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SC Iowa | Ceratinly the most frustrating issue for all participants in the grain industry this year....Being a food grade plant with a tight spec (10ppb), we deal with the possibility of seeing aflo anytime.....we blacklight EVERY load of corn that comes in and test every load that glows.....a lot of elevators had to drag their blacklights out of a closet somewhere and get re-trained on testing procedures as there are many more new tests available than years ago...
We were unloading 325-350+ trucks per day during October....were testing about 15-25 per day and rejecting 4-10 per day......we operate on a "one and done" philosophy rather than a "test until it's clean" one......if you get rejected and your farming operation is an hour away, and you come back in 15-30 minutes with the same truckload of corn, we will not test it.....same way if we can still see the probe marks in your corn, even if it is the next day....so....if you are going to play the game, at least make an effort...
In the fall when harvest begins, no one can quickly determine just how bad the aflatoxin situation may be....so there is an abundance of caution and a lot of testing.....and you have to remember that the various species of livestock can use differing levels of aflo.....an elevator whose corn has a 90% probability of coming to our facility with a 10ppb spec is going to operate differently than one where they have a multitude of feedlots which can handle up to 100ppb and higher.....
You ask why they dock in the fall, but not in the spring......likely because of two things.....1)if aflo is prevalent in the fall, and you are the only one in the neighborhood with a lenient policy, you WILL be the home for a lot of the high aflo corn, and you will eventually deal with the consequences of that situation 2) It takes time to determine what the entire pool of corn looks like and what the aflo level is in your entire "book" of corn....if you can determine that it is low enough, you could (theoretically) be more lenient in your testing policies....
A place like ours is not going to revise our testing procedures, but places taking in corn that is destined for feeding uses at higher aflo levels may choose to do so....
Yes, you can take different samples out of the same truck and get differing results.....because aflo is not evenly dispersed in the corn in your field or bin.....
The balance of this year will be about matching up areas with high aflo corn with the markets that can use it so as much of the 2012 crop can be consumed this marketing year as possible....or about bringing in a clean corn supply to make it useable....
Ray J | |
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2013 weather and the corn market?
