Glad I burn wood & not pellets

[jimbojango]

we have that much in the coop but the storage will eat it up before too long .
we did about 12,000 bushel of corn in a grain bag along with a lot of wheat and soybean.
we are trying to get away from coop as much as we can.
and for getting rich,,,,,, look at the coop's

Ours did pay a large cash dividend on grain and fertalizer... Makes you wonder why they screw us on basis that bad.

 

[hedge hog]

back when I was a kid the coop's would ask you " how late you guy's cutting tonight?"
now they tell you when there closing and what time you need to be inline by .
they use to work for the farmer , now farmer works for them.
I call B.S.

 

[Cheesecutter]

Deer corn around here is $9 for 50lbs. I dont have a clue as to what corn fuel sells for, dont think i have ever seen it. I havent researched any markets, but $9 for 50lbs is better than the $6 a bushel you folks are wishing for. Got to be a way to get a better than $4 bushel price out of it.

$9 for 50 lbs deer corn is a niche market for people who want convenient pre-bagged corn. The demand isn't great enough to justify the labor for farmers unless they are near a city. People could go to a grain elevator/co-op and buy corn bulk at the current $4 market price(maybe less for damaged corn) or but most buy pre-bagged and pay the extra $5 "value added fee" and it's ready to go. I think of it as the equivalent of $5-8 wood bundles compared to a cord, it's convenient. Corn fuel is just regular corn out of the bin, nothing special. Locally over-dried (or burnt as it's called) corn from a seed corn company sells for about 4 cents per pound or about $2.25 bushel.
Years ago a lady stopped by my dad's farm and asked if she could buy a bushel of corn that was still on the cob or ear corn to stick on nails for squirrel food. Although he thought she was nuts to feed "tree rats", he had me measure and bag it for her. She about crapped her drawers when she saw me carrying that big gunny sack full of corn she got for a couple bucks. She was expecting maybe 7-10 ears for $2, not 100 or more.

 

[Steve NW WI]

In our region of the world when you cut corn it IS clean out of the combine and goes into the bin clean. Flooded corn never gets cut and becomes an insurance claim. We must not know much about farming to set a combine to blow what little dust there is off so it feeds. Called my buddy that burns corn and he steadfastly says 8% moisture corn at $4 makes sense and $6 does not.

Heck, I ain't taking advice on anything financial from a guy who dries his corn down to 8% - or for that matter sets the combine to give a clean enough sample for stove corn straight outta the hopper.

If you have to ask what I mean, park the Ertls, son.

 

[Deleted member 83629]

Propane is back down to 3.49 gallon no shortage of fuel here but pellets and seasoned wood is impossible to find. coal is 190$ ton.
Corn farmers are backed into the corner with a record breaking harvest this year in my state near impossible to squeeze the elevators into paying just 5$ per bushel.
But go to the local co-op they want 9$ bushel for either cracked or whole corn, 2013 and 2014 so far seems to be the most screwed up that i have seen in a while and this crazy weather is not helping either.

 

[jgoodhart]

1 of the guys at work is burning corn since he can't find pellets and he just gets corn from the feed mill. He had to adjust the auger speed in the burn pot to stop build up, he said it burns hotter then wood pellets.

 

[muddstopper]

Wow! This thread sure blew up!


Mr. HE

Yep, and he didnt even see it coming.

 

[hedge hog]

Heck, I ain't taking advice on anything financial from a guy who dries his corn down to 8% - or for that matter sets the combine to give a clean enough sample for stove corn straight outta the hopper.
If you have to ask what I mean, park the Ertls, son.

the guys I know that burn corn dries to 9% , they told me that is prime for burning , most heat fewer ashes.
two years ago we had two quarters of drought stricken corn that we had to cut (because you can only claim so much a year on insurance).
first load or two barely made test weight to sell at a coop then we ran into a load that they would not take , too low of test weight.
so we took it to another coop and they took it and had a test weight of 55 but the first coop had a test of 46 .
so the next load we took we had them take two samples worth on the scales and while we waited for aflatoxin test to be done to see if they take it too
we retested the second sample that I had them take and the test weight would vary every time .
so we turned the air up and blew the lighter stuff out and keep the heavier stuff in the combine for a better test weight.

so by the time you unload at 7 mph into a 1000 bushel grain cart with a little wind and unload into a truck it might surprise you on how clean it is.

 

[muddstopper]

I guess I realize that deer corn would be a small market for someone that grows 100's of acres of corn a year. I just bought 50# last week from a local guy and I paid $8 for the bag. Long way from Kansas to NC. My local guy hauls dump truck loads from somewhere In Ga.. He has a couple of those metal storage bins, not the size you see out west. If I had to guess, which I am, I would estimate his bins probably hold 20-30 or so tons and maybe not that much. Anyways, he doesnt seem to have any trouble selling everything he brings in and is often out. Turkey season coming in, people buy corn, Deer season, people buy corn. Some of the hunting clubs feed year round. I dont know what this guy pays for his corn and I am sure the haul bill would be close to the cost of the corn, but he's making money or he wouldnt do it. I am just kind of wondering how much corn does one of those over the road dump trucks haul. Not talking about a tandem or triaxle dumptruck, but a road tractor pulling a 5th wheel dump trailer or maybe a bulk tanker.. I guess then the next question is what would a 1000 mile freight bill be. I also see barley for beer making being hauled by train cars from Canada to Asheville NC. There it is off loaded onto one of those bulk tankers for distribution. I talked to the truck driver and he says he hauls a lot of it local, but some of what he picks up is going all the way to Florida. This barley goes to all those little micro beer brewers, another ninch market. I am sure they probably pay a bit more for the barely than somebody like Budwiser.

I guess the point I am trying to make is 25000 bushel of corn aint much in a land where 1000's of bushels are grown each year. Letting it sit in a elevator for 4 years hoping the price goes up, while the elevators are charging storage fees the whole time, doesnt make a lot of sense to me. I'm not a farmer so dont beat on me to bad for my thoughts. I just think that it might pay off to look for you own markets to sell some of your corn instead of letting the big coop's do all the buying and selling. I think I would rather sell it for $4 bushel out of the field now rather than pay storage fees for 4 years and then sell it for $4. Probably aint as easy to do as I think, but is something i would be trying to do if i was sitting on $100,000 worth of product. Seems to be a shortage of wood pellets in some parts of the country, corn is a viable alternative. Start your own ninch market, Bag the corn, sell it for deer corn and heating fuel. I see train loads of corn being hualed from the Mid West to Nc almost daily. Southern States uses it make animal feed. Cracked corn is $9/#50, whole corn about the same.

 

[Cheesecutter]

When you are in corn country, every farm grows it. So viable niche markets are tough to come by. I know corn marketing can be quite complex, just sooooo many variables. A semi trailer like this hauls approximately 1000 bushels or 50k lbs. I don't know how much the going trucking rate is currently, $2-4 per mile?

 

[hedge hog]

good corn will weigh 56 to lower 60 pounds per bushel.
corn that has a too high of aflatoxin content would work great for pellet stove's .
because it's really hard to get ride of it when the PPM is to high for feed.
so feeding it to deer or turk's would be out of question .

 

[Whitespider]

Wow! This thread sure blew up!

Yep, and he didnt even see it coming.

Yeah... and did anybody notice??
I wasn't even part of it
*

 

[jimbojango]

Heck, I ain't taking advice on anything financial from a guy who dries his corn down to 8% - or for that matter sets the combine to give a clean enough sample for stove corn straight outta the hopper.

If you have to ask what I mean, park the Ertls, son.

i didnt saw 8% out of the combine. i said 8% out of the bins. btw cutting Kansas corn when its been droughted out does come out of the combine at 11% with a 41lb test weight. It was clean as could be and i wouldn't any issue putting it through a stove. Just learn to turn your fan up and blow the crap off just like you do to blow cheat and rye out. Insurance doesn't care if you blow half of it out on the ground, you're getting the shaft regardless. I'm glad us KS retard farmers don't know how to grow a crop or we might actually feed some cows and people instead of ethanol plants.
Has anyone ever burned milo (grain sorghum) in a stove? wonder how that would go.

Aflotoxin is great! we tested 400 PPM! that corn was probably high AFTER the ethanol mill got done with it. We blended 3500 bushel with milo in a cattle ration to feed it up. It was horrible.

 

[hedge hog]

a friend tried milo and wheat just never found the sweet spot on moisture content with either one like he did the corn.
both burn good but not as good as corn .
milo is a little better than wheat.
and his is a wood pellet but found out that you could put the grains in and get close to the same heat and being farmer why not?
you would think of all that corn can do we could get a better price for it?
we got new tractors ,a combine and a sprayer this year with the tier 4 engines , so now we go through DEF like no other !

1.90 a gallon and 34% urea and 66% water to clean the air,, so in turn now urea is going up in price because they found another thing to do with it?

 

[philoshop]

Corn is food, or what is fed to critters that become food.
Wood is food for the stove, and shade when it's too hot out.

 

[jimbojango]

a friend tried milo and wheat just never found the sweet spot on moisture content with either one like he did the corn.
both burn good but not as good as corn .
milo is a little better than wheat.
and his is a wood pellet but found out that you could put the grains in and get close to the same heat and being farmer why not?
you would think of all that corn can do we could get a better price for it?
we got new tractors ,a combine and a sprayer this year with the tier 4 engines , so now we go through DEF like no other !

1.90 a gallon and 34% urea and 66% water to clean the air,, so in turn now urea is going up in price because they found another thing to do with it?

I'm poor, i still farm with old cases and an international. Use a gleaner combine cause i'm to cheap to buy a case IH. DEF is a LONG way in my future on farm equipment lol. I recent applied for a job with Koch Fertilizer simply because i know the global demand for urea is going through the roof. Every time you turn around the inputs go up and the "free market" doesn't go all free market with it. I doubt i plant any corn this year, its too dry and i don't think we have the subsoil moisture for it. Probably plant milo and a few beans and we'll see what happens for water this spring before i plan to double crop anything. Just bought a new baler and another used disk cutter swather, so my wad has been shot for this year if we don't see some results on wheat. Cows only pay bills for so long, and this cattle market is going to die a miserable death eventually and its going to hurt. Might take a couple more years but it'll happen and we'll have cheap cows, and cheap corn and uncle sam will want more ethanol as a price support measure.

 

[hedge hog]

this year were all in with case .
and agree with the no corn we been probing are fields and some are to dry 10"down .
so more beans ,cotton or milo... wishing sunflowers but can't seem to get him to plant them again .
they make great chicken feed!

 

[jimbojango]

this year were all in with case .
and agree with the no corn we been probing are fields and some are to dry 10"down .
so more beans ,cotton or milo... wishing sunflowers but can't seem to get him to plant them again .
they make great chicken feed!

Never planted a sunflower or cotton and i'm not going to start. my program is wheat and milo and a few beans with the occasional corn. I'm not going to canola either lol. I'm not getting rich but my inputs aren't half of everyone elses. trash farming seems to make a better overall return where we are.

 

[muddstopper]

I had never heard of Aflotoxin before this thread. Did a quick search and found out it is a fungus. Fungus thrive in low ph enviroments. Makes me wonder what the base saturation of calcium might be in your soils. As big farmers, I assume everyone is doing soil testing for fertilizer recommendations. Fertilizer aint cheap so I just wonder if maybe some are skimping on lime or magnesium.

 

[hedge hog]

we spend a lot over money on soil samples so I know its not a soil deal as much as you would think.
you see it the most in dry land corn when it gets really stressed out from drought.
the same year we had the problem with aflotoxin all are dry land showed it more in some fields less in other but showed it.
are irrigated corn the same year right across the road produce no aflotoxin and a third the field was the same seed and lot number.
I think it's a stress related thing?
any good year for corn will produce very little aflotoxin if none in dry land corn.