Sitting on my hands....

Dave H (MI) · Nov 14, 2016

...ready to go. Combine checked out and working. Corn head and flex head are tight and ready. Grain truck is gassed up and waiting.

Elevator still not taking any corn or beans. Says to call every day to check if they have been able to ship some out and make room. They are REAL unhappy up there. They say the trucks just are not coming to get it.

Since this year is unusual and I owe the elevator money, I think we may have to talk about the November interest since he won't accept my "payment". I have more than enough grain to cover my bill, getting them to take it is the problem. I wonder if he would like to be paid in venison and wild turkey? The ones here are getting fatter every day!

rrlund · Nov 14, 2016

Same here. I'm not finished picking corn,but I'm done. At least until the ground freezes I'm afraid. I picked five loads off the high ground on the north side of a field Friday. I walked across the rest of the field and figured I could get across a high spot in the middle this week. I tried today. Made it across alright,but couldn't get across the headland to get out when I got back there.
There's a load left on the high side that I can pick yet. I'll get that Thursday and grind it before the weather goes all to heck over the weekend. Might as well bring the picker home and park it. I'll have to start grinding out of a crib. Some nights like Friday night would help a lot. 24 degrees did some freeze drying,but that's all that'll get it dried up. No evaporation this time of year.

notjustair · Nov 14, 2016

Around here is the same. We have intermodal but the elevators are too stingy with their payment for truckers to make it worth the guys waiting in line. The little independent elevator four miles away does better than the big guys. I can usually get a couple semis a day dumped with him. We'll still be cutting in December.

JD Seller · Nov 14, 2016

Dave your finding out why I built my first grain bin thirty-eight years ago. Wagons and trucks all full and the local elevators not taking any thing. I leveled off a spot in the middle of the barn yard and bought enough plastic to cover a 100 foot circle. Set the grain auger up and started building a pile. It was two days after the election. I do not remember the acres or bushels exactly. The corn was under 15% moisture. I got everything shelled and in the pile, wagons or trucks by the 15th of the month. Two day later it started snowing and the corn pile never was without snow on it until we moved it out in January. The guys that waited on the elevators never got done that fall and had to harvest the next spring.

You have a shed with a gravel floor. I would be dragging stuff out and buying some plastic before I passed up the good weather we have had here. I think you have been wetter but I would still want it out of the field.

gtractorfan · Nov 14, 2016

Seems like there'd be rail cars available not too far from you?

jeffcat · Nov 14, 2016

There was a really good artical in one of the railroading magazines I read a couple of years ago. December 2013 issue of Railroad-Railfan. Now the artical was about the older and smaller elivators in the plains of Canada. They were tearing a lot of them down and also there was a lot of rail service being pulled up. Does that apply to any of you guys? I see a lot of "no truckers" to haul the grain away. Rail service is by far the most cost effective, but there has always been problems to get enough empty rail cars and trains scheduled to do the work. If your elevators are truck service only, that kind of sucks.

crooked rows · Nov 14, 2016

Dave......we are waiting for room at the same elevator....we did get two wagon loads through yesterday...but nothing today....they said maybe tomorrow....

Super Steve · Nov 14, 2016

I have to agree with JD Seller here. Make a pile somewhere and get the crops harvested.

Dave H (MI) · Nov 14, 2016

Here is an interesting question for you guys then...

I could easily do that, but it will be shelled corn in the 18-19% range. Won't it heat up on me? If there is one thing that scares me with my limited grain storage experience, it is the thought I might lose the whole shebang to mold. I can put it on the floor on plastic and use the front loader to load the truck later....but I don't know...

Dave H (MI) · Nov 14, 2016

Right alongside the elevator. Guess he doesn't do rail????

Dave H (MI) · Nov 14, 2016

I know you hit the same elevator I do. Every time I see a truck in line there I wonder if it is you. He says he gets a truck in sporadically but there is usually a couple waiting so it fills him up again. You must have more pull than I do.

I'll just keep checking daily. When the bigger fellas run out of fields, I'll be at the back of the line as usual. Meanwhile it keeps drying out there. Maybe I'll pick up a few bucks extra on the drying charge. My only worry...as usual...is the weather.

RBoots · Nov 14, 2016

There was a line about 10 miles south of me that ran east and west, and then one about 20 miles north of me that ran east and west as well that were both pulled up roughly 20-25 years ago if I remember correctly. They are now bike trails. There is still one spur off a main line that is only about 8 miles long that basically only goes to the one big elevator at the end of the line. That one is 3 1/2 miles north of me. Talking to the engineer of a locomotive one day, he said that that last spur off to the elevator was so bad that they didn't dare do over 20 MPH on it, but the rail company refuses to spend any money on improvements on it, since the elevator is the only customer on it. Derailments/rolled over railcars are a yearly occurrence. One last year only made it about 100 yards past it's US27 (a major highway crossing with signals) before it rolled over 3 cars.

Super Steve · Nov 14, 2016

do you have a neighbor with a drier? Or maybe see if you can take the elevator a wet load and bring a dry load home to store it yourself

Dave H (MI) · Nov 14, 2016

Yeah, it's been bad. So dry early in the year and it really hurt population. Of course if I knew just a little more than I do and had access to a crystal ball I might have planted a tad deeper and caught the moisture. How did I know it was going to rain only an inch in five weeks??? Now I have ducks swimming in the back of the soybeans. That can't be good!

That's OK, I'm still enjoying the ride most days.

Switchflicker · Nov 14, 2016

(quoted from post at 19:53:01 11/14/16) There was a really good artical in one of the railroading magazines I read a couple of years ago. December 2013 issue of Railroad-Railfan. Now the artical was about the older and smaller elivators in the plains of Canada. They were tearing a lot of them down and also there was a lot of rail service being pulled up. Does that apply to any of you guys? I see a lot of "no truckers" to haul the grain away. Rail service is by far the most cost effective, but there has always been problems to get enough empty rail cars and trains scheduled to do the work. If your elevators are truck service only, that kind of sucks.

Yep, they tore up the railway tracks that go past our town (Cypress River, Manitoba) this summer and now we see more and more trucks on the highway.

crooked rows · Nov 14, 2016

My brother does the hauling while I run the combine so you probably won't see me there.....John Deere tractor and two wagons.....I don't know about us having more pull.....I think he called three times yesterday before they said they had room for one set of wagons.......

crooked rows · Nov 14, 2016

The way i heard was he had a bad experience with the railroad and he said he would never use them again....

centash · Nov 14, 2016

We have done that before with 20 % corn, and as long as it was cold, it kept for some time. Check with any ag service and they can tell you how long corn at that moisture can be safely stored; although the ambient temperature does affect storage length. You could put some perforated tile through the pile and aerate it somewhat. The main thing is get the crop off the field. As Gordon Lightfoot says ".... twas the witch of November come stealing...." Ben

paul · Nov 14, 2016

West of me a lot of lavatory piled outside. My elevator filled the outdoor bunker, last year also, they hadn't used it for 5 years previous. I am fortunate my near elevator has a feed mill, they going 50,000 bu a week, so with the big bin, a few small bins, a good sized bean bin, and the 1/2 million bu bunker they can handle some corn.

But it got real slow, by 2:00pm the wet holding bins would get full, then could only dump as fast as the drier dries it. About the speed of a 6 inch auger. When there are 3 semis, and 6 wagons averaging 600bu each, that is aweful slow dumping....

Terribly wet year, pretty big crop somehow. When we could, we buried them in corn. Combines get bigger, wagons get bigger.....

Paul

coonie minnie · Nov 14, 2016

How many bushels? Is it just corn? If it were me, I'd be piling. Or at a minimum, my truck would be waiting in the yard FULL.

JD Seller · Nov 14, 2016

Dave with the daily temperatures in the fifties and the nights down to 35-40 that corn will keep at 18% for months. I would want it moved before the warm up in late February or March but until then I would not worry too much. IF your worried you can buy the screw in aeration fans. I used them in piles for years. Just move them around and plug them in on real cold nights.

Also around here you can rent a grain vac for around a dime a bushel. Those make cleaning up a pile in a shed real easy.

A bushel is 1.25 cu.ft. So you can figure how big a space you need by how many bushel you think you will have.

All kidding aside, I would be harvesting some how with good weather and late season dates.

If you have several wagons and a truck, plus the combine you should be able to hold a 1000 bushel. That is a nice semi load. Is there a market a little future away that you can just hire the hauling done and then just pay the local fellow????

We emptied some bins out a few weeks ago when it rained so we would have room to finish. We hauled that 80 miles to Davenport. We could get three loads a day with each semi there. The local ethanol plant is 15 miles away and the fellow where getting 2 loads a day there and setting in line the rest of the time. Even with the extra distance we get a better basis and faster unload times.

WGM · Nov 15, 2016

Have six gravity wagons sitting in the shed. They haven't seen daylight in years. Way too dangerous to use around here with all of the crazy drivers we have. Far easier to haul grain with semi's anyway.

JMS/.MN · Nov 15, 2016

Some folks buy grain bin sheets, no roof, and set them up inside a shed. No need to worry about sidewall pressure on the shed. You could put aeration tubes in as well.

caterpillar guy · Nov 15, 2016

David we have a bin you could rent for dumping into it is about 10,000 bushel with an 8 inch load out. We will not be using it far as I know. That would let you get the corn out of the field. Then load it out later. Or you could just go to Webberville with it. Not that far from Brighton.

Sitting on my hands....

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