Spring is off to a great start for the 2024 planting season.  Hopefully everyone caught some rain over the last couple days. With the forecast showing cooler than average temperatures and cold soils keep in mind that soil should be 50 degrees and above to ensure proper germination. Planting in cool wet soils can lead to early season stress and poor stand establishment. 

As we move into warmer weather and planting takes full swing, remember there is still time to get any last-minute seed, fertilizer and chemical on the books for this year’s crop. Reach out to your local Central Farmers agronomist and they can get you taken care of this spring. Good luck to all the growers across our trade area and have a safe spring!

Agricultural markets were mixed Wednesday at midday with feed grains mostly lower while the soybean complex was higher across the board. With fresh news scarce technical considerations appeared to be driving Wednesday’s price action. The weather shows widespread rains across the Midwest early this week with much cooler temperatures expected through the end of the week. Overnight lows are expected to dip into the mid 20’s this weekend for the Dakotas, along with parts of MN and NW NE. Above normal temperatures are expected to return for much of the nation’s midsection in the last week of April. Widespread rain is still lacking for much of western KN along with OK and TX panhandles for the next week. Heavy rain fell across the drier areas of South America in the past 24 hours and look to possibly continue through the week while Argentina is expected to dry down into early next week.  

Markets will remain on edge due to Geo-political issues and the inability to handicap when the next shoe drops. The big Geo-political issue of the Israel/Iran conflict has barbs being thrown back and forth for the last couple of days. Concerns about further escalation will continue and will add to volatility.

Rain has blessed most of our trade area and will help restore the water table after the past few years of droughty conditions. We still need many rain events from now until mid-August, but every bit helps. The 10-day forecast looks like we may see some rain next week and into the weekend which will slow down some eager farmers wanting to get a start on planting. I hope everyone has a safe and speedy spring planting season!

Last month I wrote about the mill shutdowns that we had planned for Montrose, and we couldn’t be happier with the outcome. Our new 4-ton mixer is hopping along at 25 minutes a semi load compared to 40 minutes with our old mixer. We have new capacity, and the mill is waiting on truck drivers for once, instead of the other way around. We also just picked up the feed department’s first ever brand-new truck, a 2024 Freightliner. We will now have 5 semis for 4 drivers which will allow us to have a spare so that we won’t have to pull a driver off the road for truck maintenance. We know the busy season is close, so we pushed our bid a bit to make sure we have plenty of corn on hand while field work is getting done. Please keep an eye on our bid during those rainy days. As always, thanks for your business.