Wheat Marketing - Let's Talk About It!

[00:00:00] Well, folks, we are approaching the end of July, the end of the crop year. I always like to reflect during this time of year, reflect on what some of my good decisions were, some of my best crop marketing decisions, you know, some of my worst ones, the lessons that's been learned here. And I often get asked the question, how do you handle the pressure of all these decisions, all these recommendations with all these farmers across the prairies, hundreds of millions of dollars at stake here. How do you handle it? Well, let's get into, folks, episode 86 right around the corner. [00:00:36] Hey, folks, welcome to the what the Futures podcast, your quick guide to better farming decisions. [00:00:50] All right, folks, welcome into episode 86 of the what the Futures podcast. Of course, my name is Ryan. [00:00:57] I'm recording here once again in the UPL studio. I got to say, folks, it was a blast at Egg in Motion last week. We're going to talk a little egg in Motion. I've got some housekeeping stuff to get through here today. And then we're going to talk about crop marketing, specifically wheat. We're going to talk about spring wheat. We're going to talk about the nasty situation that prairie farmers find themselves in. It doesn't matter if you farm 600 acres or 40,000 acres. Wheat marketing has been a struggle for many. All right, so we're gonna talk about wheat marketing, how to handle it here over the next couple of months, see if we can find a little positivity as well when it comes to your wheat marketing plan. Of course, I teased off the hop that one of the biggest questions, the question I get asked often is how do you handle the pressure? You know, when it comes to crop marketing, like, if you think about in the peak of my career, I don't know if I can do the math here on the fly. I don't know if it's fair to call 2019 to 2022 my. My peak. But let's. Let's say, for example, with recommendations here, a couple hundred farms, let's put them average farm size, 5,000 acres. So that's a million acres, right? That's easy math. And then we had the big bull run. So you put, you know, 800 bucks an acre, maybe more. You know, there's what, 800 million worth of decisions there? Of course you're not going to influence it. $800 million to zero. Like, one way or the other, you're going to influence a percentage of that. But what I tell people is that no matter what happens, I used to do the good, the bad, and the ugly. When I would sit down with my consulting clients and review the year, it's important to visit your highs. The mistakes kind of linger with you. You know, they don't really. [00:02:49] They don't go away anytime soon. You kind of sit on those a bit, you stew on those a little bit. But I also want to remind you to make sure that you look at the positives, the good things that you did in your crop marketing plan this last year and hopefully take that forward, take that to the next, the next stage, take that with you in your crop marketing plan moving forward and just write down or record some of those notes. We're not writing a lot of stuff down these days. The reason that you can stay in this business, you can stay very, very humble is that no matter what happens, if you give a recommendation to 10 farmers, someone's going to do it right away. Someone's going to wait a day or two, someone's going to set a target, and then someone's going to completely forget about it. Okay? So no matter what happens with any recommendation, I have someone who is thrilled with me, meaning that I've made the recommendation to sell. Let's say they've sold, the market's gone down, they're happy. I've got the ones that'll be frustrated cause they didn't do enough. All right? And then I'll have the ones where you make the recommendation. The market climbs and they're upset, right? They're upset with you. No matter what happens, you just. The way it's the way the business, the way it works, it doesn't matter on any given day. Monday to Friday, let's take the weekends off here. Monday to Friday, someone is happy with me, someone was mad at me. [00:04:15] And you know, maybe someone's even just disappointed. Let's throw that in there as well. So even if you think you have it all done, you think you did it the right way, it still comes back to you that someone is not going to be thrilled. All right? So that's how you stay even. That's how if you are going to, you know, market $800 million worth of crops, that's how you stay even keeled. Because you're definitely not going to get them. All right? And no matter what happens, someone's going to be thrilled. Someone's going to be not happy with you. Alrighty. Okay, Egg in Motion was a blast. We're going to talk wheat marketing here in just a second. I also got a new little feature here, and we'll get to that here as well. It's. It's not a new one. It's actually, we're going to bring it back to life here. It's been on my mind the last, last few weeks, so we're going to dive into that here as well. Anyways, I wanted to just, again, just highlight and just thank you anyone that stopped by to say hello at the UPL booth. Obviously, the UPL team does a great job as well. And. And they are great, great folks to be partnered with at an event like this. They take care of the little things. And so big thanks to them for having me out. Big thanks to everybody that stopped in and said hello. Just a conversation about crop marketing, a conversation about what you have going on in, in your life. [00:05:37] It. [00:05:38] Yeah, it's all, you know, phenomenal. And I had lots of great conversation, so I appreciate that. Egg in Motion is. It's a. It's a beast of a show. Like, I need a fourth day. I need a fourth day because I didn't even get. I didn't even get to say hi to everybody and I didn't get to. [00:05:59] I didn't get my list done. All right? [00:06:02] So I need a fourth day, apparently. Now here's a couple of my tips, though, and things that caught my eye at Egg in Motion. Number one, if you come on the last day, that is when you might be giving up a little bit of the primo swag. Like, I know for us we were running tight on mediums and larges for shirts on the last day. We did set some aside each day, but, you know, we were tight on that last day. We did run out, but you get the swag. Like, people don't want to haul this stuff back to trucks or to their trailers, so you get more swag, man. Like, the SGI guys, they offered me eight ice creams in about 30 minutes, right? So you get all the snacks, you get the swag, and then you get the deals. Like, if you're there to make a deal, it's the last day. They don't want to drive that X9 combine home. [00:06:54] All right? There's deals to be had on the last day of the show. So that's definitely something that stood out for me this, this year. The other wild thing for me is that, like, Egg In Motion has posted hours on the website that don't mean. [00:07:09] They mean diddly squat. They don't mean a darn thing. If it says 8:30 to 4:30 on the website, it does not matter if you want to be there at 7am the coffee's on. And people will be manning the booths and available to chat with you like that. That is. [00:07:26] Yeah, it's. It's there if you want to stay. Like, I'm. I'm there. The one night I'm recording last week's podcast late, and I think I was there. It was past 6:30pm well, that place was basically a nightclub for farmers. [00:07:45] Basically, the party was on. Like, you're supposed to leave at 4:30. [00:07:51] Yeah, well, some. A bunch did, but the beer carts came out all of a sudden. I could smell barbecue cooking. I'm like, what the heck is going on? People were walking around, having beverages, checking things out. I even had a few people were going to, like, they're like, what are you doing? I'm like, I'm recording a podcast. Do you want to be on the show? And I almost had a few lined up. So I mentioned this to upl and I said, next year, DJ Ryan's got to come out here or we gotta. We gotta get the party going. Like, we had a few ideas flow in the one morning there, so we'll see. I think Egg in Motion After Dark or Ag and Motion After Hours could. [00:08:32] There's potential there. There's potential. All right, so I didn't know that. I had no clue. I've been to Egg In Motion, like, I don't know, six times. I've always left promptly at 4:30. You know, respectfully at 4:30. [00:08:47] But apparently it's like a rager of a party. Like they were pulling out games to play in the street. [00:08:55] Like ring toss, cornhole in the street, like after hours. [00:09:01] So I don't know what's going on, but we got to figure that thing out. Okay, so that was phenomenal. Egg Emotion was phenomenal. Some of my tips rang true. Pack a lunch, guys. A few snacks, a sandwich. [00:09:12] Like, it's hard to get food at primetime there. It's really hard. You got to wait. Those lineups are big. So that was a good one. And the golf cart thing, like, unreal setups of gators and golf carts out there. Yeah. Next year, my debt, we're. We're going to register ours just to save me. It took me eight trips to pack my gear up back in my truck, and it rained every 30 minutes when I was packing up. Anyway, that's an aside. All right, so that was great. The other thing that came out of Egg in Motion is people ask, hey, Ryan, I see all these great shirts and swag on social media. [00:09:46] I can't make it to Egg in Motion. Could you sell those T shirts on your website. And I got, I get, I got asked this last year as well, because, you know, the shirts are, are really cool, cool colors, the design's great. [00:09:59] We have a lot of fun with them. [00:10:02] We have hats out there, stickers, notepads, pens, flags. Like, you know, we're geared up. [00:10:08] But my, my thing is as a podcast, like, we don't spend a lot of resources or money marketing ourselves throughout the year. We grow through you guys, the wonderful listener. So please subscribe on Apple Podcast. Give us a review. We haven't had a review in a year. Aquina was the last one to review this show. So give us a Review. Go to YouTube, hit the subscribe button over there. Send in your comments. [00:10:34] They are appreciated, but my philosophy is I don't wanna. I don't wanna sell this stuff like we did when I first started. [00:10:43] At the podcast launch, we did up a bunch of gear, priced it all out. Honestly, folks, it was a pain in the butt. [00:10:49] Like, it was a pain in the butt. I don't know. I. I know there's a lot of successful retail companies out there, but I'm not one of them. I can't be in the garage here at night packing boxes. [00:10:59] And so my philosophy is, if you're going to see me, if you're going to see the what the Futures podcast, if you're going to see the setup, then we are going to bring our stuff and it's all free. [00:11:10] You want to grab a shirt? You see us there. You come grab your shirt, a hat, whatever we have for gear. [00:11:17] So we do that here at Egg in Motion, and we do this at the Crop Marketing Made Cool conference. [00:11:24] And the gear set up there blows the doors off Egg in Motion. We have way more stuff, way more variety, and it's, it's just a thank you for you, the listener. To you, the listener, it's a thank you for coming out and saying hi. I love when I put together a bundle of shirts for you, your partner, your wife, and your three kids. And, you know, we talk marketing and then of course, we see the pictures after on social media and. And it's awesome. It's cool. [00:11:55] Now, even though I've just made that statement, I've got one outlier, okay? For this is a rare opportunity. This is an outlier for 20, 25. Here I have. [00:12:08] Out of 500, I have 25 of these hats left. 25. Okay. These were a minimum $35 donation. [00:12:18] All proceeds going to the CCAW. Again, the Farm Crisis Helpline. 1866 Farms. [00:12:26] Kristen and Dr. Brianna were just phenomenal people that we got to share a couple days with last week at the booth. I'm excited to have their team present at this year's conference as well. Just such a topic that needs to be talked about and discussed. So these were a minimum $35 donation. Of course. Our great artist, nine year old paisley designed these. So here's the deal I'll make if you speak for two of these hats. [00:12:56] Well, two of the hats I'm going to send you a what? The futures flag. [00:13:00] Okay, so two hats and a flag. I will ship them to you and all I want in return is $100. [00:13:10] It's going to raise another 2,500 bucks for the CCAW. Actually, you know what, tell me your shirt size as well. I'm going to throw one of these beauties in there for you as well. 100 bucks. Email Ryan at what the Futurespodcast ca give me a couple weeks to get them organized and out. I will get them out in August. You'll get two hats, a flag, a T shirt, 100 bucks. [00:13:34] I'll send you a invoice. And there we go. We'll raise another 2500 bucks for the CCAW. All right. Does that sound like a plan? Brian at with the futurespodcast C. That's my email. That's all you got to do. Email me, say, ryan, I'm in. Send me two hats. My shirt size is this. Boom. You'll get a flag too. All right, cool. What else do we have do I have here? Well, we, of course we were busy with a few things last week. We also ended our online auction. Not silent auction, Ryan, online auction where we donated a crop marketing make cool conference ticket with hotel. My buddy Brian Kuhn stepping up. He got a heck of a deal. 800 bucks. All proceeds going to the Bellevue Care home. [00:14:23] Thank you, Brian for the winning bid there, buddy. Appreciate it. He knows he got a good deal. [00:14:30] We also did a Lunchbox crew subscription. Big thanks to Keith Goodet out of Hoy, Saskatchewan stepping up. [00:14:39] Paid five grand for this Lunchbox Crew membership. [00:14:44] They're only 39.95. $3,995. So Keith stepped up big. [00:14:52] Really appreciate it. That was a whopper of a of a donation and all those funds also continuing to go to the Bellevue Care Home for their kitchen reno and then lastly some consulting. [00:15:05] I want to thank Grant Durie for the winning bid there. I think that one came in at about 4500 bucks and that was for some one on one farm consulting grant. How these things work, folks, is I do consulting for a handful of farms. Usually within that group, someone steps up, basically says, hey, I'm gonna buy this thing and I work with the guy, I'm gonna buy it. [00:15:30] Sometimes they get a little bit of a deal on the, on the invoice there instead, so it works out for everybody. And again, thanks, Grant for that one. Out of Vegarville, Alberta. And again, Bellevue Care Home at the end, we raised 13 grand is the total. [00:15:47] We had donations come in from Colin, we had donations from Keaton, donations from Mitchell as well. [00:15:54] All together, raised 13 grand. And going to that kitchen Reno at the Bellevue Care Home again, you've heard the story, folks. My grandpa spent time there. Great facility, great people, great meal. And for a farmer coming off the farm, that was a big one. All right. Okay, we're gonna talk wheat marketing here in just a second and we'll get our latest on crop markets as well. Before I do that, I do want to slip my positive moment in here for the week. Just talking about my grandpa. [00:16:33] I believe that this is a very rare thing to happen. [00:16:38] And so that's why I want to talk about it. It's a very cool experience for me last week. So of course we're at Egg in Motion, which is a full four day thing Monday setup all the way to Thursday night. And of course my family and my wife's family are just north of Saskatoon, so it's a, a bit of a big week spending time with the family as well. And so I got to drive in, take a drive in my dad's Chevy, 1949 Chevy. And we're going to throw some pictures here on social media as well so you can check it out. [00:17:19] I may have the story slightly off by a year or two because I can't remember what year my grandparents were married. [00:17:28] But that truck was their, their wedding gift. [00:17:32] And so I don't know if it was grandma's family that gifted it. You know, my dad's going to be listening to this saying, why didn't you ask me before you recorded? I would have gave you the details. [00:17:43] But anyways, it was a wedding gift. And this truck where my grandparents lived, they had 10 kids and then around like they didn't go far. All right. The boys didn't travel far, so I had an uncle a mile this way, an uncle a mile that way, you know, two miles away. Everyone was pretty close, right? Pretty close. But this truck was sitting in a, in a tree line and my mom, I Believe this is a Covid project. My mom pulls this thing, buys it off my cousin, I guess he was the, the last to own it, buys it off my cousin and gifts it to my dad. Now this thing had poplar trees growing out of it when they pulled it out of the tree line. [00:18:31] And I hope I can find a picture of day one in the tree line. I don't know if there's a picture of it or not. I hope there is. But that started I call it my dad's Covid project. But a two year old rebuild of this truck. [00:18:50] And yeah, I think obviously that's, that's pretty rare. I would think that's pretty rare to be able to experience something like that. But it's a 1949 Chevy. Dad did some different things to it. He put in a little diesel engine. [00:19:07] It's got a little four speed in there, standard. So it was first time I ever drove it. And the reason I got a chance to drive it is it was near pavement. So the farm is in the middle of gravel roads, but it was near pavement. And I was like, all right, I'm going to take this thing for, for a rip. Chantal jumped in with me and yeah, we got to go for a little cruise in, in, well, Grandma and grandpa's old truck I guess. So that's my positive moment of the week. There's a bunch of other cool stuff that happened as well, but that one really, really stands out. All right. Okay, now I want to highlight here before we talk wheat marketing, we're going to launch a new contest. This is sponsored by the Crop Marketing Made Cool conference. So on my website, Ryan Denis or sorry, what the futurespodcast ca. That's where this one is. Whatthefuturespodcast ca. When you go and browse on. For me, it's on the right hand side. It could be on the bottom of your screen. [00:20:11] It kind of moves around but it says send voicemail. All right, so let's hear what this means when you hit send voicemail to Ryan from the what the Futures podcast. [00:20:27] All right, what the futures listeners. This is Ryan sending his own voicemail to the what the Futures podcast. I wanted to talk quickly about our new contest. This is inspired. I got one of these messages last week. What happens is you go to the website, you hit send voicemail and you can record just like I'm doing right now, you can record a question, you can send me a comment, whatever it is, you hit send, you type in your name, your email, you hit send and I can respond to you. I get the voicemail and I can respond to you. All right, so what we're gonna do here, we're gonna do a monthly contest and of course sponsored by the Crop Marketing Made Cool conference. We'll switch it up prize wise. [00:21:15] But if you send in one of these voicemails with a question or whatever it is, you're gonna be entered to win the monthly prize. And this month we're gonna give away a set of John Deere wrenches, of course, John Deere, sponsor of the Crop Marketing Makers Cool Conference. And we're going to give away some wrenches. These are, these are nice wrenches, folks. So I'm sure you'll appreciate them. All you have to do send in your question at the end of August. I'll pick a winner, put everyone's name in a hat, pick a winner. And I'd love to get this going. I might play these during episodes. I'll always ask for your permission, but let's have some fun. [00:21:57] All right folks, it's as easy as that. I send in your voicemails again. I will respond to them. Ask me a question, Crop marketing question. Give me a comment and I've got one to start here. I'm also going to prompt you on these. So I've got one for this week's episode. Now, we talked about reviewing your crop marketing for the last year. I want to say everybody, but just about everybody I know subscribes to some type of crop marketing service, newsletter, whatever it is, podcasts, stuff like that. My question for you this week is what stands out from the service that you use as the best crop marketing tip, Recommendation, advice, knowledge. [00:22:44] What stands out? What did they write? Produce, send to you. That stands out as a marketing win in for the 2024 crop. Send them in. Go to the website. What the futures podcast.ca hit the voicemail button, send those in again. With your permission, I might play a few back in next week's episode or I guess in a few weeks. I'll be away next week and you'll get your name entered to win some John Deere wrenches which always come in, come in handy at harvest time. These are top quality. [00:23:17] And again, John Deere a sponsor. [00:23:20] The Crop Marketing Made Cool conference happening in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, December 9th to 11th. Over 50% sold out. [00:23:28] If you want to get your tickets, ryand ca fill out the application form and let's get, let's get after it here. If you want to join us in musha, we've been selling tickets actually every couple days again this is. I'm not trying to pressure you into sold out. I think we'll be sold out in October, but here we are, August around the corner. Hey, if you're coming anyway, why not grab your ticket so you're good to go? All right, let's talk wheat marketing. Now, of course, I do have eating your veggies coming up here in just a second as well, but I wanted to turn our attention here to marketing wheat. As of recording, this is going to be for Minneapolis spring wheat. Okay? We've got millions and millions of acres out there of Minneapolis spring wheat. We are losing money on those acres. So I wanted to just talk about what's happened a little bit in the past. I've got some wheat marketing victories as well, which I think are important to share because they can influence you for next year. And I don't think that's a bad thing. Okay? Now when it comes to wheat marketing, we are staring down. I think the farm got offered, man, I want to say it had a six in front of it this week. [00:24:47] I didn't pull up the live here as I was checking this out, but I believe it has a six in front of it. We're not going to take that, but you know what I mean. [00:24:59] I got offered in central Alberta. I got offered 750. This is not for feed wheat, folks. This is a number one, thirteen five Minneapolis spring wheat. This is four hundred bucks an acre. This is three hundred and fifty dollars an acre. This is three hundred dollars an acre. For some of you, this is a. This is bad. This is not good. Okay, So I wanted to talk about this a little bit because in my discussions this week, I think it's important to note here to not that we shouldn't always be doom and gloom, but that we. We also need to look at what does this market, what's it showing us, what's it giving us? And what is the potential? Like, okay, Also, what is the risk? Like, so the reason I wanted to bring this up, number well, number one, it was the biggest after urea. And I got a side note on urea. Okay, I'll just say it quick. You guys tell me. If everybody that you talk to is talking about if they should buy fertilizer or when they should buy fertilizer or how they need to buy fertilizer, what odds do you think that market has of dropping? Like, hey, Mr. And Mrs. Farmer, I have 10 loads of urea. Here's my price. If you don't take it, that's fine. Somebody else will. Like that's the outgoing call or the call you're receiving, incoming call from your retail, and then everyone's talking about it at the same time. Like, I'm not saying that that's the reason prices are high. There's fundamental reasons prices are high. But all I'm saying is if you expect a decline in the fertilizer market here in July, in early August, some of your fundamentals are going to, they're going to need to change because you guys aren't doing it. You're all talking about it. You're all very excited about it. You're all working each other up about it. And that is not how you lower the price by any means. [00:26:55] That's how you keep price elevated. [00:26:57] So just something to think about there, guys. The other thing, fundamentals need to change, but you're not giving it the time. You're not allowing the fundamentals to change because you're so worked up about needing to buy it now, you might as well just go buy it. Just go buy the darn stuff. But make sure you formulate your plan, your farm financial plan, your do your cost of production, do some crop marketing along the way. You might as well just go buy the dirt stuff if you'll be that. If you're going to be that worked up about it. Okay, back to wheat marketing. So I, I had a discussion. Like, my phone blows up, Ryan, I need to move wheat at harvest. Okay. And then multiply that by 10. [00:27:35] You're probably feeling the same way right now. You're probably feeling the same pressure that you need to move some wheat at harvest. That, that's an unfortunate situation to be in. [00:27:46] All right? It's not a, it's not a good situation to be in. Now, does it have to be wheat number one? Could it be a different crop? Could it be something else that you're growing that is profitable or closer to profitable on current values? [00:28:02] That's the thought I would have. That's what I would think about. [00:28:06] But farms like to move. They like to move yellow peas off the combine. They like to move wheat in the fall as well, more often than not. [00:28:13] So that is a big question. [00:28:16] When I looked at futures charts here between now and September, you go back, take out the, you know, 20, 20, 20, 21, like the big bull run. If you take those years out, unless you believe the next big bull run is, is here, I'm, I'm not there. But, you know, maybe you do the market, it, it really struggles here at this time. And so I'm getting asked all these questions about, you know, how am I going to move wheat off combine. You can move all your wheat, as much wheat as you want off combine. [00:28:48] You know, the problem here is that you, you're already faced with, we're already chasing. Because just like your hype in fertilizer, there's a hype around moving wheat in some areas, not every area, but in some. And the one buyer I talked to today said, hey, Ryan, yeah, I understand you guys want to move some wheat, blah, blah, blah. Would you move it at $8? Well, yeah, you offered me 740, so would I move it at 8? That sounds a lot better than 740. The problem is at this location, I said, how many other eights are in the system, though? [00:29:24] Of course they want you to throw it on a target. Well, the answer is too many. Because everybody wants to sell at 8 when they're being offered 740 or 750 a bushel. Right? Never mind. Below that at 780. [00:29:36] There's a large chunk of volume being offered at 780. Does it fill a train? I don't know. I don't think so. Maybe does. It's close, but you gotta get through that before you get to eight bucks. And that's going to intensify in that region over the next few weeks. The chase is on, guys. The chase is on. [00:29:57] Okay? Now we've been. [00:30:01] When we look at the wheat market, so futures wise, you could go back to almost like February of 2024. You could take. There's an outlier there. There's a spring rally. We got a spring rally this year, guys. We didn't feel good about it. We didn't like how dry it was on the prairies, so we didn't do much of it. But February 2024 to now, we've traded a range somewhere between 565 and 665. Like a dollar range, you know, basically a downtrend with a little rally in there. That little rally is what I sold most of the 24 crop on and a good chunk of the 25 crop. When I did my presentation for UPL last week, my title for wheat was Living on a Prayer because I'm still living off those sales. Like my next wheat sale for the farm, I'm going to be what, 30, 35, 40% sold. And I'm going to have a. A price. My first price is going to be eight. [00:30:58] What's going to be 8:40 a bushel, I think it was. And then my next one's going to be, let's say 750. Like I'm still going to be sitting here averaging not far from $8 wheat and have that first third sold. I'm still living on a prayer from June of May, June of 2024. But futures, you go back 2015-1719-2022-2023, like it's tough going here. And then you get these little harvest rallies, you know, 2022, we went early September to early October, we rallied about a dollar there. [00:31:35] 2019, we rallied about 60 cents. [00:31:41] You can get these little rallies. We What, a buck ten? This looks like a buck ten in 2017 here, 2050 and a six cents. [00:31:50] But you can get those, those little rallies. [00:31:54] Now I think that we need to be prepared for this sideways trend that we're in for it to continue. [00:32:05] And then you got to throw in there a Canadian dollar that is, that is not doing what you want it to do. It's, it's climbing a little bit. The Canadian dollar is just kind of grinding a little bit higher. You know, my local G3 came at me and said, hey, basis got worse by I think 14 cents. I'm like, what? Why? [00:32:26] Well, the dollar went up a little bit. I looked, I'm like, yeah, three quarters of a cent. [00:32:31] It's an expensive 14 cents for me. But anyways, I think when we look at futures, we need to be prepared for this sideways run. Now some positivity here. Russia, you know, looks like they're producing a smaller crop compared to last year. [00:32:51] Same thing out of Ukraine. Smaller wheat crop, slightly smaller wheat crop in the US And Canada. [00:33:01] I'm going to put my eggs in the basket of a. [00:33:04] We went from record wheat last year. So I'm going to go smaller wheat crop here as well in 2025. Challenge is that those declines are, they're small. You know, we're talking about a couple percent. [00:33:20] We're talking about crops that are smaller by 1%, 3%, 4%, something like that. And so we're not getting our, our big rally. We're not getting, we're not getting our, our big storyline. Pardon me? Our big storyline here where, where someone stands up and says, holy smokes, look over here. [00:33:42] Like this is a game changer. Wheat needs to rally. [00:33:46] We're not seeing that. [00:33:49] And we have harvest, Northern hemisphere harvest around the corner. Now let's throw another layer into here as well. [00:33:58] We have a very big corn crop. [00:34:02] So like, you can't really feed our way out of this one either. You know what I mean? Like that corn crop, I was looking At Lethbridge prices before recording, I noticed they dropped, oh, what was it, 20, 10 bucks a ton over the last couple days here, and I think 20 bucks a ton over the last month. You guys know that I told, I told you I was to move feed barley, right? I told you guys that I was bearish. Feed barley, that was my biggest percent sold. [00:34:33] So. [00:34:34] Yeah. So when it comes to, you know, figuring out the, the fundamentals here and figuring out what could be bullish, you know, you could throw in there that the US Is making these trade deals and that, you know, Indonesia or the Philippines or whoever's standing up and making a trade deal is, you know, pledging to buy more wheat. Like that could be slightly positive. [00:34:55] In the background, though, you still have this Canadian dollar that, you know, what's it going to do here to. What's it going to do to basis in the short term or even over the next six months. So I don't, I'm not, you know, kidding around when, when I talk about having to figure out different, you know, we call it base hits. I don't like saying base hits, but base hits, like trying to build, to build some pricing here, trying to build a bit of a wheat margin somehow. You know, I just think of, of all the little decisions. It's a lot of work. [00:35:33] I'm not going to lie to you. It's not easy. [00:35:36] You're not going to make all the right decisions either. Like, we, we did a little short on Minneapolis wheat futures when it was 670. Didn't think anything of it. Just thought, hey, we don't really want to sell it, so let's go hedge, let's go do a little short. And all of a sudden that darn thing, you know, on a 5000 bushel contract is making 2500 bucks us like, you know, you get four or eight of those going and all of a sudden you added a little margin to your wheat crop. I got, you know, poking around here for a few clients looking to move some wheat off, you know, off combine or in the fall. And they're getting offered a little better basis than what's being posted right now. You know, that doesn't last very long. I don't think. [00:36:28] So there's maybe something there, 20, 25 cents in there. [00:36:32] And then, hey, maybe you look at the Kansas wheat chart and I know a broker reached out and said, hey, here's a idea on KC wheat. [00:36:40] Looked like it made sense to me. [00:36:42] And so, hey, you know, maybe there'll be a play there. Now that One is losing me a couple pennies right now. But it's just not as easy as, doesn't seem like it's going to be as easy as last year. [00:36:55] Last year we, we didn't. So the low that I got offered last year at harvest time is somewhere on an episode here or two. But I think it was 638 or 640. [00:37:07] Have to look back and see. But it was, price was never going to be better, right? Well, we didn't sell anything under eight bucks. [00:37:15] Eight or eight, 25, you guys know what I mean? You just waited, you waited. Demand was strong basis, did the heavy lifting, had some of the best basis levels that we've ever seen. [00:37:27] And you know when you get offered a 2$250$3 basis it takes a lot of the, takes a lot of the hard work out of it. And so yeah, I, you know, when it comes to this year are we going to see similar thing, those similar phone calls? I would anticipate we will see some of that but I just am not convinced that demand is going to stay as strong as it has this last year. You know, we also have a Canadian dollar that over a one year chart, you know, we spent where we're at today, you know, 7370. [00:38:01] You know, we spent a little bit of time, let's see here, August, September last year was above this and then a little bit of time here in June and a little bit of time in July. Every everything else though was below that. In fact we spent December all the way to April, we were under 72 cents. [00:38:27] You know, we spent a lot of time around 70 cents, even dipped down to 68 cents there for a little bit. So I don't know folks, I don't know. I, you know, I, I, you gotta put these decisions together. I don't think it's gonna be as easy as just putting in the bin and waiting. [00:38:43] And I, what you could focus on here though if you like, if you are below break even and we all are, sorry, we're all below break even. [00:38:56] But you know when you look at your crop marketing plan and when it comes to wheat like number one, do you really have to move it in the fall like this? This for sure that you have to move it in the fall because quality spreads, protein spreads, we don't know what those are yet. And you could like the one thing that can rally this wheat market is a very poor harvest, poor weather, rain that can rally this thing. [00:39:22] So like do you have to move this weed? Because if you Pull off quality that nobody else has or less people have. You may get a nice premium from that. You may. [00:39:32] Can you get past the glut of harvest? [00:39:35] Can you get into the winter months where someone has a train? [00:39:39] Because, let's be honest, folks, to pay the bills, you're going to move $700 canola, you know, freely. You'll do that all day. You're gonna move green peas at 13 bucks. You're gonna sell yellow peas right now at between 860 and 940. Like, you'll do all that stuff first. So when a line company needs wheat, they're gonna phone and say, hey, we need wheat. Now maybe they do have some of these little specials that we can grab throughout the winter. What I would do is some basis research. Your local area, grab a basis chart. Your grain buyers have them. So you show me historicals here. What's a. What's a basis scenario look like for me in 20 for 20, 25, tight futures targets. The futures market in a whole year may move a dollar from the high to the low in an entire year. Right now, we're almost right in the middle of that. [00:40:32] So you can't go and throw something wild out there. You got to look at 20, 30 cents on your futures targets, get a good basis, put your futures targets. And I would say if you can do some research on spreads, I know that's a bit of a reach, but there may be something there. There may be a quality play that could yield you some. [00:40:55] You know, maybe you lock in a really good number three discount and deliver a one against it and get a nice premium. It's been done before. [00:41:02] If you throw it in the bin, I wouldn't sit here and lock it up, but one farm asked me yesterday. They're like, hey, we just want your opinion on markets. I'm like, oh, yeah, I'm kind of bullish Canola right now. They're like, yeah, we don't care about that. We just want to know what to do with wheat. And they're like, we're just going to throw it in the bin and store it into next spring. What next spring does for you folks is it opens up the next growing season. [00:41:27] It opens up the chance for production issues in Russia, Ukraine, the U.S. canada. [00:41:35] And the way inputs are going, I think we'll be planting a little less wheat. I think people will be fed up of the $6 and $7 wheat prices they get offered this year. Yeah, you go back chart after chart, look at when the highs are established, just like this year. Or I guess there was one outlier this year, but it's. Yeah. [00:41:56] So I don't know if we solved anything there. [00:41:59] My wins, my wins for wheat again. [00:42:05] And I think this is something you need to consider. [00:42:08] But going further out, grabbing the spread, grabbing that carry in the wheat market, you're being offered a 6, 10 December Minneapolis spring wheat. Right now you're at a 665 for next year. [00:42:22] You know, going out there and just getting your feet wet, getting something done, grabbing that carry in the market and it's turning into like again, it's turning into in central Alberta here. Even for this year. If you were doing this strategy in June, you're locking in wheat values today of 878, 70. [00:42:48] There's an 880 on here, an 860, like that's a buck or better higher than the price right now. [00:42:57] You know, throw that over 60 bushels. That's a big difference. [00:43:00] And so look at the carry in futures. You might even sit here and say, ryan, forget about next December. I'm going to go grab the carry in March. I'm going to go and grab that 21 cents. I'm going to go and grab that July at 6:50, right, go and grab that 40 cents. You might even do that. [00:43:21] All right, so lots of small decisions this year, folks. Got to build it, put it together. And we'll talk much more wheat marketing in in future episodes. [00:43:33] All right, eating your veggies here for episode 86 of the pod. Number one, harvest plan update. [00:43:41] All right, Figure out what you're going to need to move. And you start with cash flow. [00:43:48] Then it might be a bin space conversation for a very select few of you because let's face it, I don't think we have to build a bunch of bins this year. But figure out your harvest plan update. You might even start bringing your team together on this one as well. Talk to your financial side, your banker. You may talk to an accountant as well on this one. But just getting that plan organized, what do we need to establish for dollars? What do we need to establish for space? [00:44:15] You know, how much grain do I want to move in the wintertime? [00:44:19] You know, those are things. How are we going to execute? Who are we going to deliver to figure out that harvest plan? All right, number two, call your buyers. This goes hand in hand with the harvest plan, but call your grain buyers and you might even. [00:44:35] They won't buy you lunch. But like when I was a grain buyer, this is a long time ago now, but I think we had $250 for the year to buy lunch or for anything. I think it was 250 bucks. Might have went to 500 bucks. Anyways, I didn't buy anybody lunch back in my. Can we say Vitera now? Can we say Vitera days? Like, Vitera's done right, so. Yeah. But anyways, maybe take them out for lunch. [00:45:01] Talk to your buyers about what are their needs. [00:45:05] Like every grain elevator out there, they know what cars are coming in August, late August, they know what cars are coming in September. Like, this is a very efficient system in the background, regardless of, oh, cars didn't show up this week. You know, like, yeah, okay. It snows in the winter. Things happen with cold weather. I get it. [00:45:28] But we had, and I'm sure it's better now, but we had eight weeks. We knew eight weeks what was going on and we knew. [00:45:37] I remember days phoning firearms bank on Monday. You got 500 ton allocation. You know, you're going to haul your Canadian wheat board contract. And then cars would get switched or whatever. But it was head office that would be making the switch. They'd say, hey, sorry, star, we got a. [00:45:54] Get this turned around faster. So we're gonna, you know, move this somewhere else, Southern Alberta or something. Or hey, we want to get cleaned out of this region. It's competitive over there and we want to get more wheat out. We have a chance here to scoop some grain. So. But it was head office that would make the change. We had to tell you guys that it was frozen lids or something, or blame CN or cp, but more often than not, it was at office. [00:46:22] All right, so meet with your buyers though. What do they need? [00:46:25] Hi, here's all my acres and my crops. What can I get you and will you pay me more money for it? Have that conversation and my last one just on theme here, targets for fall of 2026. We're talking Minneapolis spring wheat. We're talking Kansas. We have my CPS growers out there, my winter wheat growers, you know, rye growers as well, don't mess around. Start getting those offers out there, get those targets out and start building that crop marketing plan. And hey, even on canola too, you know, even if you want to be a little more optimistic on that one and throw it in at 7:20 or 7:30, go for it, but get those targets. So get that plan going. All right, that's it for eating your veggies. All right, folks. Well, that's it. That's episode 86 for the what the futures podcast. Thanks so much. For joining me here again. Go hit that subscribe button. Give us some love. [00:47:14] If you want to check out the conference, Ryandini Ca if you want to join the Lunchbox Crew VIP list as well, I think we got a spot that's going to open up here in the Lunchbox Crew. So if you are interested, you can go check out those details on the website as well. That's it for me. My name is Ryan with the Weather Futures podcast and I'm out of here.