OK ...here's my prediction

[roarintiger1]

Although there was very little field work done in Ohio, there will be more corn and soybean acres here. There was a huge drop in wheat acres planted and the wheat that did get planted looks really bad for the most part due to record rainfall amounts.  Now, where that extra seed is coming from is anybody's guess. 

I still think that production was overstated and demand is understated.  We may not go back to record prices, but we will probably be going higher than where we're at now.

[sw363535]

My recolection says 2011 new crop corn & soy prices started out lower than they are now.  Moved up to the $7 range on a less than impressive crop(large areas diseasterous).  Harvest proved a below average crop(nationally), but financial events trumped supply problems at harvest and we could not sustain,  prices slid back to low 6's and below.

2012-----2011 Harvest market was disapointing to grains, but we have a strong Holliday jump, coupled with a much stronger basis from a record short harvest locally, makes for new crop prices starting in the 6.25 to 6.45 area.  

Predictions---gut

corn

-2012 will return to a more traditional senerio,  following a short crop and some production questions in SA.  We will see the $7 range again but early in the year and again we will be unable to sustain it, sliding back into the $5-5.5 range at harvest.

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support thoughts

very possible we will see more financial problems 

as ray jenkins said we are not that far from a wheat crop that has a lot of acres planted. looks better with every snow and can be bought for corn price.

whether the 2012 corn crop is huge or not, the predictions will be

the chance of back to back years of historical droughts is slim,  moving the drought to iowa is also doubtfull.

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soybeans

2012 beans will move up with a chance at 14 with average or below SA crop and will hold better than corn into harvest on average or lower acres.  $12 Harvest price on good production expectations.  Averages prices -----could see higher spikes but not hold them.

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EMOTION says

Corn has the best chance I have ever seen of running completely out next summer.  Especially if financials continue to decouple price from supply/demand rationing(a subject we have been toying with).  too much politics could put us there.  Another weather event(effecting wheat & corn) and we could see either $12 corn or be totally out of $5 corn mid summer.

Soy rations easier and has less interference ----could be $16 high and $12 harvest with weather event.  Supply is tight also.  A Corn market wreck is the only threat to taking soybeans back below $9

WHAT WE R Doing----

Our marketing is done with a pencil not a heart or fear.

WE finished 2011 pricing last week and getting 10% 2012 priced this last week & next.  These prices are $1 over last year and not going to be passed up for a starting point.  Our costs are high but we have a basis advantage on most of the cornbelt.  My pencil says this will work well.  With an eye on SA. we will continue to get some more priced on upward movement soon.

We entertain ourselves predicting markets.  We make a living selling grain and meat for more than we spend.

2012 IS A YEAR THAT COULD HURT US IF WE FORGET THAT.--------

"The more $s you handle per bushel, the higher the risk",  I think that is almost another Ray J. quote.

[Jim Meade / Iowa City]

Rental termination notices have to be sent out before 1 Sep, but rents are usually from 1 Mar to end of Feb, and the rental agreement isn't usually concluded in Sep but rather in winter is my experience.  So rental rates may not be so out of whack as one might suppose.

[Jim Meade / Iowa City]

I dont' get the same imression on more acres in commercial development, but we all look through our own prism on issues like that.  Here in eastern Iowa, my observation based on what I hear in the coffee shop andn what I see in theh field is there will be some more COC than before and those who are doing it are not backing off.    I suppose it will not be a huge increase, but will be an increase overall I think.

[sw363535]

Jim,

do you think, at some point, there will be a mindset of ---"We are gong to keep it in coc until this price breaks".--------thinking that at some point supplies are going to build to reward these prices.

[Jim Meade / Iowa City]

I really don't know on COC.  One bigger farmer going to it is simply following dollars.  I'm following dollars, too, but am getting tired of the high maintenance of growing soybeans for the money received.  I guess I'm not giving a very definitive answer.

[sw363535]

If water costs are reasonable, corn at these prices is hard to walk away from.   IMO it will take a good up  in beans pretty soon to take acres away from corn.  Our experience is coc will be within 15-20 bushels of rotation corn on average or better years--still in the 190-200 range with decent water.  We have basis advantages to corn.  most guys will lean that way.  normal for the sw.  We are one of the few producers doing many beans.

Thanks for the return

[Blacksandfarmer]

Ray, Iowa is experiencing weather this year that mirrored weather for the eastern cornbelt last year. The fall of 2010 was dry. A lot of fall tillage was done and all most farmers would have had to do is "one pass and plant"....... Well it was sickening to drive across northern Indiana and Ohio and look at those fields overgrown with weeds that had to be re-worked just to plant a crop because of the heavy spring rains of 2011...... And then the extreme hot and dry weather came for June and July..... Although unlikely, we could see a return of that weather pattern in 2012 only further west? If that much COC acres go in the ground we could see the high in corn around February or March?

[nwobcw]

  Being in NWC Ohio just off Lake Erie in the clay flats of the Black Swamp is a challenging area to farm.  The lake keeps us cold and wet in the spring.  Any April planting is a gift.  1 pass and plant is a dream.  COC has been tried and is a miserable failure. 

  We do raise a lot of beans.  Their yield is more even year in and out.  In a somewhat normal year corn is good but I have seen years where beans have out yielded corn.  Not a lot, but it has happened and I'm sure 2011 was 1 of those years.

  As of the 1st week of 2012 there are some unharvested corn fields yet and a few beans here and there also.  Since December there have only been a few days cold enough to hold up a combine and then it was iffy in the wetter spots.  Our ground has not been dry since the 3rd week of July.  Very little wheat is planted and most of it looks awful.  We need the ground to really freeze out good in the next 6-8 weeks or it will be miserable to work with at planting time.

[Jim Meade / Iowa City]

NW Iowa was quite dry in 11 and that is not good for COC in my own experience.  I've always thought the NW corner of Iowa was more like South Dakota for weather.

I don't know about weather pattens.  E. Taylor says all droughts but one started in the SE (NC, eg.) but one started in WI.  Here we have SW droughts that look to be creeping up to Iowa.  I would be surprised to see eastern corn belt weather come this way because I thought you got most of your weather from the Gulf area and we get some from there but some from the NW, as well.  For my own part, I'm more worried abotu it being dry in eastern Iowa than I am in it being wet like Ohio was.  But, I'm no weather man.