Wallace's Farmer
03-26-07
Stored Corn Is at Greater Risk This Spring
Rod Swoboda rswoboda@farmprogress.com
At $4 per bushel, you have some very valuable corn stored in your bins and you
need to pay attention to it. "Stored corn is at risk this spring, as the weather is
warming up," warns Charlie Hurburgh, an Iowa State University professor of
agricultural engineering and a recognized grain quality expert.
He is advising farmers to "Check your bins to make sure your corn is below 16%
moisture content. If the moisture content is higher than 16%, turn the fans on
now. Even if it is a small fan, turn it on."
More corn is being hauled to ethanol plants, so you have to be extra careful
about the moisture content.
"Farmers must be extra cautious with stored grain because ethanol plants won't
take the higher moisture corn and blend it with lower moisture corn like the
elevators do," he says. "When you haul corn to an ethanol plant, you are selling
grain for industrial use. They need it exactly within their parameters for quality.
The ethanol plant may turn you away if your corn's moisture content is too high."
Corn at higher moisture content
Corn is more at risk this year than normal because the circumstances are
different. Hurburgh describes what's happening. "This period of time--early
spring--is always active for changes in condition of stored grain. Moisture
migration in the stored grain mass takes place over winter, so you typically find
the hotspot problems showing up in bins in the spring," he says.
However, this spring the bins on most farms contain a greater amount of corn
that was stored at higher moisture content than usual last fall. That could mean a
greater grain spoilage problem this spring and summer. "The situation is
complicated by the fact that we are moving more of the corn supply to ethanol
plants and other processors. They have less ability to tolerate higher moisture or
damaged grain in the incoming corn," notes Hurburgh.
"This year, farmers, elevators and others who have stored corn in their bins need
to pay very close attention to grain quality," he adds.
What should farmers do now?
Check immediately to see if there has been any moisture migration or if the corn
has a moisture content of over 16%--on the average. "Either way, you should
turn on the fans and aerate the grain," emphasizes Hurburgh. "If stored corn is
wet, now is the time to warm it up and in the process of aerating it--even if all you
have is a small fan--you will be able to remove enough moisture to get the corn in
condition for summer storage."
If corn is over 16% moisture now, turn on the fan and dry it with the ambient air.
A small fan will dry 16% corn down to 14% okay, he says.
Ray Jenkins, a corn merchandiser at Cargill's processing plant at Eddyville in
southeast Iowa indicates corn is indeed running a greater risk of spoiling in bins
on farms this spring. "I just ran the numbers to compare March 2006 and the first
half of March 2007. Corn at 16% moisture content and higher is coming in at a
rate of over 5 times the amount of corn we saw last year in the first half of March.
A surprising amount of corn is coming in at over 17% moisture," says Jenkins.
Jenkins is telling farmers to "Please be very careful to maintain the quality of your
stored grain. If you don't like today's price, at least make sure the corn is dried
and well-aerated for storage into summer."
Corn quality issues emerging
Moisture migration happens each winter. "But we had cold weather later in the
winter this year, which delayed the onset of trouble. There are elevators that now
have their dryers running," notes Hurburgh.
Most ethanol plants will reject corn that is above 17% moisture content. A few will
take 18% moisture corn.
This coming fall will be a real challenge if the acreage shift to corn is as great as
expected for 2007. "Especially if we happen to get a wetter than normal harvest,"
says Hurburgh. "Ethanol plants reject corn that's over 10% damaged. Note that I
said reject--not discount. The ethanol plants won't give you the customary slack
that elevators give for blending corn because the ethanol plants don't blend corn.
This is one of the challenges of being in an industrial supply chain as opposed to
marketing commodity grain."
Plan ahead for larger volume of corn
The situation this spring could be a precursor as to what is going to happen in the
future, says Steve Johnson, an ISU Extension farm management specialist in
central Iowa. "We will harvest a much larger corn crop in 2007 and beyond,
based on the trends in corn acreage and bushels per acre," he notes.
Larger volumes of corn will be held in temporary storage (piles, rings, bunkers,
silos, etc.) during winter months. It will be moved to market when the cash price
and/or the basis improve from December to March or when warmer weather
occurs. Which event happens first will determine when the corn will move out of
temporary storage.
There will be an effort by farmers to cut corners and save on costs by spending
less time and money for drying corn and managing the grain quality.
"Just imagine an extra billion bushel or two in the next few years being produced
nationwide that needs to be harvested, transported and stored. You might want
to start thinking about this now and be planning ahead for fall," says Johnson.