Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Join me for episode 31 of the what the Futures podcast. The episode where I, of course, wear the pink flowered hat. I've got Brett Walz with bam WX. We talk all things weather as we head into summer here. And that weather is going to have a big impact on your crop marketing decisions. So hang in there. Stay tuned. Join me for episode 31.
Hey folks, welcome to the what the Futures podcast, where we break down complex market trends into simple, actionable advice guide to better farming decisions.
Hey folks, welcome to episode 31 of the what the Futures podcast. I hope you're having a great weekend or whenever you're tuning into this, I hope you're having a great day. Of course, each and every episode is recorded in the UPL studio. We thank UPl for their support and we're we're giving away more products here later this show what the Futures podcast is your weekly dose of clarity in the complex world of western canadian agriculture. Maybe it's crop marketing, today it's weather. But anyways, thanks for tuning in. Of course. My name is Ryan Denis. I am the host of what the futures. I've spent my career as a grain buyer. I was a grain marketing analyst. I've worked with farms across the prairie provinces and taking the show on the road here with what the futures I've been enjoying putting this weekly podcast together.
In this episode, we've got Brett Waltz from Bam WX. He's going to give us a little more insight on what to expect for weather later this summer. And it's important, folks, you got to tune into that one because it's going to impact your crop marketing. Of course, we've got our hot topic of the week. I'm going to talk about buying call options, maybe now that we have done a bunch of selling here the last month or so, there's a strategy that you can at least think about. So we'll talk about that. Of course, I've got my positive moments. I'm going to see if there's anything exciting for prices to share with you. We've got the mail bag with two great questions, one about the Vitera bungie merger and another one about fertilizer and crop marketing, which I think I forgot about a couple weeks ago. Of course we got upl we're going to give away 120 acres of wave lots going on for this show. So buckle in, folks, and let's, let's get going here. Of course, shout out to our sponsor, John Deere, helping us put this together each and every week. You know, connections matter. Connections to family connections to the community and, of course, the land. Well, here's a connection you may not have thought of. How's the connection to your machines?
You know, your tractor, your sprayer, your combine?
What I'm talking about is John Deere Operations center. It's an online farm management platform where you can connect your equipment, your fields and your operators. It's a single place to stream all your data, a place where you can monitor equipment, track work in the field, even analyze your results. Check it out at John Deere, Ca. I did a little recording with John Deere here this week as well about air carts. So I think that's going to fit into next week's episode. And then we've got some harvest prophet stuff the week after. Also excited to hang out with them at egg in motion. We're going to do some of that later in July as well. But before we get into positive moments, I've got this little housekeeping section. So let's keep the show moving along here. 1st first of all, let's, let's wish, I don't, I want to wish all the dads out there a very happy Father's Day or Father's Day weekend. I was, well, back in 2019, that's when I was, became a father, I should say. I don't know why I'm fumbling with this, but I became a father back in 2019. Now I remember my first Father's Day. I'm sitting on the deck and of course, we lost our daughter earlier that year. And, you know, when you, when you have these moments, Mother's Day, Father's Day, and you have these moments of recognition or acknowledgement for some folks out there, it can be tough. And I just, I want to extend, you know, a happy Father's Day to the dads that, you know, have always wanted to be dads but just hasn't worked out yet for the great uncles out there as well. I had some fantastic uncles in my life. One of my uncles had thousands of pieces of little tractors, little equipment, which now my son plays with. You know, he was a huge influence on me as a, as a, as a person. But, you know, when in 2019 Father's Day comes around, I'm, I'm like in this complete gloom and funk. And my wife, it's fantastic. She gets me a Father's Day gift. And it said dad, it was a coffee cup. Dad established 2019 and I just burst into tears. And, you know, it's well documented on this podcast that 2019 was a tough year for my family with us losing Eva. But I just, I want to let the dads out there know that I do, you know, sympathize with you as well on these days. And it, it's a day of joy for many, but still, for some of us, at times, it can be tough days as well. So I'm with you on that, of course, my positive moments of this week, I'm very fortunate with two little ones at home, and they're always a part of positive moments, and they are once again here this week. So now I need, I need your help. Okay? I need. I am desperate for you, the listener tuning in to the podcast this week.
I need your help. I want to, and we want to. At the podcast, we want to support and raise some money for a rural community event or project.
And I know it's going to take some effort on your end that you're going to have to type out an email with the details, but please send me your projects. What is going on in your community? What needs financial support?
Let us, you know, help us help you type scenario. Send us the info so we can help you. And I'm looking for something local, grassroots, if it can improve the lives of kids in the community or something like that. I don't want anything corporate. I know there's a lot of support needed for certain things as well. But I want this to be rural communities. And I, you know, I want to see what you have going on out there. It's the curling club, the bowling alley, the. The playground. I don't know, something in your community that you're raising funds for. Let us know. We want to pick a project or two and help you raise some money. Okay, Ryan, at what? The Futurespodcast dot ca. That's the email. All right. I've been asking for reviews. I didn't get any, like, new words this week for reviews. Chatted with two folks, one of them being my mom. And I talked to a farmer as well. There's two comments that came in in these discussions. My mom was the first one. She said, I saw her this last weekend. She said, ryan, you're talking too much on the podcast.
Nobody needs to hear that much of you like, you're talking too much. And now this. This comes from a place of love, I'm pretty sure. And she's, you know, offering me this, this feedback. And I get rambly at times. I will ramble on, and I know everyone's time is precious. And so mom says, you know what? You're getting a little bit long here, man. Like, you gotta tighten it up a little bit. I thought that was interesting. Okay. Because I, you know, I've been going to about an hour, an hour plus. And I thought, you know what? Maybe we should try to shorten them up here. So I'm gonna try my best to shorten this up over the next couple weeks. The second one was from a farmer, and he said, ryan, by the time I listen to you, by the time I listen to the podcast, it feels too late for me to take action.
So the first one, my mom's comment, that that's. That's on me, right? That's something that I can work on, that I can shorten it up and work on what's talked about.
But the second one is, I don't have sympathy for. For that grower, because that one's on you. Like, this podcast goes out Friday morning, 06:00 a.m. local time with consistency.
Right? So that's on you. If you feel that what I'm going to talk about is that important, then. Then, hey, you know, tune in sooner the better, so that you get that information and. And figure out your game plan around that. Now I get it. The podcast is. It's had a decent track record lately. If you go back, you know, the past episodes, I don't want to say that because I'm going to screw up eventually and probably in a big way. But, hey, like, we've been.
I don't know. We're firing right now. We kind of have a handle on what's going on out there. Okay. So I'm going to try to shorten up the episodes a little bit. Fingers crossed. We can get through it here. And I also want to let you know that you could go to the YouTube channel and pod sound school. They've set this up for me. But there's different segments in every episode, and you could just click on the segment. You can say, ryan, positive moments. I don't need your positive moments. This week. I want to hear from Brett Waltz. I want to hear about the weather. Or you could say, hey, the weather is more important to me. I want to hear that first, if I have time. Then I want to hear your positive moments.
You can do that. It's on the YouTube channel, on all the new episodes. Now, moving forward, you can go click the buttons and jump around. People wanted that. We finally got that done. It's there for you. Okay. All right, now let's go to those positive moments. If you're hanging in with me, let's go to those positive moments and circling back to father's day.
My daughter brought home my father's day gift from preschool. Okay.
And she's. She's teasing me. She's been. My birthday is coming up as well. Her and her mother went shopping. And this, this three year old is, like, joking. She is giving me hints, but not, but also trying to throw me off. I'm so confused now at what I'm getting for Father's day. And she comes home from school here today. It's all wrapped in brown paper. And she looks at me and she says, dad, I got your father's day present. I said, oh, great. Can I open it? She's like, nope, it's not until Father's day weekend. I said, okay, sounds good. She said, I'm gonna go hide it on you. She takes the gift, hides it with the pots and pans in the kitchen. Those of you that know me, I I'm pretty handy in the kitchen. I spend some time in the pots and pans department. I can what my buddy Scott say, he can make a nice lasagna or something like that. Anyways, so anyways, that's where my gift is hidden. It's great. It's exciting. And it's my first gift, like, made gift from preschool, like from school or preschool or whatever. So I'm super excited to see what she's come up with. And then the second positive moment for this week, the podcast. It just, like, I don't know if popped off is the right word, but I can see the statistics on, like, how many listens we get on each day or for each episode. And I can see the provinces and some of the towns, like, it'll tell me, you know, if in Regina, so many listens or whatever it is. But anyways, the podcast just popped last week. Had our best opening day, like, Friday, when the recording goes out. Those are the best days, the most listens. And it was almost double the previous Friday. And not just the previous Friday, but the past, whatever, like four or five. It was pretty much double that. So thank you. Thank you for tuning in. And YouTube also popped off with more views. And, you know, pod sound school has done a bunch of work there. That's definitely one of the big reasons. But, yeah, like, for me to put this together every week and to see that, honestly, it's exciting for me, folks. So it fits into my positive moments. All right, what do we have next here on the schedule?
Hmm. Hot topic.
Let's move over to our hot topic of the week. Like, I know I could talk USDA report but who cares about the June 12 USDA other like for headlines out there? I'm trying to think of what stands out. Like it's all weather related.
It's all weather related. You know, there's some issues in Australia. There's it, well, there's small issues all over the place. But anyways, USDA was a bit of a non event.
The big report comes out later this month. But we'll just talk about a few things because it's going to tee up the next part of the discussion. But we did see the USDA, they lowered russian wheat production by 5 million tons, okay. To 83 million tons. They lowered Ukraine by a million and a half. Okay? Now, Mike Lee emailed me yesterday. So Brian, I want to come back on the podcast. There's a lot to talk about. So we fingers crossed we're going to get Mike on for next week. US, Europe, those wheat exports went up a little bit and the India import number remains minimal. There were rumors of three to 5 million tons of imports expected out of India for wheat specifically, and we're not seeing that quite yet. That, to me, could still be a bullish card down the road. But as of middle of June, it's not there. Okay.
Now with this update, spring wheat still closed down a dime. I'm recording this Wednesday afternoon. Kansas wheat also lost $0.12 or something like that. And so what should be a somewhat bullish report or bullish number.
Didn't do anything for the trade today. Didn't do anything for the trade. Okay. That's a little bit of a worry for me. And again, we need probably a number printed in the seventies now, somewhere in the seventies to rally this wheat market. Now, I'm, I'm not that concerned because I've sold a lot of wheat over the last number of weeks here and so have you. So that's good.
So my hot topic is to update the strategy now around these sales. Now, I'm not 100% sold on what I'm about to talk about here, and I'll tell you why at the end.
But the strategy that I talked about a couple of weeks ago, one of my favorite strategies was selling the physical, selling wheat at $9 a bushel and then buying a call option to help protect against a buyout and to participate in the summer market.
Now, I didn't do any of those because I felt like we were in a position that markets were going to face a bit of a pullback here. And I'm not concerned about production on our farm yet either.
Why am I not concerned about production. Well, as the boys travel the field spraying, they are smiling and not frowning. And we are talking about what can we do now to bump up yield? What can we do to give this crop its maximum potential?
Farmers have been reaching out asking about hail insurance.
You know, what should they top up hail insurance. And for me, you know, phone an expert in hail. I'm not an, I cant give advice on that. But when I can sell a crop, when I can sell a crop at a higher price than I was expecting and out of profit, then for me, if Im extending and getting more and more sales done, I then would look at buying more hail insurance because I want to protect the revenue side of that and Im selling more at better prices, better margins. I want to try to protect that.
Anyway, that was a sidebar circle back. We got to get back to our strategy update. So Minneapolis wheat, let's say that you were selling at 700, 5767 hundred, 80 maybe you hit the high. I think the high was like 790. You're selling December Minneapolis spring wheat. Those are the futures levels, not your, your net price. And let's call the market today. It's below seven, but let's just call it seven. Okay.
And what you can do is you can go now, you can attach a call option or buy a call option and you can buy it at a strike anywhere between here and where you sold it at. So for example, if you sold it at seven, let's say 780, then you can go and buy a call option with a 780 strike. And if your goal is to protect against a buyout, you can buy at that 780 strike because that's where you sold it. So if you're just buying insurance here, price insurance, you can go and buy this call option at the level you sold at and protect yourself now against the what if, what if India imports a bunch of wheat? What if I get a hailstorm? What if the wheat market rallies significantly this summer? That you can buy that and in theory, your contracts not going to be off by a whole bunch, you're going to be protected. Now the cool thing is that a 780 call today is worth like 20 some cents, you know, 22, $0.23, something like that. If you want to go at the money here, like a 680 call traded at $0.55 today, a 710 call was at $0.43.
So you can see going all the way up to 780. Well, geez, 20 some $0.22 that's, that's quote unquote cheap. And if you're buying insurance. Don't you want to buy, like, cheaper insurance? Because you don't know if it's gonna play out. You don't know if it's gonna come into effect. If you're just protecting against a buyout, go ahead and only spend the $0.20 instead. Don't spend 50, go and spend 20. But if you sold it at 750, a 750 calls worth $0.30. But you see what I mean here? Like, if you sold it to Cargill or you sold it to Viterra or Providence grain would be in the mix here.
I don't think g three is doing it yet, but, or Richardson. But bug them. You know, get on them to get. To help you get these contracts on, get these options executed. Maybe they'll. And of course, you can do all this with your futures brokers.
But it's a nice strategy can be viewed as insurance. It's a nice strategy to protect your sales and give you confidence, let you sleep at night the rest of the summer because you sold at a great price, the market dropped. Now you can buy some cheap insurance. And you're laughing. You're laughing right now because you're kind of getting the best of both worlds. Here's the, here's the hiccup. Or the catch, though, like my confidence level that your call option is going to actually gain in value is low. Like gain in higher value than it is now. You may be taking twenty cents and just tossing it away.
I'm on record saying that I thought the market highs were in a couple of weeks ago. And again, I'm not. Sometimes. This is a bit of luck, folks. The hiccup here is that you may take that $0.20, toss it in the wind and say bye bye because the market is in a bit of a downtrend right now. It's down, what, ten days, something like that. And we'll see. I know there's a lot of big bulls out there. I know there's analysts that are bowled up. I read one today saying, don't worry, everybody, this rally's gonna hit its next leg in July.
And don't sweat it. Lots of time to sell your old crop as well, which, you know, time will tell. And I know another guy who's, you know, he's got 1015 percent of his new crop sold and he's all bowled up as well. And hey, they use the same crystal ball that I have and we all don't know what, what's gonna happen. So there we go. Now, if this strategy, like if you want to talk about this more, reach out to the viteras, the cargills. If you have wheat sold there, you can do this on canola, you can do this on Kansas wheat. You can do this on corn, soybeans, you can do the same thing on all of them. Okay? So my hot topic is just buying that little bit of insurance or considering it. And hey, I hope that helps. I hope you like that strategy, and I hope you're going to make that phone call.
Now, full disclosure for myself today.
I hold canola puts and I hold Kansas wheat puts lunchbox crew members. The first video, the first day I put that out to say, hey, guys, number one, we're selling. Number two, we're buying puts. So that that is where I'm at. And when I start looking at the long range forecast, I'm going to get into it here with Brett waltz next from Bam WX. It's not perfect out there, folks. It's not. The weather is never perfect.
But when I talk to people, engage with people, I have some farms, I talk to you that say, Ryan, you know, I'm due for a rain here. I need a rain.
And we're off to a good start. A rain here would just really help us out. I got other guys saying, what do I do? How do I, what else can I do here to this crop? They're reaching out to their agronomy people, their input suppliers. You know, let's give this crop its best chance because I sold some at higher prices and I've got yield potential. This long range forecast, we're going to need some heat. We're going to need a little bit of heat here. But you'll see with Brett Waltz, the forecast to me is not threatening at this time, maybe threatening for the US. Maybe that's where these bullish guys are getting their confidence from when it comes to wheat markets. But yeah, this long range forecast looks kind of friendly. If we got a little bit of heat, it would be friendly. All right, so let's go now. Let's go to my conversation with Brett Waltz. That's it for hot topic of the week, and I'm going to let Brett take it away.
All right, folks, let's welcome back Brett Waltz with Bam WX. Brett Howes, how's it going this week, man? Have things slowed down at all lately, or are you guys still watching all this wild weather out there?
[00:23:19] Speaker B: Yeah, we've had a couple of quieter days this past weekend, and to start out this week, which I think is very welcome, not only for us, but I'm sure for many of those that are still trying to get some work done out into the fields, we'll change a little bit as we work later on into this week, but certainly been a nicer stretch of some cooler weather and a little bit less active too. We'll take it when we can get it.
[00:23:41] Speaker A: Yeah. It sounds like you need to try to recharge when you get a chance because it might be a bit of a wild summer ahead of us. It was a little cool here the other morning. My wife planted her garden. The tomatoes, it got just flirting with freezing temperatures here. I'm hearing cold temperatures elsewhere. Like what? What's driving this? Or are you guys seeing the same thing for cold weather?
[00:24:05] Speaker B: Yeah. So it got down to 40 here in central Indiana. I think it was Tuesday morning. So yesterday morning, which I can never really remember happening, I think we went back and the last time was like 2006. It got really cool for a brief time, actually. It can happen in hot summers. We went back and looked, I think 2012 had a really cool morning too, in early June. So it doesn't necessarily give us a good idea of what's going to happen moving forward. But I think it's just a product of the atmosphere kind of still being in a little bit of a state of shock as we move from El Nino into La Nina. Sometimes we can get these weird ups and downs. When would that happens? And I think that's probably what's going on right now.
[00:24:45] Speaker A: I like that, that word shock. I think that's the first time I've heard someone use that when talking about the weather this year. But I like that we're going to keep rolling with that. Okay. So I'm reading headlines about a hot summer, hot summer in the US.
Does that fall in line with your summer outlook? Has anything changed there? What are you guys expecting here into the summer?
[00:25:07] Speaker B: Yeah. Our original summer outlook was for it to be one of the hottest of all time for the United States as a whole. And I really don't see any change in that. It has been cool cooler to start out the month, but we're only twelve days into the summer or the, you know, the meteorology summer at least since June 1. And I think that it's going to change rapidly here over the next couple of weeks. You know, I see a big dome of heat setting up across the United States, Canada, where you're at there, you know, it won't be terribly hot the next couple of weeks at least develops in the United States first. And I think it's the start of what probably will end up being one of the hottest summers on record. These transitions into La Nina's going back through time, looking at history, typically produce some of the hottest summers. And I don't see any reason that would be different this year.
[00:25:55] Speaker A: When you talk about a hot summer, like, would you zone in on a specific area in the US, or is it countrywide?
[00:26:05] Speaker B: It's really countrywide. I think what ultimately ends up happening is the heat starts east. It starts kind of in the northeast United States and into the Ohio Valley where we're at. And then as we go into July, that kind of starts to set up a little bit more over the central part of the country, over the corn belt, and starts to bleed a little bit more up into the canadian prairies as well. And so it's kind of a migration. And then when that happens, when it starts east and migrates west, it just means that the whole country ends up averaging out hotter than normal once the summer's all said and done.
[00:26:39] Speaker A: Okay. And is there going to be like, is it going to be like a greenhouse effect where you're getting very warm temperatures, but also rain events with that? Or do you expect the heat to also bring around some of that dryness concern?
[00:26:57] Speaker B: Yeah, I think in spots there can be dryness, but I think it's more south. You know, I think it's more like the southern plains. Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, maybe the far lower Ohio Valley, Kentucky, southern Indiana. But I think that across the corn belt, across the midwestern portion of the country, there are going to be rain and storm opportunities. Can there be dry stretches? Yes, pretty much all summers have that at times. But I think that there continue to be rain opportunities where the most corn is grown in the United States as we go throughout this summer. That could open the door, though, for some severe weather potential, too. We talked, I think, last time about how active it had been, severe weather wise. I think that comes back to an extent later this month and in July.
[00:27:41] Speaker A: Speaking of severe weather, for just a second. Yeah, we had a thunder shower. A couple thunder showers now roll through and we got a warning yesterday that winds were going to pick up. And my friend that farms doesn't live that far from me. My big job was to secure the trampoline, put the trampoline in a spot where it was not going to elevate, because that's what happens here is the trampolines go for a ride. He sends me a video last night, an empty, like, 1500 Bushel bin doing cartwheels, coming straight at his house just, it was, it was just a sight to see. It just was doing full cartwheels, just continuing on, getting closer, close to the house, and then it finally just settled down and, and just rested by some trees. Is this the summer we're looking at here? Like, are we looking at an exciting summer of weather? Like, my wife loves storms. She loves this type of weather. You think this continues, stuff like that?
[00:28:38] Speaker B: Yeah, I do. I think it can be a very stormy summer, especially up where you all are at for the first month or two of summer, June into July, before August maybe gets a little bit drier. And I think, again, across the north central part of the country, the midwestern United States, it's going to be stormy and I think windows, trampolines, flying and whatnot. I think that that's probably the biggest concern. It was tornadoes in spring. I think wind is going to be a big issue. And I know a lot of people probably have a little PTSD from the past couple of years across parts of Iowa and Nebraska and even Illinois with those derachos that have moved through historically. Again, these la Nina transition years and some similarities in the Pacific Ocean tends to support more of those types of events. And so I think it's going to be pretty busy, especially once we get past the next week or so.
[00:29:34] Speaker A: When you see one of those. De Racho. Is that how you say it?
[00:29:37] Speaker B: Yeah, de Racho.
[00:29:39] Speaker A: When you see that type of event, come across a corn crop, for example, is it something that, I know you're not agronomist, but does the crop just kind of bounce back from that and move on? Or is it like an event that is not catastrophic to a board's yield.
[00:29:55] Speaker B: But maybe, yeah, you know, I can't speak to the exact specifics of how, uh, they handle that, but I can certainly tell you that, I mean, I, I've seen pictures of these events just completely flattening crops. It can certainly cause major damage and probably in spots cause issues in terms of getting the yield out that people want. And so it can definitely be a concern. It depends a little bit on how intense the winds are. You know, a couple of years ago, I know with one of them, Iowa had 120 miles an hour wind gusts, which is insane. Sometimes you can get them and they're just 60, 70 miles an hour, and you can probably recover a little bit. But it's, once you get up to the 80, 9100 miles an hour winds, that's when I think you start to see bigger issues and more concerns. There's no way to know exactly how strong wind gusts will end up being out of one of those at this distance. It's more of a short term thing, but it does raise at least concerns and things that we need to watch.
[00:30:50] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. Okay. I think the theme there is extreme or severe weather. We'll say severe weather. So, Canada. I saw a headline yesterday that talked about, you know, this summer drought setting in for Canada. And. And Brett, like, just to paint a picture here, it's raining. As of recording. Again, I think almost every time we've recorded, it's been raining or snowing here, but I have more precipitation, more moisture, you know, as of middle of June than I had all of last year. And by far, like, I'm probably. Probably up 50% compared to last year. It's very wet here. Not all the prairies, but it's very wet. And we had, in this province, we had last year at this time, 4.7 million forest fires, and today that number is 500,000. Ha. It's still a big number, but much less than last year. When you look at the canadian summer or the prairie summer, you know, it's been cool here the last couple of weeks. Is, are we expecting this to continue for a cool summer? Is there any concerns about a drought setting up here in western Canada in the next couple of weeks? What are you seeing?
[00:32:02] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a great question. You know, I think that you all get progressively warmer, but it's not particularly hot over the next several weeks. You know, I think into July, you can start to heat up a little bit more, probably lingering into August, but with the core of the heat more in the US, a lot of times you all can get that better flow of moisture around the high pressure in the US and get more moisture opportunities. And the next two weeks, I see additional rainfall potential.
Once you get into the summertime, there's always going to be those unlucky few that miss out. But I think that the majority of people can continue to cash in on some moisture that's going to. To help you out. And really into July, I think that can continue as well. Can there be some drier stretches? Yes, but I really think that's probably more late summer, August and into September. I think that over the next month or two, you all have good opportunities to continue to improve the soil moisture situation and hopefully help with those fire issues as well.
[00:33:02] Speaker A: This is just between you and I, and so none of the listeners will tune into this part, but I'm just kidding, they will. They just don't want me to say this out loud? So the crops today, generally speaking, there's always the exception, but in the middle of June, people are posting pictures. They're in the sprayer, they're spraying that crop. They're, they're making their game plan here on what they're all going to apply.
Things are looking pretty good. There's a little too much moisture in southern Manitoba. There's a few pockets that are a little bit too wet. A few pockets are due for rain anytime, but it looks like it's in the forecast for them. Like, things are setting up really well. And if we can get rain every week or two here or for the, you know, generally speaking, it sets us up for a really strong production year in 2024. So, you know, we'll see. But so far, Mother Nature's done a pretty nice job of setting us up. And from what you're telling me, it looks like that could continue here for the next little while. So that's great.
[00:34:07] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. I'm optimistic for you all up there, and I think you deserve it after last year, too.
[00:34:12] Speaker A: Yeah, last year and 21 was brutal, so 2021, but. Okay, any, anything else on your radar, anything for events coming up or anything, any fun facts out of Bam WX? Any. Yeah, any side stuff?
[00:34:26] Speaker B: You know, I don't, I don't have anything major right now. I think that it's going to be an interesting summer overall. We've got some fun things to maybe watch out for on social media over the next couple of, a couple of weeks, couple of months. I'll just do a little teaser there. But next thing is in about a month or so, start looking at the harvest forecast, the fall forecast. And so we'll let you all know when we have a little webinar to promote for everybody to see. The fall forecast and a sneak peek at winter, too.
[00:34:53] Speaker A: Sounds great. Well, I appreciate your time as always, Brett, and we will definitely connect with you next month.
[00:34:58] Speaker B: All right. I appreciate it.
[00:35:03] Speaker A: Always a good time with Brett, getting that weather figured out. Okay, folks, where, let's keep moving along here with the show. You know what? Let's do, let's do mailbag upl we're gonna give away some wave. And then I just, I don't have a lot on prices and market notes, but I'll just touch on fertilizer real quick here.
So let's, let's go over to the mail bag, of course. Sponsored by Pioneer seeds, this month we are giving away an e glue three gallon bucket cooler along with a breakaway speaker. They're all going to get shipped to me. So I should be getting those here shortly for summer use. But yeah, great prize here from pioneer seeds. I got two questions and the first one I'll talk about just for a minute here because it's been well documented the last, what is it, two months? But it was about the Vitera bungee merger. And the question is, is Vitera as a whole selling out to Bungie or is it just a few elevators? And how are they to deal with? Is this a good deal or a bad deal for producers?
So my understanding, and I did do a bit of reading. If you want to check out Bunge's CEO, he writes a little bit of a spicy letter. It's on the real egg website. It's a little spicy. He responds to the negativity from the industry here. That was shown in late April, early May, I think a week later responds and real egg has it on their website. Maybe I'll link it up here in the show notes. Okay. So my understanding is it's everything. All right. So it's Viterra as a whole selling to Bunky. Okay. Not just a few elevators. How are they to deal with is a loaded part of the question.
And if you're referring to Bungie here, and not just, I'd say it's a sensitive one because I say that every company has great buyers and great people in the driveway and great people in the system, but they also have not so great and some poor ones as well.
And like I.
It's situation specific. It's location specific, it's person specific.
I've had some very interesting experiences with both of those companies in the past. And of course, it's, it's about money. It's checks being written to farmers and in different circumstances. So there's going to be tension.
But I have good stories.
I have good stories and I have not so good stories.
And I think you all do as well. I don't think that's isolated to me, you know, but generally speaking. Yeah. Like they're. Both companies have enough positives for you. They all have their quirks. That's probably the way to say it. They have their quirks. Now is this a good deal for producers or bad? Well, I'm not an academic researcher. I'm not anyone of education or high education.
I, you know, I'm not the smartest guy on the block, on the, on the farm. Right. But in my opinion, you know, the what, the Futures podcast opinion. This is a bit of what, of what the future's moment. It's, it's, you know, a WTF because it's not good in western Canada when you eliminate one of your buyers.
You know, some communities are blessed with multiple locations to deliver to, multiple options. But out there, folks, you know, I've had some of my, my best times in, in the town of Provost, Alberta, in my career. I've met some great farmers there, but, you know, those guys, they got to throw a load on a truck and travel a distance. There's a Richardson in town after that, it's a hike. Right. And there's situations like that across the prairies. You think of the peace region.
I don't want to get into the latest update from there yet, but anyways, there was a public announcement from the peace region. That's a head scratcher, too. Anyway, but you're eliminating one of your buyers. And so I, you know, I think about our farm and bungee is just a little bit far for us. It's just a little bit out of our wheelhouse. There's just a lot of options in between.
And so the Vitera is the Vitera and we have a couple of Viteras that make sense for us. And Bungie's just a little bit out of the question. You know, if I think about where I live here and the farmers in my area, you know, they're going to lose a delivery point. They're going to lose a little bit of competition. Not that Vitaire has been the most aggressive on canola in the Edmonton region.
That's actually, yeah, they haven't done, but they are a delivery point. They do take thousands of tons every year. So that will now be a bungie. Right. So it's not great to me as simplest form is, you're losing competitor and that's not good. It, you know, I, when I was working with us folks, the, the options they had to deliver corn to, it was incredible where they could deliver their products to. There's so many different locations. But anyways, I know, I don't think it's good. I don't like it myself. But, hey, the decisions probably already been made. There's probably not a lot you can do about it. And, you know, if I had to guess, nah, it's going to be the way it's going to be. So. All right, my second question came from Scott. And, Scott, if I missed this a couple weeks ago, I apologize if I've already answered this. Let's cross our fingers that I answered the same way. But Scott says, do you agree that you should be tying in fertilizer prices to new crop prices when you're looking far out in the fall of 2025. And then what margin percentage should be considered when you're starting to buy Fert and sell crop? Like, what profit margin should you consider? And I'm just going to tackle this in a slightly different way. I'm going to keep it simple because it's the only way I know how. But I'm looking at those markets today, I'm looking at them separately.
I'm going to tie them together, but I'm looking at them separately. And the reason I say that, Scott, is because I have sold 2025, fall of 2025 crop.
I was talking about that over the last number of weeks. But shame on me, I have not bought my fertilizer yet.
So I, and you know, if you look at urea quotes right now, it's an interesting market, and I'm going to do some digging on this. But to me, it's, I saw like a 100 and $150 a ton spread between quotes out there. So there's some confusion in the marketplace. I saw some mid sixes. I saw there was a mid to low five out there. I think there's some confusion.
And I'm looking at the fertilizer market, figuring out my strategy on purchasing there. Have not executed anything yet, but I've sold grain already for next year. And the reason I made my sale is, though I made an assumption, which can be dangerous, but I made an assumption that I'd be able to buy at the same value or less.
Who knows if that's the right call?
Same value or less. We'll see. We ended up buying, making a good buy on our fert last year. So fingers crossed we can pull that off again. I looked at using what I paid last year, and I just looked at our expenses for next year, and I just saw a path towards profitability using average yields again. So I use that to make my decision. I also looked at seasonalities and I looked at what was driving this market higher and my belief in higher prices. Again, I don't have a crystal ball, I don't know what's coming down the pipeline. But profitability, number one, did I have a margin goal in mind? No, because in some of these crops, my goal is survival. And my goal is break even until proven otherwise. That there was a lot of this year that I penciled in a loss on our farm for wheat. Now, fortunate enough that we had a rally that led us to a path of profitability. Fingers crossed. The crops look good. So far. Right. And it looks like we might make a bit of money on wheat this year. I'll let you know in November when it's all said and done. But, yeah, I don't have a perfect formula and you'll notice that about me as I, I have some rules I stick to. But if I see a path towards profitability for 2025, that's what I'm looking at first. And what should the margin goal be? Well, if you could take that money and make five, six, 7% in a high interest account, then it's got to be higher than that, I would think. But, yeah, that's how I'll keep it simple for this week and hopefully, Scott, I apologize if I missed that a couple weeks ago. And hopefully that answers it again, folks, the pioneer seeds mail bag.
You can email Ryan at withthefuturespodcast. Ca send in your questions. All the questions get put in a hat. All the names get put in a hat for a draw at the end of the month. And again, it's a great bucket cooler and breakaway speaker.
All right. When it comes to giveaways. Now we got Upl who has just stepped up here. We've given away four weeks of battalion.
Battalion went from all the way up in the peace region. It was out in unity. Lloyd Minster I think just south of Edmonton. So it's traveled all over the place. Now we have our first giveaway of wave.
What was it, aquaculture? I think it was called 120 acres of wave.
Last week's episode, Sabrina joined me to talk about this great product.
And the question we had was which country does Upl source its seaweed from? Because, of course, seaweed is used to make wave.
The answer, of course, was France.
And for those that were shrewd, I had tragically hit playing behind me. I also mentioned it and, of course, one of their songs, my favorite song, one of my favorite songs, nautical disaster, has a line in there that mentions the coast of France as well. So, hey, that all kind of tied in nicely last week. But our winner for this week is John. John, you won yourself 120 acres of wave.
And I thought that was it, folks. I thought that was it for our wave giveaway because wave is sold out at a wholesale level. I don't know if it's wholesale level. It is at your retailer. That's where you'll get this product.
But I was, I was worried. I didn't think we would get another jug for another week, but we did. UPL got us another jug, another 120 acres. So John's our first winner, our second question, and you might have to go back to episode 30 to find your answers.
There is a long list of benefits using wave.
What is the best reason to use wave? That is the question. What is the best reason to use wave? Now, UPL is going to make it really easy on us this week.
Every response counts. Okay? There's no wrong answer here. And all you have to do is email your response to Ryan at whatthefuturespodcast CA what is the best reason to use wave? You can go back to episode 30 just to brush up on it. If you go to YouTube, you can just click on it there, brush up on, on your knowledge, but you send it in. Everybody that sends in an answer gets their name entered to win, potentially win this drug of wave. Now, of course you need to read and follow labels and instructions out there. I am not the expert when it comes to crop inputs or chemicals, so please read what the labels tell you and do not take your advice on how to spray from what the futures. Okay, that's it for UPL.
One more week of wave and then we're switching gears. We got another great product here, continues upl giving away product on the what the Futures podcast now. Okay, prices, prices, prices. What makes sense here for prices to talk about for a segment? Everything's dropping, folks. Right? Everything's under pressure here.
Now, I know Chuck Penner, a friend of the show left field commodities.
He's highlighting a few things for lentil prices to hang in there. So lentil, red lentil guys, sit tight. Hang in. Nothing stands out. I think yellow peas are under a bit of pressure now.
But again, folks, you got to work hard on your crop marketing right now because we're facing pretty decent weather, pretty decent crop setup, and you got to be thinking more proactively on your crop marketing. Okay? So for prices, we're just going to talk fertilizer for a sec. And I like, I love price discovery on urea for summer fill. Okay? Yeah, I really like it. I like checking this market out because there's such a wide range in prices out there that we can have fun with it. Okay. And it's happening already. We just talked about it. Right. So your, your prices for your RIA, you've got lots of sixes out there, mid sixes we're seeing across Twitter. We've got some fives in here as well. I think this market needs to figure itself out right now. I wouldn't be the first one in. I wouldn't be the first one jumping in the pool on this one, I'd be seeing and letting these things settle. I'm going to see if I can get some more information on this and from a price perspective, that's the only thing was catching my attention is this. 535 urea, 645 urea, 675 urea, 625 urea. That's all I'm seeing here. All wide range in prices for crops. I don't have anything exciting right now, so we'll sit tight on that. All right. And lastly, eating your veggies. This segment is brought to you by the lunchbox crew. Thanks for listening to the what? The Futures podcast for free. When you're ready to advance your crop marketing skills, upgrade to the lunchbox crew. You can find that at Ryan Deneen, CA join the waitlist for November. For this week, I'm going to sell hype up contract maintenance.
Work on your contract maintenance. I know it's spray season. It's great to see you guys out there spraying crops. But figure out what you got sold over the last month here. Get your percent sold figured out when you're in the sprayer. Think yield potential. Have I lost yield potential? Am I still at 100%? Am I over 100% yield potential? Adjust accordingly. You can adjust that number every day if you want. Every week. Every time a rain comes or doesn't come, you can play with that number and adjust it. Figure out your percent. Sold. It's right now it's about updating your crop marketing plan. What is your strategy tomorrow? What is your strategy next week? Markets are down ten days in a row. Still have further to go if it wants. We've got support down below yet, folks. What is your plan? That is my takeaway here for this week, for eating your veggies.
All right, and in closing, folks, we do record this on Wednesday. Prices may change by the time we record and send this out, so take note of that. If you want to be a guest on the show, email Ryan or head to the website Ryandini cat. If you'd like to connect, sponsor, that's where you head to have yourselves a great day, a great weekend, a great week. Whenever you're tuning in, thanks for listening. I'm out of here.
