I'm not a promoter of just forward selling any number, I seldom recommend making big moves, watch seasonal trends and advocate selling to insurance guarantees.

You probably have more stable yield expectations.

Here are our Historical Dryland Corn yields.. So you mentioned the past four years..

After raising 96,1,15 and 65.. just WHAT is the APPROPRIATE level to Forward Contract?  Until 2011 I used to think that 25 was ubber bad..  We did not really get a good feel for "made" here until about Mid July THIS year.. and even then the past couple of weeks of hot.. windy.. and dry.. have shaved bushels off an expected good crop.. maybe down to 100 or even under now...  The dryland is a total crap shoot.. but in 2011 it was THOSE missed bushels that I came up short on...

Obviously put's would be a better option here.

   Year   Rank    Yield     Avg Yield

going into 2011 the previous four year average yield had been just under 90 bushels.. 1/3 would have been 30 bushels.. I contracted.. a little heavy.. 30% by spring.. another 20% on "even better" prices by late June.. then the drought hit in force over the 4th of July weekend until the rest of summer.. about 50 days over 100 degrees.. and 8 or so over 110 if I recall..??  "ughh.. this thing is the REAL DEAL.."

Ended up buying in the last the next February.. at $6.75.. It was only 5% but still a pretty healthy check..  Despite contracts as low as $3.61 I averaged $5.08 that year on a VERY TOUGH year..  Expenses went THROUGH the ROOF.. burning.. like $15 k for irrigation fuel per week... neighbor had a circle do like 65 bu that year.. OUCH!!

The 15% I sold for High Moisture turned out to be the right call as sold it for around $7.60'ish.. so still picked up around $.85'ish..  But the WHOLE deal was very STRESSFUL...

2012 other than not contracting went a lot better.. only averaged about 2/3's of a crop but got.. $7.45'ish for it.. including about 15% sold in August of 2012...  made back some ground.

We still have not totally filled the basis hole in the SW from that whole episode.. but assume things will finally get back to some semblance of "normal" through this winter...???

In 2011 I had a couple dryland fields that nothing stood taller than about 24".. even the pigweeds fell over and died. 

"Wow" 

Will NEVER forget that year.. ever..