- Drying corn makes more sense when there are adequate differences between wet and dry grain.
- What influences the profitability of corn drying?
The market is very cautious
There is no denying that after the memorable 2022, purchasing companies, but also farmers, are approaching the subject of drying corn with great caution. Companies may not be buying less, but rather there is no longer a price race for the customer. There were seasons when buyers competed in offers to "take" the largest possible pool of goods from the market. This is a beneficial situation for both parties. Unfortunately, this year is another season when such a situation does not exist. The goods actually have to be suitably more expensive for both the purchasing company and the farmer to earn money on drying and transferring. Meanwhile, dry corn prices are low. Similarly to wet grain.
Corn drying calculator. Source farmer.pl .png
The key to all this is the price. Dry corn has to be suitably more expensive for the drying process to be at all profitable. Those farmers and entrepreneurs who dried corn two years ago experienced this on their own skin, or rather in their wallets. Wet grain, with moisture levels significantly exceeding 30 percent, was sold in some cases at higher prices than dry grain. However, at that time we observed total market destabilization. There were situations when companies bought grain without deductions for moisture. Therefore, very wet corn was delivered, even at a moisture level of 40 percent. This corn, bought at PLN 850/t net, was sold at the same price as dry corn a dozen or so weeks later. However, when buying, for example, 100 tons of such corn after drying to 13 percent, 70 tons of the product remained. These were really big losses, not only for buyers, but also for farmers who dried the grain on their own.
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Corn ready for harvest. What are the prices for wet grain?
Drying grain is expensive
Of course, you have to take into account the energy costs that the dryer will consume during its operation. If we decide to use a corn drying service, the prices for this process are often in the range of PLN 15-25 per ton (for each additionally dried percent). So, by drying the grain from, for example, 23 to 13 percent, we will pay PLN 150-300.
Let's assume that the starting price is PLN 480/t, and the surcharge per ton for each percent below the basic moisture content is PLN 5. In such a situation, grain with a moisture content of 23 percent will be sold for PLN 515/t. With the price of dry grain at, for example, PLN 750/t, maybe it is worth considering drying? After all, we have an obvious surplus. Not necessarily. Even if we dry the grain 10 notches down (incurring a cost of about PLN 150/t), it does not have to be a very profitable process. After adding the costs of such drying, the surplus in the valuation between dry and wet corn is no longer that large (PLN 85). And there are also losses in mass.
Grain mass losses must be taken into account
Losses in grain mass are inevitable. And to a large extent, they determine the profitability of the entire undertaking. On such additional drying, we will lose about 1.1 tons of mass. So hypothetically. When selling 10 tons of corn with 23 percent moisture, after taking into account the bonus for moisture below the base, we will get PLN 5,150. If we dried the grain to 13 percent and sold it for PLN 750/t, we will get PLN 6,675 (8.9 tons x 750). However, at the same time, the outlay for additional drying of this quantity is PLN 1,500 in this example, so the final bill is PLN 5,175/t. In this arrangement, the balance is practically the same as when selling wet corn.
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How to harvest a lot of corn and prepare good silage?
However, both in the last year and this year, the price differences between wet and dry grain are small and making the decision to dry them is not an easy choice. The greater the differences between them, the more profitable drying seems to be. For your convenience, we have prepared a corn drying calculator on the farmer.pl website. We can use it to calculate the amount of grain after drying, as well as to check for an overview whether it is still worth leaving the plantation in the field (i.e. differences in mass between corn with a moisture content of 35 and 25 percent). The link to the calculator is below.
The cost of drying itself is not easy to calculate, however, due to quite individual factors. Remember that the dynamics of drying decreases below 20 percent moisture. Different varieties and types of corn release water slightly differently. So, in addition to certain constants, there are also variable factors that can affect the drying process itself.
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The state of corn crops, the course of vegetation and the forecast for the new season