| I... don't necessarily disagree, although I've put many thousands of hedged bushels into tin cans to capture carry on them.
Last couple hundred acres of 2020 corn crop, there was virtually no carry to March (actually, it may have been negative a penny or two when we still had the combine in the field) , local basis was screaming hot after a couple of short crops, first chance to deliver $5 corn in ages, and I had ample trucking available. I assessed all of those marketing/logistical signals, made what was a very good decision at the moment, and.... lost a dollar that could have been had on all that corn in not very many weeks.
Grain marketing armchair quarterbacks don't account very well for those big swings, I think. Also, fill the bins and quit thinking about them? Well, I would have done better selling 2023 crop if we'd turned right around and started emptying bins the day after the combine got parked and just sold as fast as possible, with the benefit of hindsight. But you know what, I was tired of being in the combine and trucking grain. I wanted the weather left before winter to put the tile plow in the ground, build terraces, clean up brush and junk, take soil samples, a dozen things that can't be done when normally we can haul some beans to Quincy in January when everything else is frozen out.
FWIW, I took my lumps on remaining 2023 crop and swept everything before planting. I had bills to pay, and am glad it was all gone. |