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      3/4/08

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

            Corn is seeing some “bubble burst” this morning. It was inevitable with the huge rally its been on. Traders are running out of news, and the BULL must be fed daily. Corn is down 20, while wheat futures are chopping around, but mostly 10-15 lower. Biggest factor supporting corn prices today is “Will we get 88 myn acres planted”. That report will be out 3/31, then focus will shift to planting conditions/ timing. We have basically seen ZERO deliveries against expiring contracts. Higher commodity prices seem to be doing there job, curbing demand…part of that curbing of demand will be slowing of the economy, which if you watch the stock market at all is very apparent. ABA assoc is still working (will make a big push next week) to curb exports on wheat. This is a bad idea from so many angles…yes the price of grains are up, and much of that is due to weather, but so are inputs. Anyone short today has no one to blame but themselves, and when you start tinkering with a formula (read here, price discovery), and you take out the parts that you don’t like…the whole thing breaks down…the formula does not work any longer. Longer term fallout from these type of actions are serious, and customers relationships developed over years can be shattered. They will trot out the usual “homeland security” theme, because it is politically popular. I am not sure they have the political clout to get this done, but we need to watch to see how this develops.

            Tanzania approved 11.8 myn bu of corn imports ‘Duty Free’ to help stave off starvation. Mexico also purchased 5 myn bu of corn overnight. Recent article about Brazilian land prices show how they have increased over 100% (some places up to 133%) in last 5 years. Average farm ground there now would cost about $1000/ acre. Winter corn can be popular there, but is also a high risk crop. Importing wheat customers are now turning more toward the EU, where there is plenty of wheat, its just that the quality is pretty poor due to late rains last year. End users have been busy re-working their blends to accommodate lower quality until new crop becomes available. With harvest quickly approaching and o/c wheat values dropping the window of opportunity to get rid of lower quality wheat at good prices is closing quickly.

***Didja Know: According to the USDA, the average American eats about 22 pounds of tomatoes/ year? More than ½ of it in ketchup/ tomato sauce…James Horan submitted the design for the “Presidents House”, now the White House…for this he received $500 and piece of land in Washington.

                                                            HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND