Don’t Count Your Bushels Just Yet

This Week In Ag #187

“Don’t count your chickens before they hatch” is one of the most popular farm-related sayings. For crop producers, a more appropriate saying may be, “Don’t count your grain until – or even after – it’s harvested.”

Ten years ago, while working for another ag company, I created the Sorghum Shootout. It chronicled two of the top farmers in the country (collectively, they had won dozens of national/state yield contests) on our quest to set new sorghum yield records. Both were friends of mine: Tim Fisher from Arkansas and Steven Albracht from Texas.

About a week before harvest, Steve’s Pioneer agronomist came by, checked the field and told him he had a world record out there. Then, like something from an Alfred Hitchcock movie, birds flew in. By the thousands. Despite frequent visits from Steve and his shotgun, the flocks treated his crop like a giant bird feeder. He still finished second in the nation that year, but his 205 bu/A was well short of what had been growing.

I visited Tim’s farm prior to harvest, and it was the best sorghum I had ever seen. Then heavy rains moved in. And stayed for about a week. Once skies cleared, on the day he was set to harvest, he noticed kernels sprouting, effectively ruining the crop.

No matter how good a farmer you are, and how good your crop looks during the season, Mother Nature can play cruel tricks. We’re seeing that this year.

Soybean seed coats are supposed to be yellow. Yet many farmers are harvesting multi-colored seeds. Soybean samples are resembling Indian corn, in various shades of purple, brown and green.

This is raising many questions. Namely, what’s causing it, and will farmers get docked at the elevator?

Many areas experienced heavy late-season rains and unbearable temperatures during pod fill. This may have led to physiological reactions from the plant and opened the door for fungal activity. Remember, unlike corn – that crop is “made” once it hits physiological maturity, called black layer, which usually occurs a month or more before the crop is dry enough to harvest – soybean seeds are subject to environmental factors until the day they are cut.

Colorful soybean seeds could also be linked to biotechnology. Enlist soybeans – those engineered to be resistant to the herbicides 2,4-D, Roundup and Liberty – appear to show a high incidence of discoloration. My cousin, who works at a grain elevator, took an informal poll and found a strong correlation between discolored soybeans and farmers who grew Enlist soybeans. (See a sample she sent me below)

Grain elevators will dock farmers for foreign matter levels that exceed 1%. This includes weed seed, other crops, plant debris, dirt or other contaminants. But seed coat color is a little grayer.

Crop quality isn’t as big of an issue with commodity crops as it is with specialty crops. Much depends on the final destination where elevators ship the crop. My cousin tells me her elevator is not docking loads with these multi-colored soybeans. At least not yet. I’ve also heard that many domestic crushers don’t seem to care. However, that may not be the case with foreign importers, who could demand a more uniform yellow color.

Regardless of color, bins will soon be busting with soybeans. Based on last week’s USDA report, US farmers are set to grow a record 4.56 billion bushels of these spherical legumes, for a record-high 53.1 bushels per acre average. Illinois will again lead the nation in production, with an astounding 68 bushels per acre average. Back when I farmed, 68 bu/A was more apt to be a tall tale you’d hear in the coffee shop. Now it’s just average.