October 20, 2010
Bumper corn yields overflow silo capacities in US Wisconsin
Corn is piling up outside grain storage facilities in southern Wisconsin due to higher-than-expected yields and a harvest that has gone on for nearly a month without interruption.
In Evansville, Landmark Services Cooperative has leased the parking lot of the former Stoughton Trailers manufacturing facility for outdoor storage of what is now 1.3 million bushels of corn.
"It's like a mountain of gold right now," said Heather Benson, spokeswoman for Landmark Services Cooperative, which has 11 area locations.
Landmark is also piling corn at its Cottage Grove facility, where it bagged 500,000 bushels of soy, similar to how corn silage is bagged. United Cooperative is also piling corn at four of its eight facilities, at South Beaver Dam, Horicon, Ripon and Johnson Creek.
Earlier this fall, United Cooperative opened a new 1.1 million-bushel grain bin west of Sauk City. It was built for the increased yields producers have been seeing in recent years, and was ready when the soy crop came in at a 10 to 15% increase over average.
The grain storage challenge is caused by a variety of factors, but the recent fire at the Evansville Landmark facility is not one of them. USDA crop reports put Wisconsin soy yield at a record 49 bushels per acre this year, but some producers are harvesting as much as 70 bushels per acre.
The report, released last week, predicted a record Wisconsin corn crop of 162 bushels an acre. Benson said some Landmark producers have hit 220 to 250 bushels per acre, with a high of 272. "We're not necessarily the corn belt in Wisconsin, so for us to hit 270 is huge," she added.
Grain elevators were already beginning to fill before the corn arrived, said Doug Cropp, Landmark's grain division manager. "There's a lot of space used for corn that has soybeans sitting in it," said Cropp.
The harvest has been constant since farmers went into the soy fields in the third week of September, with no rain to slow them down.
Getting rid of the crops is also a challenge. Rail service is backed up due to a good harvest in areas of Illinois and Indiana. Landmark's Evansville facility is served by Union-Pacific and Benson estimated that trains are running about 10 days behind.
Corn piles could be outside until after the new year. The corn is dry enough to handle some moisture, Cropp said, and if it needs to be dried, it will be done at Landmark's expense.
Safety and vandalism aren't a big concern, Cropp said, because someone is at the satellite facility from about 6 a.m. to midnight. "A bigger concern is theft; it is US$5 a bushel. But Evansville police have been watching closely and we keep the driveway locked," he said.
In the weekly Wisconsin crop report that was issued Monday (Oct 18), 86% of the state's soy have been harvested compared with 13% last year. Fifty percent of the corn for grain has been harvested, compared with 4% last year.