Important Notices – July 29, 2014

2013-14 Marketing Year-End

– The J-MAS 2013-14 marketing year ends July 31st.   A final Sales Wreck Wednesday will go out tomorrow to close out the year.

Website Reset

– Anyone not signed up for 14-15 will go dark after this date – being removed from all Text and Email lists. We will be resetting the website and re-inviting only those who reply to us through text, email or the website itself, who wish to stay on the mailing list – including all Retail, Reps and Customers – this will also help us verify current email addresses.  We will follow this notice up each day until the 31st.

Final 2014-15 Sign-up Deadline

– July 31st also marks the last day of sign-up for the 2014-15 Marketing Program on the OLD PRICING SYSTEM.  Anyone NOT signed up but this date loses their grandfathered-in eligibility for our old pricing system.

New AgExpertise Program & Marketing Program Pricing

– The New System divides our old Marketing Program (which averaged $2.00/ac on a sliding scale) into three Programs, which can be purchased separately (as priced below) or in a sliding scale bundle set to average $2.75 depending on farm size).

– All “consecutively” returning customers are grandfathered-in at the old pricing, but that eligibility goes away July 31st if you choose not to resign and all new customers will pay the new pricing.

– With our Weather Station program taking us a further Agronomy notch higher, we are giving away too much free information (insect & disease counts, dry-down strategies, etc) and returns from free Agronomy info have nearly matched the Marketing Program returns themselves – which we value at $25-$40/acre itself. It has been unfair to our Full Agronomy producers. The new pricing scheme allows producers to choose which segment(s) of the old program they desire or a bundle of all three.

—> 1. J-MAS Marketing Program (sliding scale average $1.50/ac) – Marketing password for Website accessing all Marketing Reports, Alerts and Notes. Face to face, phone call, text or email consultation. Real Time Text or Email Recommendations. Subscription to Kostal Ag, etc.

—> 2. AgExpertise Program (sliding scale average $1.50/ac) – Agronomy password for Website accessing Agronomy Reports, Maps, Counts, Tips and Playbooks – essentially all the accumulated expertise of the J-MAS agronomists unique perspective to growing SouthWest Saskatchewan crops. Some limited phone call, text or email consultation on agronomy questions and fertility planning but no scouting or field visits. We will make ourselves available to sit in on purchase meetings where our presence has often adjusted quotes by 1-2% on many prices while we also help to Pre-Book and Pre-Plan the use of key products.  Subscription to World Weather Inc and Beyond Agronomy also included.

—> 3. Rotation Rater – due to outside demand, Rotation Rater is a flat $0.75/ac cost. You can be a top level agronomic producer and/or marketing genius but if you are growing the wrong crops you are still breaking even while idiot savant neighbours are tripping over themselves to $75/acre profits.  For 7 years, our 3 year rotation has perfectly balanced disease pressure against market flexibility.  We have no visible instances of aphanomyces euteiches on any acres subscribing to this rotation for more than 4 seasons.

—> Bundled price for all 3 items will average around $2.75/ac on a sliding scale (about $2.25 large acre sign up) vs $3.75 separately. The costs associated were not set randomly as each cost of each program has granted around a 17:1 return over the last 5 seasons. At a bundled price it’s well over 20:1. We will come out and prove that on paper to anyone.

 Fall Report Plan

– With 3 full-time staff members and a 4th in the works, we should finally have the man-power to grind out the full series of marketing and agronomy reports this fall, winter and early spring and still be available for: fertility planning, purchase meetings with producer and their retail, and our other off-season commitments.

Pre-Harvest Primer / Dry-Down Planning Meeting

– Wednesday, August 6th, At Thomson Lake’s Reunion Center – Drydown plans for Pea, Lentil and Chickpea (the only $500/ac agronomy decision you will ever make). Swath vs Straight-Cut Canola plan.  Ensuring, Durum is not ripe before your ready.

– Golf and BBQ to follow.

– This is a tentative date, please reply if it doesn’t work for you and we will see what we can do, but the 7th and 8th each have limitations at the park.  Full Invitation will be out tomorrow.

Here is the Deferred “Real” Pricing file, which includes both Old Crop and New Crop.

Our Deferred “Real” Pricing Report tracks the deferred carry cost of holding your grain against the spot price to help deduce the most attractive delivery windows.  Deferred delivery costs are why our J-MAS sales averages often appear lower than your actual contracts and cashed-up prices as these costs are “hidden”  and you pay/incur them through other means such as Opportunity and Infrastructure Costs as well as the many risks associated with Storage.

Below are current Local Best Bids.  Click Old Crop or New Crop for previous Best Bids.

New Crop Bids

Weekly WeatherStation Report – July 24th, 2014

July 10th, 2014

Net drying continued but rains mid-week and again yesterday brought us off the lows – unfortunately with some very serious bouts of hail.  Canola is mostly done flowering and Durum nearly so.  Pulses continue to flower though some peas are starting to drydown.  Durum in some areas was showing signals of running out of moisture before the mid-week rain.  Temperatures spent time between 25 and 28 degrees, which would have been conducive to Fusarium development as Humidity touched 90% each day, and little time below 50%.  Leaf disease began to blow-up early in the week on many un-sprayed fields, prior to any rain.

Below you will see a brief summary of what our 1 meter moisture depth probes picked up for soil reserves, as well as a Leaf Disease update via captured Humidity and Leaf Wetness data.

Average Station Information (over all 7 stations)

Growing Degree Days (Midge days. Not Crop days.) – 903

At Depth Soil Moisture %

    10cm Depth: 14% Jul 24th (9% Jul 17th) 4.4% Low Point

    20cm Depth: 17% Jul 24th (11% Jul 17th) 9.2% Low Point

    30cm Depth: 16% Jul 24th (13% Jul 17th) 11% Low Point

    50cm Depth: 17% Jul 24th (18% Jul 17th) 14% Low Point

   100cm Depth: 42% Jul 24th (43% Jul 17th) 41% Low Point

Jul 17 – Jul 24th Rainfall Total – 16.1 mm

Jul 17th Soil Temp – 17.9 degrees

Jul 24th Soil Temp – 19.5 degrees

Dry Leaf Days (<5000 rv’s) – n/a* days

Consecutive Dry Leaf Days – n/a* days

* Leaf wetness sensors not placed properly during this period.

Up to the Minute – Weather Charts

This representative graph of all 7 stations highlights the soil moisture decline.  Roots continued to draw heavily within the 50cm depth this week before seeing a decent enough replenishment, which will help immensely during filling if hail did or will continue to miss.

Humidity has held constant in the 90’s again this week, making only two nights this month that didn’t cause heavy dews.  Those two nights hit only 75% vs over 90% on the rest.  Fusarium had perfect opportunity this week to take root in areas and fields it was present as this humidity and 25-28 degree temperatures are highly conducive to Fusarium infection.

Here is the Deferred “Real” Pricing file, which includes both Old Crop and New Crop.

Our Deferred “Real” Pricing Report tracks the deferred carry cost of holding your grain against the spot price to help deduce the most attractive delivery windows.  Deferred delivery costs are why our J-MAS sales averages often appear lower than your actual contracts and cashed-up prices as these costs are “hidden”  and you pay/incur them through other means such as Opportunity and Infrastructure Costs as well as the many risks associated with Storage.

Below are current Local Best Bids.  Click Old Crop or New Crop for previous Best Bids.

New Crop Bids

Weekly WeatherStation Report – July 17th, 2014

July 10th, 2014

Net drying continued through mid-July.  We had just enough rain in June to manage Canola flowering without too many Heat-Blast issues.  Temperatures stayed mostly below 28 degrees which was fortunate as many sites would not have had the moisture reserve to hold off against 33+ temperatures without shutting down flowers prematurely.  Most crops are just nicely coming out of flowering after about 14-17 days at full flower and should come in around 21-23 days of total flowering.  We have built many a 40 bushel crop with this many flowering days.  Durum, Lentil and Chickpea are all flowering and typically take the heat better than Canola so no complaints here.

Below you will see a brief summary of what our 1 meter depth probes have picked up for soil reserves, plus a Leaf Disease update via captured Humidity and Leaf Wetness data.  Group texts have been sent to customers on how to utilize these developments with regard to Fungicide/Insecticide applications.

Average Station Information (over all 7 stations)

Growing Degree Days (Midge days. Not Crop days.) – 815

At Depth Soil Moisture %

    10cm Depth: 9% Jul 17th (12% Jul 10th) 25% drop

    20cm Depth: 11% Jul 17th (18% Jul 10th) 39% drop

    30cm Depth: 13% Jul 17th (23% Jul 10th) 38% drop

    50cm Depth: 18% Jul 17th (32% Jul 10th) 44% drop

   100cm Depth: 43% Jul 17th (44% Jul 10th) 2% drop

Jul 10 – Jul 17th Rainfall Total – 1.0 mm

Jul 10th Soil Temp – 16.8 degrees

Jul 17th Soil Temp – 17.9 degrees

Dry Leaf Days (<5000 rv’s) – n/a* days

Consecutive Dry Leaf Days – n/a* days

* Leaf wetness sensors not placed properly during this period.

Up to the Minute – Weather Charts

This representative graph of all 7 stations highlights the soil moisture decline.  Roots drew mainly from the 50cm depth this week and just started to draw upon the substantial reserve at 100cm.  Without another good rain, plants will be drawing heavily on this depth and we are fortunate to have it.

Humidity has held constant in the 90’s again this week, making only two nights this month that didn’t cause heavy dews.  Those two nights hit only 75% vs over 90% on the rest – highly disease conducive levels as was illustrated this week with many unsprayed Durum crops taking very big steps backwards.  Current weather conditions will be conducive to Fusarium infection if you are in a mod-high risk area.

Here is the Deferred “Real” Pricing file, which includes both Old Crop and New Crop.

Our Deferred “Real” Pricing Report tracks the deferred carry cost of holding your grain against the spot price to help deduce the most attractive delivery windows.  Deferred delivery costs are why our J-MAS sales averages often appear lower than your actual contracts and cashed-up prices as these costs are “hidden”  and you pay/incur them through other means such as Opportunity and Infrastructure Costs as well as the many risks associated with Storage.

Below are current Local Best Bids.  Click Old Crop or New Crop for previous Best Bids.

New Crop Bids

Click here for the J-MAS WeatherStation Data page. (it has not been updated this week)

Weekly WeatherStation Report – July 10th, 2014

Like most of the prairies since Jun 30th, we have seen net drying and a depletion of soil reserve moisture as July does what it does best.

Below you will see a brief summary of what 1 meter depth probes picked up, plus a Leaf Disease update via captured Humidity and Leaf Wetness data.  A group text was sent to customers on how to utilize these latest developments with regard to Fungicide applications.

Average Station Information (over all 7 stations – minus anomalies)

Growing Degree Days (since May 22nd crop emergence) – 533

At Depth Soil Moisture %

    10cm Depth: 12% Jul 10th (32% Jun 30th) 62% drop

    20cm Depth: 18% Jul 10th (33% Jun 30th) 45% drop

    30cm Depth: 23% Jul 10th (37% Jun 30th) 38% drop

    50cm Depth: 32% Jul 10th (38% Jun 30th) 16% drop

   100cm Depth: 44% Jul 10th (44% Jun 30th) 0% drop

Jun 30 – Jul 10th Rainfall Total – 1 mm

Jun 30th Soil Temp – 15.3 degrees

Jul 10th Soil Temp – 16.8 degrees

Dry Leaf Days (<5000 rv’s) – 1.1* days

Consecutive Dry Leaf Days – 1.1* days

* Leaf wetness sensors not placed properly during this period.

Up to the Minute – Weather Charts

This representative graph of all 7 stations highlights the soil moisture decline as roots have now grown enough to begin pulling moisture from the 50cm probe depth and have all but drained the 10cm and soon on the 20cm.

Humidity showed its first signs of decline just last night and while this chart shows consecutively low Leaf Wetness – a major sign that leaf disease will decline rapidly without the need for fungicide – it is not accurate as sensors were not yet moved up into the canopy and scouting each of these nights and mornings anecdotally tell us that leaves were plenty wet those nights and the sensors on the ground were not capturing the big humidity effect.  Sensors are being repositioned as we type.

Here is the Deferred “Real” Pricing file, which includes both Old Crop and New Crop.

Our Deferred “Real” Pricing Report tracks the deferred carry cost of holding your grain against the spot price to help deduce the most attractive delivery windows.  Deferred delivery costs are why our J-MAS sales averages often appear lower than your actual contracts and cashed-up prices as these costs are “hidden”  and you pay/incur them through other means such as Opportunity and Infrastructure Costs as well as the many risks associated with Storage.

Below are current Local Best Bids.  Click Old Crop or New Crop for previous Best Bids.

New Crop Bids