Have any of you bagged your shell corn?

[OKdon]

We are going to try that this year to avoid commercial storage. 14K bushels per bag.

[cityslicker]

I am also curious if this is a workable solution to over the winter storage. Not as much concerned about putting it in it as taking it back out. And what about rodents racoons and deer damaging the bags.

[JCCWIS]

Cost of bags and filling?????  How long can you safely store????? Special equipment to fill and empty bags ????  Proper storage site.....concrete/blacktop/dirt ????

Lots of questions to answer before I would consider !!

John

[Hobbyfarmer]

Don't think it will be a money saving thing. Too much risk very little reward. Quality risk alone is significant.

Only if there would be no commercial storage available would I even talk about it. False economy.

[sw363535]

our local coop used bags last year and had a lot of rodent damage as well as water damage from their holes

[OKdon]

The plan is short term storage to avoid the fall glut with the accompaning drying and shrink. it will be nearly 15% when it goes in the bag and will likely come out in march or april. At that time we can benefit from the highest bidder with in trucking distance rather being tied to the local elevator, Not that they will be out of the picture because their bid might be superior when one considers the trucking cost. My farmer does not have the ability to truck grain for long distances during harvest time but he can truck a 50 mile distance in march or april.

Perhaps in the end I will decide that it wasn;t worth the effort but we may know better later on. Another option might be a Price later contract toward spring.

[Clayseia]

It's very viable, although "here" I wouldn't want to do everything in bags- I see them more as a good complement to conventional storage rather than a replacement.

Cons:

 Yes, it's possible to have holes from rodents/wildlife.  My experience is that 99% of the corn in the bag remains in perfect condition, and blends any damaged corn well enough that dock is no problem.   If you have them out in the field on mud, you aren't going to take trucks right to the bag.  Got to have grain cart, and you will work on a lot of cold mornings to do it on the frost.  However, that may be less of an issue where you are than further north.  Storage into warm weather is not something I'd plan to do, however we did keep two bags of 2014 crop corn into August and quality remained great.  But those were right at home where I could keep an eye on them every day, not something I'd want to have sitting 20 miles away.  Watch the Youtube videos from the manufacturers and it looks really easy to hang a bag on, it's not so much fun on a 20 degree day with a 20 knot breeze.

Pros:

If you're in an area with highly variable yields, you don't have payments or property taxes on bin space that doesn't get used in a short crop.  Speed of harvest- we once did 45,000 bushels of corn into bags in two days with only two people except when dad helped us move machinery between fields.  In some situations the cost of the bag can be mitigated by saving transportation cost, for example we bagged a farm which was 44 miles from the ethanol plant we delivered corn to.  Were we to have hauled that corn home first, it would have been a trip in the wrong direction followed by a 57 mile trip to the same eplant.

[OKdon]

Thank you kindly for your remarks. This will be a learning experience that we may not want to repeat. However short term storage at a commercial elevator is very costly when you figure drying and shrink. It has to be dryed to  14% to qualify for a warehouse receipt. I think improved basis will pay the expense of the bag storage and we should profit from the experiment.

[OKdon]

Corn is in the bags at 15% moisture. I'm wondering if it should have been sold from the combine. Tenant tell me there is a real, glut of corn with piles all over NC Iowa.