Some Ontario Corn Seeing Quality Downgrades

Nov 17, 2023

Corn moisture levels remain high in Ontario, with some grain getting downgraded due to low test weights, depending on the location within the province, according to the latest field observations from the Grain Farmers of Ontario on Thursday.

Meanwhile, yields have been highly variable; with some producers reporting “incredible yields,” and others just average yields.

Corn

Not all is fine and well in some areas. A cooler summer has led to lower crop heat unit (CHU) accumulation with some corn not black layering before a frost, resulting in lower test weights and higher moistures at harvest. Grades coming across the scale range from No. 2 to No. 4 (downgrading due to test weight). Corn harvest is roughly 50 to 80% complete, with moistures ranging from the low 20s to mid to high 30s.

This past week and looking ahead looks like close to ideal harvest weather, with double-digit temperatures and not much rain/snow in the forecast. Some might aim to take the headlands off fields and hope the corn dries down a bit more in the coming days.

With high moistures and good yields in some areas, elevators are getting full of wet corn, limiting the ability of corn to come off the field. This might be the case for the foreseeable future as everyone scrambles with loads of corn that need more time in the dryer.

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Video: Western Canadian Agriculture: Hard Times Made the World's Best Farmers

Western Canadian agriculture produced the most advanced farmers in the world not through abundance but through adversity. The crow rate fell. The wheat price went nowhere. The brown envelopes stopped.

When the subsidies disappeared, the bad farmers left and the good ones stayed. And the ones who stayed could not just grow wheat anymore. They started growing lentils and canola and peas and flax and faba beans. They built crop rotation. They got serious about agronomy because there was no government backstop. That process produced the Western Canadian agriculture Dennis Bulani describes in this clip: the most advanced, most educated farming culture in the world.

His contrast with Iowa corn and soybean farmers is sharp. At a DeKalb farmer meeting in Okoboji, Iowa, he asked what crop rotation they ran. Beans on corn stubble, corn on bean stubble. How do you fertilize? The co-op agronomist handles it. Have you considered other crops? No need. We make so much money on corn and soybeans. Western Canadian agriculture was never allowed that comfort. And now those Iowa farmers are watching soybean markets lock up with China and corn prices slide, and they do not have the agronomy knowledge or the research base to pivot. Western Canadian farmers adapted on a dime because they had done it before.

Dennis also makes the case that Western Canadian agriculture keeps adapting in real time. Low commodity prices over the past year have pushed growers to look seriously at precision spot-spray technology. He knows a neighbor who bought a sprayer with the seeing-eye system and sprayed only 80 out of 320 acres. As a chemical retailer Dennis acknowledges that will affect his sales. He supports it anyway, because if it advances Canadian agriculture and makes farmers money, that is a good outcome.

The lesson Dennis draws from the tale of two farms: continuous improvement is the only durable strategy. When canola was $22 a bushel some growers went to Arizona instead of the Crop Production Show. When the price came down those same growers came back to the research and the discipline. Products do not go on Rack Petroleum's shelves unless they pass a replicated trial first. That is what Western Canadian agriculture built through hard times: farmers who do the work whether the times demand it or not.

Dennis Bulani is CEO of Rack Petroleum and Ultimate Yield in Biggar, Saskatchewan. Dan Aberhart hosts GTF Productions, Western Canadian Agriculture's foremost live briefing platform and its foremost AI training platform for ag operators