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 Anhydrous verses UAN and UreaJump to page : 1 Now viewing page 1 [50 messages per page] | View previous thread :: View next thread |
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bigfarmerben |
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| That time of year again where we are doing the math to figure out how to make a dollar at growing corn the safest, cheapest and as friendly to the environment as we can. Have used NH3 for most of my life but am looking at using more Urea and UAN. NH3 is a nickle cheaper per unit verses the other two. Using N serve, Agrotian plus and Agrotain Advance to control leaching and volitizing even puts more cost to it. So, those of you that are anti smoke, tell me how you raise better corn with UAN and or Urea so I can justify the added cost. Thank you in advance. | |||
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| nviney |
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Evansville, WI | Not anti smoke... but i can usually buy semi loads of 32 in late summer for within a few dollars of spring retail nh3 posted here plus application cost for a pass nh3. Right now my 32 is about $10 an acre cheaper than the spring nh3 prices being posted here. Fall NH3 doesnt work around here and down to one local retailer with NH3 so it isnt a very competitive price. About 40% applied with planter and remainder side dressed around v5. Use half rate of generic agrotain with ydrop side dress. | ||
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| AVP_Matt |
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Hennepin, IL | Have you figured up what application is costing you between the two? A nickel spread can be eaten up in application either way depending on what you're doing. | ||
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| vailcat |
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NCND | when we use to do fall gas here we’d get 2 quarters a day with one running tanks and the other pulling the rig. Now 2 guys can spread over 1000 acres in a normal day. Time is worth a lot and you can’t make more of it. | ||
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| brad c |
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Carbondale, KS | What a noble person you are, I just raise corn to make money. You've already decided to use AA so why do you care what others think? | ||
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| Pfarms |
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EC MN - Hour North of 'The Cities' | UAN and ATS at planting to get the first 20-30% of total N needs on. Sidedress Urea using an air cart and single disk coulter with sealer to get the Urea about 5" into the ground in a band for the remainder at V4/V5. Strip till here so we like to get the N below the residue and into soil moisture to convert. NH3 is out mainly for safety concerns...can purchase bulk Urea cheaper per lb of N than bulk UAN for May/June delivery. | ||
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| flatlick farmer |
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West Kentucky | If applying 100% before planting, AA is the only way in my opinion. If sidedressing, knifed in UAN and AA are equally effective without any extra's here. I have never had good luck with urea but it hasn't had many chances either. | ||
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| hobby95 |
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SW MINNESOTA | What are you using for an air cart and Coulter’s to sidedress urea? | ||
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| thunderhut |
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Mn | I’d like to see it too | ||
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| Pfarms |
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EC MN - Hour North of 'The Cities' | Here is our latest, Montag Gen II with Yetter Magnums Have ran Aushermans with a Gen 1 Montag in the past...really like the current method. (IMG_6121 (full).jpg) (IMG_6123 (full).jpg) Attachments ----------------  IMG_6121 (full).jpg (155KB - 133 downloads) IMG_6123 (full).jpg (373KB - 101 downloads) | ||
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| FromTheProductionSid |
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| To be 100% open, I work for a fertilizer producer. I read through this post and the comments and it's the same thing I always hear from farmers... "I'm getting screwed". The only thing that's screwing the people who commented here is your lack of facts. There is more nitrogen produced in the US than can be consumed. Many of you are wondering why it isn't selling for cost. When you go sell grain is the first question the buyer asks is "what did it cost you to grow?" Of course not, there's a market for corn, beans, cotton, potatoes as well as any other major commodity. But what sets the prices for grain? Supply and demand do but you already know that. Fertilizer is a commodity and cost is important but it's the producer who can't produce it for the market cost is the one that doesn't produce. In North America we have heaps of shale oil and gas and that means fertilizer production costs are lower than they were 10 years ago. Natural gas costs have gone up in most other places around the world (oil prices are all over the place) which means their fertilizer production costs have gone up. It's producers in Europe, Asia and South America who are the producers faced with shutting down production like what happened in the US in the 90's and 2000's when dozens of fertilizer plants shut down. The world has XX demand for grains each year and that sets the demand for fertilizer. The cost of production will determine who makes it but North American producers will run at maximum rates because it's profitable. There are thousands of nitrogen producers in the world and many of them sell to multiple countries with ocean vessels and rail cars passing in the night. Sometimes buyers don't want to buy when sellers want to sell and it goes the other way too. In this modern world sellers and buyers find each other - that's what makes a market. If you think fertilizer producers can force buyers to pay whatever price they want you're nuts. If producers here are too high import tons will flow here in a hurry but you'll need a warehouse or a tank to put them in as well as the assets along the coast to receive the product off a boat. You may or not be aware that coastal or river assets are expensive for real reasons. Waterways are important and sensitive so you'll also need a bunch of approvals and registrations which are more complicated for some products than others. You might have to lease transportation assets for 12 months to make sure they're available when your boat arrives. You'll need full time employees some of which have skills that are difficult to find. North American producers have those same issues. Warehouses, tanks, transport assets, regulatory, insurance, people, financing, legal. Adds up to a big bill. Even with those costs North American fertilizer costs have been selling at values well below what they could be imported for. Still nearly all fertilizer made in North America stays here. Does that happen with grain? No, farmers chase the best market they can which is a good thing for everyone. Who's getting screwed? Before throwing around accusations you should do a bit of homework. And btw, the idea of reducing rates to impact fertilizer prices is ridiculous. If you reduce rates you will reduce yields or else you would have already done it. | |||
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| PatCMO |
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Pilot Grove, Missouri | You are partially correct. Supply and demand do set grain prices. Farmers have no say in actual grain prices, reguardless of what production costs are, the only thing a farmer can do is decide when he sells. Fertilizer producers set their prices and use supply and demand as a reason (excuse) to raise prices. They also raise prices anytime grain prices go up. Supply and demand has very little to do with actual fertilizer prices. There is bascially no relationship in the way grain and fertilizer are priced, except for the part about manufacturers raising prices when grain prices are high. Patrick | ||
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| oldbones |
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Floyd County, Iowa | Bill- You're new here (1st post), so I'll break it to you (re: your first paragraph). It's not NAT approved for suppliers (machinery, autos/pickups, parts, seed, chemicals, fertilizer, anything non-ag, etc) to make a profit! | ||
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| FromTheProductionSid |
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| You can "set" your grain prices at any level you want just like you said. You choose to sell grain whenever you want at the market price. You're waiting for the price to reach the level you set. If it never gets to your level you can adjust your price or keep waiting. Fertilizer producers do the same thing although there is no CME price set each day so different fertilizer producers sell at different prices or maybe they can't sell even when they want to. Another way fertilizer sellers are in the same situation as a farmer selling his grain is that the price of fertilizer delivered to you means something different to every seller (different cost of freight). In many ways you might say this is similar to basis. Both sides have a market except that a farmer can sell his grain every day while a fertilizer producer needs a willing buyer and far too often they're difficult to find at any price. Yet I always hear the same thing you're saying the farther down the chain and closer to the farm. I tried to explain to you that fertilizer prices are 100% market oriented but the more local your view the less you believe. You don't see all the factors impacting price and outlook every day, from energy prices to politics to weather, but what I think confuses you most is that the markets aren't liquid. This is the explanation for your claim of an (excuse). Fertilizer doesn't trade everywhere every day like oil or even as much as grain. You don't need it except for a couple months a year so you don't price it every day. You try to pick the day/days you think are best and many of the farmers and retailers go all in when they think the price is right (taking more people out of the day to day markets). If you don't need to buy and a seller doesn't need to sell it creates a standoff that can last months. I'm sure this seems like the people who sell to you aren't being "market responsive" but they're waiting to sell just like you wait to sell your grain. Fertilizer producers run 24/7/365 unless the plant breaks down but they have limited storage so they need to sell. Obviously, with that scenario, prices will be lower in the off season which is why storage has value. But when producers sell enough at lower prices, maybe two weeks of production, a month or even six months, each producer approaches things differently, has a different risk tolerance, then they often try to increase the price. Sometimes it works but if they go too high imports will flow in and beat them or replacement products beat them (e.g. NH3 vs UAN vs urea vs manure). So if you think that because a fertilizer producer has a price sheet that they set their own prices you need to start over and get some more information. There are countless threats and the biggest is that a producer will have inventory left over after the season and prices will be lower or they'll be so full of inventory they'll have to shut down production. Fertilizer producers compete to be empty even harder than farmers and retailers. Grain and fertilizer prices, why do they need to be linked aside from when you have big grain demand you need more fertilizer? A fertilizer plant is a 50+ year asset but grain demand fluctuates significantly. Take this year's corn crop as an example, up 5%. If there's enough fertilizer production to meet demand for this year's corn crop what about last year? There must have been excess capacity. It may surprise you but there's probably another 20% of fertilizer production capacity available this year above what demand will be and that will be with a 92-94 million ac corn crop. It's a dog fight on fertilizer every single year and that dog fight has resulted in North American farmers getting some seriously cheap fertilizer compared to the rest of the world. Yet you still think there's a conspiracy. Of course there's always a cheaper price for fertilizer somewhere. I bet some South American farmers would really love to have the prices you're getting today. Unlike so many other commodities it's the time of year that impacts prices the most and if you have storage you can buy in the off season and keep it close but that costs money (that your retailer spent). It also means you're exposed to the volatility. A few years back oil prices tanked and fertilizer prices dropped because the cost of production dropped for hundreds of fertilizer producers (oil prices are related to gas prices because they come out of the same hole). Remember the financial crisis? Prices dropped by over 50%. Russia is a massive fertilizer producer but you think something could happen that limits or increases their fertilizer production? It certainly can but which way? I doubt you recall when China suddenly changed policy in 2007 forbidding exports of fertilizer and prices went up 50%. I'm sure you're thinking that producers were gouging. Wrong, without that supply producers, traders and retailers did the math to see how much could be produced and how fast to compensate for that loss of supply (grain demand didn't change so fertilizer demand didn't change). Then came the battle for buyers to make sure they got their tons. That's the way markets work and because demand doesn't come every day everywhere it's super volatile. When you wait you're adding pressure or when lots of buyers are all buying at the same time it adds pressure. I can promise you that you have no idea whether you're creating pressure that will favor you or hurt you and that's in large part due to weather. Smart buyers layer in their purchases and get the average. Farmers are, by far, the least informed player in the fertilizer markets yet they gamble the biggest piece of the pie and when it doesn't go their way they cry foul. I can't imagine you have the time it would take to stay informed so start thinking about finding someone to trust who knows what factors are important and avoid the conspiracy claims. | |||
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| PatCMO |
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Pilot Grove, Missouri | So in your opinion, fertilizer prices only go up due to supply and demand? I can remember more than once where fert prices went up because grain prices were high, even though there was no supply problem at all. Patrick | ||
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| FromTheProductionSid |
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| I don't know which product or when you're talking about but I am certain you aren't looking at 5% of the things going on that contribute to higher or lower fertilizer prices. Time of year? Were the grain and/or fertilizer price increases local, regional, national or global? What was the S&D of fertilizer before the increase in grain prices? Was there an increase to cost of fertilizer production in an area with a bunch of producers or a critical producer? Was there some kind of policy change (e.g. limiting exports, forbidding use of a product, restricting feedstock)? Was there a production outage, was there a change in the weather outlook? Did future grain prices increase which implies an in increase in total grain and fertilizer demand? Is rail or truck supply limited? Are international vessel freights rising or sinking? I could go on for another 500 words but you see one or two things and seem certain they're related. You don't have the information to understand the global markets but I suspect you are busy with other stuff and don't have 8-12 hours a day to learn about them. When I tell this stuff to farmers they tell me they don't care what's happening in Timbuck2, what matters is what's happening on Main Street in their town! That's when I know they have no chance of understanding why the fertilizer market move the way they do. The US uses tens of millions of tons of fertilizer and what happens in one small area is just that....small. As I said before, it's logical that grain prices and fertilizer prices move in the same direction over time. Whenever you need more of a commodity the last tons typically come from the highest cost producer. It's the same in grain and fertilizer but the purity of that concept is complicated by the fact that consumers and producers are spaced out all over the place and they don't always buy from the most logical source. The more buyers try to buy faster or slower than producers keep producing there will be stuff that's less logical/optimal. If sellers choose to sell/push faster or harder than buyers want to buy it pushes prices lower to the point they don't want to sell any more. I'm sure you feel the opposite is true, that producers hold prices until they're high. Sometimes it works but with time on their side buyers can hold out for a fair price from another seller. Prices move up and down for these reasons as well as another 100. I spend a bunch of time trying to understand where demand and supply meet and what that price should be. The market doesn't really care what I or producers think, it goes it's own way. Sometimes sellers screw up and sell too cheap and sometimes they do better than they should. Over time I use the data I have and I find it an extremely good predictor of price but only inside a bubble since stuff is changing every day. that's why you need to be in it every day and understand global fertilizer if you're going to understand whether or not your local price is fair. | |||
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| PatCMO |
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Pilot Grove, Missouri | All I am going to say is, you are on the sales side and that is all you seem to be able to see. You are also very good at typing out long responses, that go on and on and have no more proof of anything you have said than I have proof of what I have said. You seem like the long winded salesman that doesn't like to be questioned and I try to never do business with guys who think they can talk enough volume (BS)to get me to buy. I'm not buying what you say and I am sure most on this site aren't either. There are several on here that have a very good understanding of the fertilizer industry and I have never seen any of them post what you have. In the end fertilizer producers do set their prices, reguardless of what you say. Patrick | ||
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| SoILfarmer |
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| If fertilizer producers do set prices without any thought to market dynamics, why don’t they just set at $1000 ton all year and call it good. They don’t for reasons listed above and when there is excess product and limited storage there is deals to be had. Edited by SoILfarmer 1/21/2019 23:55 | |||
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| FromTheProductionSid |
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| In short, I wouldn't have expected a different answer from you. Maybe there are others that are interesting in reading things other than those that confirm their opinions. | |||
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| PatCMO |
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Pilot Grove, Missouri | I'll use slightly different wording. Farmers are limited on pricing, in that we only have the option to say yes or no to the market offered price. Fertilizer dealera can and do set their prices at the maximum level they think the market will bear. There may be some connections on the two, but they are very different markets. How many times have you heard of fertilizer prices being below the cost of production? Patrick Edited by PatCMO 1/22/2019 12:12 | ||
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| FromTheProductionSid |
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| Over the last few years in North America? It's happened many times at the producer level but you can't keep selling if you're losing money so it stops fairly quickly. Then again, it's happening every single day internationally. That's what commodities are all about. The prices rise and fall to the marginal producers cost but no one knows exactly where that line is at any time. Those producers on the edge keep producing/selling hoping that tomorrow is better, until it isn't. When buyers refuse to buy and push the price too low too many producers shut down. Then when demand materializes and prices rise to encourage enough production to meet demand but no one is clear how much demand there is and how long it will last. Is there too much supply, just enough or too little? That is happening, to some degree, every single day somewhere in the world but when it happens closer to the time consumption occurs the price swings can be dramatic. That's true for both higher and lower prices. On pricing, you can use all the semantics you want. As a farmer you set your price for grain and wait for the market to get there. Sometimes you get it and sometimes you have to change your price and sell at what the market is telling you is a fair price. That is exactly what fertilizer sellers do except there isn't a daily scoreboard for pricing like the CME. | |||
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| PatCMO |
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Pilot Grove, Missouri | There is a difference. I'll put it another way. A farmer has cor to sell. He looks at the price and either decides to sell or not. A fert manufacturer has fertilizer to sell and sets a price. Farmers either buy or they don't. Yes they are both somewhat an open market, even though Fert is not publicly traded the same way. In the end the farmer is a price taker on both ends. The fert manufacturers do have some say up front in prices they charge. The Farmer does not. Patrick | ||
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| FromTheProductionSid |
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| It is exactly the same other than one thing. Both sides have a price they want to sell at although you have someone (the CME, which is made up of thousands of buyers) who is absolutely offering a price at least 5 days a week. Fertilizer sellers don't have that. However, if a fertilizer seller has an offer price and someone is willing to pay that price then that price is a market price. You may not agree with it just like you don't agree with the CME or what the local elevator is offering but all of them are real prices offered to the market. Does the fertilizer producer sell enough to be able to maintain that price is the issue (up or down). It is a fact that fertilizer prices move higher and lower based on demand and many of the same factors influence the CME or local elevator prices for grain. If a price doesn't work it gets changed. And don't be upset that you're local fertilizer seller raises his price based on something that is happening hundreds or thousands of miles away because the grain markets and all other commodity markets do the same thing. My take away from this conversation is that you don't agree with the prices available to you and you're frustrated you can't influence them. Fertilizer producers are very knowledgeable about what prices "should" be based on dozens and dozens of factors but they are frequently frustrated with the prices they have to sell at. I have no idea what you base your ideas on but I'm confident you don't have as much information as people who do it every day. The reality is that all markets are imperfect and prices change for that reason. Ag commodities are seasonal so each one of them might move at a different pace. So rather than complaining that you're getting screwed why don't you find a way to take advantage of the imperfections. However you'd probably need to add storage, add transportation assets, spend a bunch of time on international politics and economics and more specifically the energy and transportation markets. I suspect you already spend time on grain markets and the inputs into those prices. With all that you might be able to shave a few dollars off your fertilizer bill or maybe the volatility gets you and you end up paying more. | |||
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