Jim, I noticed you have been spending time in the Dakotas lately. Anything in particular that you are doing in the area? I emailed you the other day to see what you had been up to. Not sure if it was blocked or what. Seems I have more than one address.

The plant at Groton is where we have hauled almost all of our corn the last 4 years. Not sure on what we'll do this year with the new plant at Redfield quite yet. The elevator at Mellette (Wheat Growers) has been about $0.05 higher than Groton and is the same distance for us. Even better yet, the Wheat Growers ethanol plant in Huron has been $.15-.25 higher than Mellette. It is a 70 mile one way haul, but they were picking it up at our bins for $.02 under Mellette's price and hauling to huron. We can't haul grain 25 miles for two cents.

The price you see out on the highway sign was that days closing CASH price. The basis is already taken off of that. You can spot price it or you can put it on deferral for up to (I believe) 20 days before they start charging storage. Checks are mailed out on Tuesdays. The last couple years there hasn't been any room for storage there and they have been allowing very little spot pricing. They've been behind almost 2 months at times during on forward contracts just because of how much corn is in the country. They have it under control now, but due to the higher prices of corn I would guess that this year there is more spot pricing and less forward contracts.

Jim, the Biomass thing is very scary to us....especially those of us who have been no-tilling for years and have grown accustomed to having good residue to improve our soils. Last I heard, they were only wanting a few acres from each farmer each year. JVE is a Broin Plant which is the company starting bio-mass production. My brother works for them and all I can say is it's "interesting".