I was struck this week how LITTLE ground piles there are to my west.

Given the expected size of the Sorghum crop I expected to find several LARGE piles.. there are some piles but they are not near what I expected.. why?

delayed harvest..
smaller crops..
less wheat in storage..
more demand..
more cotton..

all of the above..??

Certainly one impact is we are seeing a few more bags.. as farmers are utilizing this labor saving technology to be more productive as well as save on storage.. bypass the local elevators and gain on basis.

A story this fall is that two outfits pulled in across from one another on pivots.. the one outfit ran to a bagger and sailed across the field.. as the neighbor was stopped.. waiting on trucks to keep up.

I guess it was a pretty eye opening experience as to just how much faster a bagger speeds up harvest.. and SAVES $$$ for expensive Trucking as well as lost time.. Given the Rain Delays.. those harvest delays could have been VERY EXPENSIVE!!

I wonder what impact the expansion of baggers are going to have as we move forward.. You can Definitely see the difference in the ground piles..

What happens when the elevators stop seeing enough grain to fill...???




For Westside Implement in Clark, S.D., the Loftness 10-foot bagger is the most popular because the total investment is about $60,000, with a 7 cents/bushel rate on the bag, according to owner Kyle Gaikowski. Photo Courtesy of Loftness

( https://www.farm-equipment.com/articles/11324-grain-bagging-keeps-farmers-moving )

 A grain bagging system is pretty simple. The first component is a grain bagger, the second, the bag itself and finally, the unloader.

Even though grain bagging hasn’t hit the mainstream yet, Gaikowski says farmers are realizing it is a fairly inexpensive alternative to bins. The larger acreage farms are already on board, but he says some of the average-size operations are catching on, many times sharing the equipment with a neighbor. “A lot of times they’ll own the bagger but share the unloader,” he explains. “They’re not necessarily opening bags at the same time, so that works well.”

With fill rates of up to 30,000 bu per hour... this is a technology wave that is going to transform the grain storage business soon.

( https://www.wallacesfarmer.com/grain-handling/13-reasons-bag-grain-year )

In some places.. the Harvest Gut Slot has totally disappeared.. and we are seeing some of those effects here.. and we don't even have that many baggers.. the largest customer at the local coop brings over a million bushels of grain a year to the coop...

OUCH if he buys a bagger.. somebody is gonna miss that business..

One outfit replaced 6 semi's with a bagger.. "We just don't need as many semi's now with the bagger.."