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      3/24/08

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

            Futures are working hard trying to make a recovery after last week’s huge losses. Chicago has been up most of the morning, but now is pushing +38. Increased margin requirements are pushing more folks to the sidelines: (In Chicago) Initial margin for 1 contract of wheat is now $5500/ cak, with a $4400 maintenance requirement. Corn isn’t quite as bad, with “only” a $1375/ cak initial and $1100/ cak maintenance. KC is worse where initial margin is now $6188/ cak and maintenance is $4950. Mpls (July ’08) is still worse, with an initial of $10,313 and maintenance of $8250…it really wasn’t all that long ago that you could get into the game for a few hundred bucks…As more of the traditional traders leave there is more concern for “lack of convergence”, or to put it another way…the relationship between futures and cash is less defined. On SWW cash we have seen old crop and new crop come together.

            Weather man sez the SRW country can expect to get some heat/ dry out somewhat, but the ECB and upper Midwest is still expected to be wet. COT report held no new surprises. Index funds are long 940 myn bu of Chicago wheat, and 2.248 byn bu of corn.

            Egypt did circle the wagons and bought 15.2 myn bu of US wheat late last week. It is expected that ought to hold them till new crop…but who knows? EU Bio-diesel program is at a standstill. Ultra high rapeseed prices, relatively low conventional diesel, and heavy influx of US Bio-diesel has their whole industry at a stand still. Bio-Diesel from the US (splash-n-dash) costs about 54 Euro/ litre, vs. cost of ‘homemade’ at 64 Euro/ litre. The splash-n-dash has raised lots of criticism from the EU over unfair US subsidies (the dashers are using a loop hole, and until congress closes it, it really is ridiculous). Also over the weekend, Russia said they will extend their export tariffs on wheat till July 1.

***Didja Know: It would take an average of 18 hummingbirds to weigh 1 ounce? When viewed from above, rainbows are doughnut shaped? The first “tech” company in the silicon valley was Bill Hewlett and David Packer…they started in a garage in 1938 with $1538…their very first piece of equipment was an audio oscillator used by Disney in ‘Fantasia’.