Cambridge, southwestern Nebraska | I'm on a coop board of directors so I'm familiar with ground piles nearly every year so I will try to answer your questions.
A lot of the spoiled corn gets blended but there is some loss. It just depends on the weather. The elevator assumes some loss even going into bins. You lose some even when it stays dry and your scooping it up off the ground. As far as the total crop the amount loss or waste would be maybe...MAYBE a tenth of 1%.
There are a lot of piles in this area. Usually each pile has 500,000 to a million each. Nothing unusual on a good year though. In 2012 and 2013 there were no ground piles and very little last year. A coop can not afford to overbuild to hold the good years then have space empty on the short years.
The coop accounts for shrink when the grain goes in. I believe it is 1/2 of 1% but I could be off on that. It is adjusted at the annual audit when the bins are measured. I know they always end up a little long on grain so their shrink allowance is on the high side to be safe which is the right way to handle it. No surprises that way.
Usually around half of the grain is sold to the elevator at harvest time. The producer stands some loss either reflected in price or basis since it is a producer owned coop. Even the ethanol plant that places corn on the ground will adjust the price they pay to cover their potential loss.
MOST of the time ground piles get tarped here. Last weeks storm came up and some piles did not get covered due to the wind coming up but since the corn was real dry...12% going into the pile some rain actually gained some weight for them.
I know it is always a concern for the coop to have corn in piles uncovered but sometimes it is going to happen. It does add risk to the coop. But they choose to dump whatever it takes to keep the farmer going instead of closing the doors. I'm grateful for that. |
Corn piles (continued from below).
