] Speaker C: Yeah, it got. It got pretty empty by the end, I guess. Lots of people canceled and. And that's just, you know.
You know, that's. That's what it is. But I feel bad for the workers there, and that's their livelihood and they're getting their shifts cut and things like that, so it's. Yeah, that's. That was, to me, was the biggest issue with. With the whole thing. Yeah.
[00:39:15] Speaker A: We took a peek. We took a peek to see. Cause we heard part of Puerto Vallarta was on sale, so we took a peek to see if we should head out. Head down there right away.
[00:39:22] Speaker C: So I bet your real estate's getting a little cheaper, too, so if you want to invest.
Yeah.
[00:39:27] Speaker A: Tight window to do this, but let's go. Yeah, you bet. We've got lots going on in the world, right? Now we've had a rally in, in a lot of our, our commodities before. Even this new war on, on Iran started this last weekend.
Yeah, I guess what, is there anything kind of catching your attention as we I guess start the month of March here when looking at no specialty crops or anything in general?
[00:39:56] Speaker C: Well, yeah, I mean there's a, there's a number of things going on and you know, I think canola has probably been the biggest beneficiary, you know, partly, you know, due to oil prices going up and stuff like that. You know, although that link is, you know, some people think it's real strong link, you know, others not so much. You know, we saw the bigger jump I think when China confirmed that the lower tariffs on canola seed were happening. That certainly helped the picture. One thing that I've noticed just as a bit of a whenever like, because we track the trade of canola oil and canola meal and things like that and then we track the production of it as well to what we're putting out from Canadian crushers and so on. And notice that in the last, well this year so far for sure that the percentage of oil and meal that we're using domestically has gone up.
Okay. And I, and I think that's probably partly a pricing related thing. If it's harder to find a home for your canola meal, you discount it. And so then the domestic feeders and stuff like that will start using canola meal more, that sort of thing, you know, whether that sticks or not, once, you know, now that we have the trade lanes open again and that sort of thing, whether that sticks or not, that's going to be kind of a bit of an interesting thing. But you know, we'll see whether the, you know, we're using 35% of our canola oil production domestically in the so far in 25, 26 and that's up from probably about 25%. So that's a real change.
And meal, it's lower but it has also increased as well too. So that would be great. I mean that's something that the Canola Council has been working on for decades is to increase domestic consumption. So, you know, so that's a positive thing. But yeah, we'll see whether how those, how those things change, especially now that we can ship more readily to China and, and so on and so on.
[00:41:50] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. So, so Friday you're on the beach, but Friday we get the get word that China's lifting the tariff on peas and canola meal, I think was in that one and I don't know, some seafood as well, lobster maybe, I can't remember.
And then Saturday morning the canola seed one gets reduced to 14.9%.
But how long is this for? Is this.
I read five years on one report and then I also read nine months,
[00:42:21] Speaker C: I think on the meal and the peas and things like that. That's to the end of 2026. Okay. And for the seed, that's the one that I think is the five year deal. And to be clear, like there is a 9% import tariff on, you know, that's been there. That applies to everybody. So the actual difference for Canadian canola seed I think is 6% compared.
That's not enough to really get in the way of trade or things like that. So, so yeah, those are, those are positive things. And even the nine month thing for, you know, the 2026 thing for, for meal and peas and things like that, you know, I think that's kind of a bit of a, a bit of
[00:43:02] Speaker B: a
[00:43:05] Speaker C: twist or a bit of a, an influence to say, you know, Mark Carney better not get too uppity in the next while and then we'll, and then we'll extend it, but just a bit of a, you know, you know, keep your, keep your elbows down when it comes to China and, and then we'll extend it type of thing.
[00:43:21] Speaker A: Just a quick aside. So I took my kids to Monster Truck, this monster truck thing on Sunday.
And this poor fellow from the US One, his monster truck is called Elbows up.
And he's from Phoenix, Arizona and he's driving this truck. And I like, I got there and I'm like, mark Carney has a monster truck. I'm like. And then I like they introduced him and everything. I'm like, oh, this poor guy is his elbows up all the time. But I think maybe, maybe that's where Carney got it from. Maybe he saw that same, same track. I was like, that's a great one. I'm going to use that.
[00:43:55] Speaker C: But I thought I saw him at the last, last event there. Yeah.
[00:43:59] Speaker A: All right. So we've got a very, you know, intense situation, you know, that's developed in the Middle East. We've got, I can't figure out who's all getting bombed and who is not. It's, it's very hectic over there. Is there any concern in this chaos, you know, for specialty crops? Is there any concern that, you know, moving lentils or peas to that region could be, I guess, a worry or, or delayed?
[00:44:34] Speaker C: Well, I think that is a, that is A real concern.
One of the, one of the new entrants or not one of the entrants, one of the countries that's entered the special crop, the pulse business in a bigger way in the last, say two to three years has been uae.
And so that would be, probably be the most concerning with respect to shipping or shipping costs, even insurance costs of getting the product there, those types of things. I think that one is one that could be affected by this more so than Turkey isn't really part of, it's still a bit outside that scope, although you never know how big this thing could, could get to things like that.
Other countries in, like Egypt and whatever so far again are outside of that fray. So I think right now it, you know, it might be very specific and, and cause delays for sure, but sometimes those kind of things also then you just redirect the ship to some other destination and you know, you still make it work and that, that type of thing. But, but there is a risk certainly of that getting even broader and, and so on. But yeah, we, we hope that it won't, that, that there will be some sort of, you know, some sort of resolution, whether it's, it's a forced resolution or something like that, but we'll, we'll see. I mean, the thing is, is that you have these predictions. How long is it going to last? Well, nobody knows.
It could, you know, all of a sudden you could have that Iranian government just capitulating and just say, okay, we're done.
And then, and then everything quiets down again very quickly.
So it, yeah, it's, there's just no way of predicting.
[00:46:20] Speaker A: Yeah. And I believe I read this morning within Iran they're electing a new leader or putting a new leader in place here. Obviously that's going to have a, you know, an impact on, who knows, that person may come in and say, okay, this is chaos. Let's, let's just shut everything down here and comply or, or let's ramp up. So yeah, I have no idea what's going to happen. I just, I, I know how important that, that shipping lane is and you can see it like, you can see it in, you know, comments about, you know, the US will, will insure the vessels or we will escort the vessels. Like it's so important that they're going to try to get that, that path, that seaway or that area open as fast as they can because it's got such a big impact.
[00:47:10] Speaker C: I mean, there for Canadian crops, not as much. I remember when there was, there were previous disruptions to the trade there and things like that.
Again, you know, a few destinations, but Canadian crops generally don't go that way. But what it could do is it affect shipments, exports from Russia, Ukraine, whatever, because they, they do use that straight of Hormuz much more, much more heavily for, for their getting their products out. So, you know, in some ways, if it were this were to continue, could actually be helpful for Canadian ag.
You don't want to profit at the expense of someone else's misery kind of thing.
[00:47:52] Speaker A: Well, yeah, we all take turns. We tend to all take turns in some way, but.
All right, let's switch gears now to stats can and acreage numbers. Now the stats can report we're recording this on Wednesday. Stat scans coming out Thursday morning. But this episode won't go till Friday. Friday. So just be cautious, Chuck. We're going to be after the stat scan. So if you make some bold predictions, it'll verify right away. Anyways, what are you, what are you looking towards? You know, general comments, specialty crops, you know, anything kind of stand out?
[00:48:28] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, the one thing, the first thing that I would say, my first disclaimer, let's put it that way, is that this is based. The stats can. Numbers are based on a survey that was done of farmers in December.
And you think about what the situation was like in December and what was going on, what wasn't going on, all of those kind of things. And things have certainly changed since then, you know, for some of the crops like wheat and Durham. And you know that the markets really haven't gone anywhere. So that's still, you know, that part hasn't changed all that much. But canola certainly has.
And also more certainty with respect to trade, you know, with these, you know, with China especially, and even a bit more certainty with respect to U.S. biofuel policy, those kind of things puts a bit of a glow or a gloss on the canola market.
The barley market has continued to firm up.
And so that's a positive thing as well.
[00:49:28] Speaker A: I call it like kind of hot like the barley market to me. Like, you know, if we're looking at how everything else is so quiet. It's hot, that barley market.
[00:49:35] Speaker C: Yeah. And well, and even peas. I mean, you know, again, the prices haven't taken off, but there is at least that certainty with respect to Chinese trade and so on. So if you're thinking about the 26 crop, okay, you already know that China's going to be in the, in the, in the market for, for the fall shipping program and, and all of Those kind of things. Now, I would also have to add, Ryan, that some of these moves are seasonal in nature. What?
[00:50:06] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:50:07] Speaker A: That's crazy.
[00:50:08] Speaker C: Brand new concept.
[00:50:09] Speaker A: Yeah. All right. Hot off the press, so give it to us.
[00:50:13] Speaker C: I mean, you know, the move in Canola is faster and sharper than you might, than we would have expected based on what was happening previously. But some of this stuff is just happening normally. So anyway, so those kind of price moves have been happening and trade news has become brighter, all of that kind of stuff, since the December survey was taken.
So that said, we were probably. Our guesses were probably at the higher end of the trade for canola and for barley and so on. So we were already kind of leaning in that direction. So those ones, I think are pretty. That's pretty commonly held already is that acreage of those two crops, you know, are going to be up, peas may not be. Will. Will be down, but not as much as maybe it would have looked like earlier, because, again, there's a little more certainty and that sort of thing about that trade. But there's going to be shifts even within the market. So, for example, even if lentil acres are down a little bit, or you might see red lentil acres actually increasing and then greens dropping, which they should. Which hopefully they will. So you'll see those kind of shifts because even if you look at red lentil prices and green lentil prices in the last month or so, and I hate.
I hate doing this or I hate it when people do this, but when they, they do the hindsight thing and say, oh, see, I told you I was gonna. Well, I've been saying for months that red lentils have more upside potential than greens.
And, And I could dig in the
[00:51:52] Speaker A: archives and probably pull a clip or two.
[00:51:55] Speaker C: But anyway, so. So that's. But that's. That seems to be happening now.
And for. For a few reasons. But.
So the red lentils could be. You could see more acreage there and less. Hopefully less greens.
Old acreage is going to drop.
And what. That's one that could. That's one that could get really interesting if, if acres drop. Like, if you're a contrarian, that might be one you want to look at to say if everybody else is getting out of oats. And we know there's a certain amount of steady demand from the US and maybe from others. And if you, you know. So that's one that has a bit of interesting take on it.
The one thing, though, that, you know, when we were running our numbers and, you know, putting in these Acreage changes. And we also realized that crop rotations are a lot stickier than analysts like us would like to believe. And you know, we like to.
Everybody's going to be doing this and nobody's going to be growing that.
[00:52:56] Speaker A: These massive swings up. These massive, massive swings.
[00:53:00] Speaker C: Yeah.
But anyway, so, so you, we, you know, we talk about that, but one of the things when we were working through all of our numbers and things like that, if we just drop back to average yields, there's going to be a bunch of balance sheets spread like S&DS for a bunch of crops that are going to get to the snug side next year.
[00:53:19] Speaker A: So anything else in that list?
[00:53:22] Speaker C: Well, I think oats might be one of those, you know, lower acres and drop back to average yields or something like, I mean, we don't have no idea what yields are going to be. But right now you, well, we do
[00:53:35] Speaker A: need them to be big.
[00:53:36] Speaker C: So let's just make the highest odds are around average. Right. That's your best odds. It's an average type of a yield.
But even canola could get snug by, you know, later into later into next year.
Yeah, like the pulses.
And again, it'll vary within the, within the various. With lentils and peas and so on.
Those are going to take a bit longer to work down. But especially green lentils, green peas, like those ones are going to take longer to, to draw those supplies down. But yeah, there's, there's a number of them that could get, could get tight going into next year.
Snug. I won't get wild crazy. I won't say tight. I'll say snug.
[00:54:19] Speaker A: No, we'll check the weather in July and then you can say, yeah, you can say tight for sure.
Well, I think even within that here I'm with you on the canola and the barley. And like I believe that was solid when we were sitting in Moose Jaw in early December. Like, to me that was already kind of solidified. And then the markets found a better, you know, reason to solidify that even more for those higher acres.
I, I, you know, I see a little change in like yellow pea acres climbing now because those bids are getting to a spot that are, you know, especially compared to a spring wheat are attractive. The one thing here that's bugging me, Chuck, and I need the green pea market to rally. But I got offered the same price per bushel for new crop, green peas and yellow peas. And I was like, no, no, you've made a mistake.
This is not the right, like I I'm talking about green peas here. And they're like, no, no, that is the offer for new crop green peas.
What, what's going on here? Why is it, what's wrong with my green peas?
[00:55:20] Speaker C: Well, it is, relatively speaking, those supplies are Heavier because in 2025 we had lots of contracting of maples and of greens and rightfully so. And so the production responded and so on. I mean, one of the things that troubles me a little bit is the fact that there are, there are still companies that are not issuing new crop bids at all. For, for several, you know, for some of the special crops, even Durham, like, it's really quiet new crop wise.
But what that tells me, if you dial forward, when we looked at new seasonal tendencies for new crop bids, this is a year where like, if you're looking ahead to 26, 27 and you're thinking supplies are going to get lower than they are now, for sure, you know, it's not the type of year where you want to be new crop or contracting new crop heavily, you know, some, but, but don't go as heavy. I would, I would say, you know, it's the type of year if you're thinking supplies are going to get snugger into next year. Like the, the, the years when we did the whatever of the, we did our analysis of how new crop bids move.
[00:56:32] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:56:32] Speaker C: You know, when, if you can kind of see that, that the market might get less heavy in the next year, you want to, you want to lighten up a little bit with your new crop contracting. And so, you know, I know that's a bet. That's the risk management people, you know, you know, like to, would like to tell me to shut up about that. But it's, it's the way, it's the way that the markets tend to move. And that's intuitive. Farmers know that and that sort of thing. But anyway, it's, it's just to add
[00:57:03] Speaker A: to that, Chuck, what I find fascinating, like if you were on the buy side of this equation, like wouldn't you be like pounding the drum out there with your new crop low ball price, like trying to. But we're not really seeing that either. Like, we're not seeing like the, the story to convince farmers, like, hey, you know, if you plant this, you might produce more of it and the price is going lower. Like we, this as a buyer, you'd be saying, hey, I want to, I want to own this stuff. Right.
[00:57:34] Speaker C: So buyers have less coverage as you get further into it. I mean even, you know, the, the One, the other thing that we've done when we've looked at new crop seasonals like, like, you know, from the kind of January to June or January to July kind of timeframe, pretty consistently, those prices, your, your worst new crop bids are in January and your best ones are in May, June.
So the new crop bids, they move for some crops, they follow the regular seasonal move, but they also like it on average. Those new crop bids just get better and better the further you go into it. And if buyers don't have a lot of coverage, they may have to get more aggressive later in the contracting season. Again, May, June, kind of timeframe. So again, I wouldn't be rushing out to pick off these bids right now.
And for Canola, like, the new crop basis is still just horrible, horrible.
[00:58:33] Speaker A: And I talked to a farmer the other day and he went to his two local grain companies in town and he said, I would just like to price the futures. I'd like to leave the basis open. And you know what they told him? They said, we've only done that. This guy's been working there for like eight years aspire. And he said, I've only done that twice in my life where a farmer has locked in futures and left basis open.
Like, I spilled a cup of coffee on myself Tuesday on the live show.
Like, I was ready to do that again when I heard that like insane. And I was looking at arc one of our contracts. We had a target in for new crop. And I was like, wait a second.
I was like putting the information, I'm like, guys, no, no, no more of this. No more of this. Futures only, guys. Like, that was a minus 66. Guys, let's pump the brakes here.
Anyway, I will say though, Chuck, like on our farm today, canola pays the bills. And so we have been very proactive on hedging and protecting. We got some upside. It can go up, but we've been covering our butts on the downside.
[00:59:44] Speaker C: Yeah, as long as you got that upside potential, then go at it for sure. But for other crops, you don't have that option.
[00:59:51] Speaker A: We've seen in Alberta, malt barley prices have climbed 30 cents a bushel in the last couple of weeks. Here we've seen feed barley definitely holding steady, maybe up a little bit as well. For new crop, we've seen a small, little tiny gain in oats, but not enough there.
Things are coming. I've saw wheat basis improvements a little bit, which is one of my concerns this year, this fall is that wheat base is not getting as sweet as it's been, but I've been wrong on that one. So hopefully I continue to be wrong. And it gets better.
Yellow pea bids have climbed for new crop. It, you know, like, it's, it's starting to feel better. And I, I know that, you know, we did a poll here and, and the, you know, then negativity, the doom with the higher diesel prices, the higher fertilizer prices. It's real survey. 60% of people said, you know, margins are sunk for 20, 26. And I sit here feeling the most optimistic that I've felt all year.
And I think I'm on record a few weeks ago saying I was already feeling optimistic. I'm feeling pretty good. Like, what's wrong with me?
[01:01:03] Speaker C: No, I think, I think, you know, there would be a very interesting study to do is, Is to. Is to track farmers, mood, sentiment, whatever you want to call it, and see whether there's a seasonal nature to that as well.
[01:01:18] Speaker A: There's your next chapter.
[01:01:20] Speaker C: When you're swirling the bowl and the toilet bowl and that kind of thing, you know, the only thing you can do is look up and you know, that's. That's the only.
And it's not that, not even that dire, I would say. It's just.
Yeah, it has been difficult, but that's what markets do, is the low prices, discourage production, discourage acreage, whatever, and then you end up coming out the other side at some point. And for things like wheat, it's been a long low, but even that isn't unusual. Like, that's a fairly typical response in the wheat market is that those lows can last two, three years and then you start to climb.
[01:02:00] Speaker A: Yeah. And you have to be sharp within those because the gains sometimes are 30 cents and you're like, that's nothing. Canola just moved a dollar. But that might be it in the weeds on the wheat side.
[01:02:12] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:02:12] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:02:12] Speaker C: You can't wait two to three years to sell your wheat. I get that. Yeah.
[01:02:15] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:02:16] Speaker A: All right. I did have one question come in from Kyle about canary seed, and he did submit this for the Tuesday show, but with Iran, we, we did skip over it.
Kyle's looking for some insight over the next couple months here. So March, April, is there an opportunity for canary seed to rally in, you know, prior to the start or the momentum of planting this year's crop?
[01:02:44] Speaker C: You know, I mentioned that some of these crops are, A lot of these crops are going to be, you know, with average yields will be looking a little bit tighter next year. Canary seed is not one of those.
It's you know, it's one where, you know, if you get a half a cent or a cent, like, I think that's beyond where we are right now. I think that's the most you can expect. And it might be somebody who needs a couple hundred tons to fill a train or some containers or whatever. You know, those are the kind of opportunities. There is a lot of canary seed out there. And even for 26, 27, I'm really hoping acreage drops hard because it needs to.
Even with average. Even if you come back down to average yields, there's still a lot of canary seed for 26, 27 as well. So, you know, the next few months, again, sometimes. Sometimes we get a vessel, a bulk shipment out of Thunder Bay. And I'm not sure where Kyle is at. Like. Like where. I'm guessing canary seed grower, probably Saskatchewan.
[01:03:48] Speaker A: Yeah. I don't know where in Saskatchewan, but.
[01:03:50] Speaker C: Yeah, but anyway, you know, so. So every so often you'll get those. And it tends to be viterra that. That does those kind of. They call it a grocery boat. There's often flax, canary, sometimes some mustard goes on it as well, too.
And then, you know, when they assemble what they need for that, you know, then. Then you might have a bit of a bump in bids. But there is so much canary seed out there that, like, if they bump it a half a cent a pound or a full cent a pound, they're going to have more than. More canary seed than they know what to do with.
Part of it is so much of that canary seed. People still have 40 cents in their expectations, so that's not gonna come to market. But there is enough out there. And especially for the guys that had big yields, they yielded even at 19, 20 cents for canary seed. Like, even the canary seed was profitable this year just based on the big yields that they had.
So there's enough people out there that will sell at those low prices that I don't think there's. Especially in the next few months, like a max of a century. And it's going to be pretty fleeting, those opportunities. Pretty fleeting. So it depends what his expectations are. Even if you want, you know, 21, 22 cents, I don't think that's in the works. And it may not be until well into 2H26, 27. Like, it's.
Yeah, it's. It's just very oversupplied. So I don't know how many other ways I could say the same thing, but yeah, it's.
[01:05:18] Speaker A: It's heavy well, I'll try to get the editor to turn that into the opposite of what you just said. So you can feel sorry if I
[01:05:24] Speaker C: was being too nuanced there. Yeah.
[01:05:27] Speaker A: All right, Chuck, Well, I appreciate you being on the show this week. Are you, Are you on the road at all?
[01:05:31] Speaker B: Are you.
[01:05:32] Speaker A: You've been in front of a pile of farmers this winter. Anything else going on?
[01:05:36] Speaker C: Yeah, I'm going to Toronto next week. There's a big convention out there that, that I've gone to a few times.
And so if people. People have suggestions for what you'd like me to tell the. The eastern Canadian folks, fire them my way, that's not a problem. Then I'm actually going down the week after. I'm actually making a bit of a road trip down into. Into Plentywood, Montana.
[01:05:58] Speaker A: Okay.
[01:05:59] Speaker C: So there's a farmer meeting down there and I don't know, that should be fun. Hopefully they don't ask me to get political and whatever, but runs out of town, elbows up. Yeah, yeah, maybe I should do that just for, just for a kick.
[01:06:13] Speaker A: Anyway, I'll send you the picture of the elbows up monster truck. So I did take a picture for you there.
Awesome. All right. And one last thing. Actually we chatted with you before the workshop in Brandon that you had obviously very well attended. But what did you learn out of those two workshops earlier this year that. That you put on?
[01:06:35] Speaker C: Yeah, we did them. Yeah, we did one in Saskatoon and Brandon, and then we also did a slightly shorter one in Winnipeg at Crop Connect Show. And I would say like this, a lot of it was around seasonals and stuff like that. And again, there's no big. It's not a revelation. People know generally that prices do that. But then when you started to quantify it and you show that, you know, and we did these thought experiments so, you know, if you sold everything in the months of its seasonal high, you know, for Durham, it's November and oats, it's November and Canola. And most a lot of things, it's May kind of time frame and that sort of thing.
And if you're a farmer, 4,5000 acre farmer and that type of thing, you know what difference that would make out of the last nine or 10 years, you would do better doing that than spreading out your sales through the year.
But when you start to add it up, it turns into real money.
And now we're not advocating that everybody just put all their chips on black or that sort of thing, but there's real, real money there. The one thing that we learned we need to do more work on. Is separating seasonals for some crops for. Into futures and basis. There's a real interest again for, you know, when do you lock in the basis. When. When do you lock in futures and that sort of thing for some of those crops. So there's more interest in that. So we need to do more work in that way. So yeah, it's.
But. But yeah, there's. There's a lot of, you know, I think, I think good feedback that we got from that and good. Lots, Lots more to do.
[01:08:08] Speaker A: Awesome. So we can look forward to another round of those sessions next winter. You thinking?
[01:08:13] Speaker C: I think so, yeah.
Yeah, I think we'll. I think we'll give it another go and see how it goes. Yeah.
[01:08:19] Speaker A: All right, sounds good. Chuck, where can people find you if they're looking for more information on specialty crops or all of the 16, 18, 20 crops that you cover?
[01:08:30] Speaker C: Yeah, you can go to the website leftfieldcr.com and we really tell people, please do the free trial first because we, we don't do recommendations. There's just John and myself that work. So we don't have time to craft recommendations for everybody and all of that kind of stuff.
But we love talking to people if they want, whatever. So, yeah, they can go there, get the free trial first because we're not everybody's favorite flavor. Give us a try.
[01:08:57] Speaker A: Awesome. Sounds good, Chuck. Have a great rest of the week and we'll catch up real soon.
[01:09:01] Speaker C: All right, thanks, Ryan.
[01:09:05] Speaker A: All right, folks. So you know, I talk on the show about Brett Young and I talk about Canola. See, that's.
That's how we partner with Brett Young on the Denny farm. But we can't forget that Brett Young has an entire portfolio of things, one of that being forage. All right, Forage seed. And they've got a promo going on right now or actually a bit of a early. The book deadline of March 20, 2026. Now this is to get the best seed selection and the.
The best discounts for the 2026 growing season. Of course, don't forget there is a forage establishment guarantee. You got to sign up by April 1st for 100 coverage.
So don't forget about that if you're going to be planting forages here in 2026. A couple of key deadlines here with Brett Young.
Of course, you can get more of those details at Bret Young ca.
Alrighty, folks. Well, I think.
I think we kind of got. Got through it. Hey. Yeah, there we go. Looking at my show notes.
Yeah, Feeling pretty good.
Feeling Pretty good. All right guys. Well, you know, I do appreciate you hanging out this week. Send in your thoughts, your questions, your comments. Ryan at what the futurespodcast Cat, I do have a couple spots in the Lunchbox Crew. Again, there's no pressure on, on my end, but there's a couple spots there and if you want those details, ryandani ca that's where you can get information on, on the conference on Lunchbox Crew. I do work one on one with some farms. I got a, an email from Brock out of Birch Hills here over the last couple days ago. You know, just chatting about one on one stuff, consulting stuff. You know, I don't have a lot of capacity for that rate at this moment, but certainly willing to have conversation.
I still got to get back to Tony and David as well. But yeah, those are, I take those very seriously. So I don't, I don't go, I don't move very, very fast on those at times. But anyways, there you go.
Yeah, I guess if you're looking for a deal on Lunchbox Q that auction item, we are going to run that until probably I'll be after next week's episode, probably run that to like the 14th, something like that March 14th. So do appreciate everyone that puts a bit out on that or supports their local perinatal bereavement programs. So if you found this episode useful, tell a friend, tell a neighbor. That's how this show grows.
Prices may change, strategy may change by the time we get this recording out.
So make sure you consult with the professionals and if I can, for the dedicated listener, you've made it to the end of the show and I don't know if this is going to be a useful tip for you or not, but if you're sitting there saying, man, I want to protect but I want to protect canola prices but I, I don't know, I don't have a brokerage account or I don't know how to do this or I'm looking for alternative strategies.
If you just have a moment, you reach out to like Cargill or Bungie and ask them about put options or a no price established option. We did this last year. We secured like 680, 685. We did a couple of seven hundreds.
Those were just put options with no basis, no futures. Once we, we, this was before harvest. Once we finished harvest, submitted our yield, we actually reduced our, our contracts and then we established basis at that time and then we priced futures in a separate move but we ended up selling those puts down when the market right before Christmas got to, like around the 600 level. And the cool thing was we had downside protection, but we were able to.
To not be subject to a buyout. We were able to sit there and tweak it to our bushels. The caveat here is that if you produce the crop, you do have to bring those bushels in on those contracts. But if you don't produce it, it was a nice little peace of mind for us. And in the farms, couple farms last year, they, you know, within the Camrose Cargill vicinity, that's where the canola is going anyway. Think about it. If you're in Clevette or Regina or a bungee has these types of scenarios as well. Thanks for hanging in to the end of the episode. Take a look at those guys. It's.
It might be something that you want to consider. Imagine this thing goes up another buck a bushel or two.
Might be something you want to take a peek at. All right, guys, have a great weekend. I'll see you Tuesday on Cup of Coffee, the live show. I hope you guys are enjoying that one for the what the Futures podcast. My name is Ryan in and hey, I'm out of here.
