Morrow County Grain Growers                             Pendleton Grain Growers

             Duane Disque or John Ripple                                      Jon Sperl

             1-800-452-7396 or 541-989-8221                           1-800-422-7611 or 541-276-7611

              or Dan Steiner 481-6614 (office), 571-3798 (cell)  graingrowers@centurytel.net

                                                            GOOD MORNING!!!

            Below are the best indicated market bids as of:   9:00  on      2/8/08

***NOTE: Corn values vary depending on delivery location PLEASE call for updates.

            Another day, another limit up. Chicago and KC said that they would follow MPLS and extend their limits to .40 starting Tuesday as well. Mpls will lift ALL limits on March wheat starting 2/25…this will interesting…

            USDA reports for the most part were pretty boring. But we now have indication wheat c/o will be the lowest levels since 1946-47. The USDA pretty much left corn alone (note: latest yield number for 2007 was 151.1 bpa). Wheat c/o dropped 20 myn bu vs. last month. World wheat c/o went down 1.2 myn mt vs. last month, while world corn is up 600myn bu. Here’s what the USDA did to Wheat: tweaked the feed/ residual number by 5 myn bu, and increased wheat exports by 25 myn bu (that would 20 myn for DNS and 5 myn for SRW). Overall Stocks to use for 2007/08 on wheat is now projected at 10%. Remember when 20% was considered ‘tight’? DNS stox : Use is even tighter at 7%, SWW is projected to be about 11%. Absolutely HUGE amounts of money keep flowing from Wall Street to the commodity markets.

            EPA increased the MANDATED blend of ethanol in the RFS (renewable fuel standard) to 9 byn gallons for 2008 (for those keeping track, that would require 3.3 to 3.4 byn bu of corn if all ethanol is from the US…meaning demand side of S&D’s just grew by about another 100myn bu). Also since it is a mandate, it does NOT matter what/ how much it cost to blend. This has the potential to be EXTREMELY market distorting especially against other uses. Ironic that while the EPA increased the standard that SCIENCE magazine released an article that claims bio-fuels actually increase atmospheric CO 2 levels. In corn up to 2X. In the case of ethanol made from sugar cane (think Brazil), it could take up to 17 years for the benefits of ethanol to offset additional CO 2 from farming. Also, in a report from KSU they have been experimenting with different fermentation processes that increase the available protein in DDG’s increasing the feed value.       

            The NCBA (National Cattlemans Beef Assoc) is looking to increase the $1 beef checkoff, since a $1 doesn’t go as far as it did in 1985 (the last increase). Lots of work remain to be done, this won’t be a rubber stamp type of affair.

                                                            HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND