October and November are usually busy months for grain elevators, with unit trains ferrying soybeans to the ports in the Pacific Northwest as soon as farmers bring them in, reports The Progressive Farmer.
With few options on where to ship soybeans, storage will become a competitive issue.
Most elevators will dedicate their covered, upright storage space to soybeans and use bunkers and ground piles for corn and wheat to manage quality.
Many are considering arbitrage opportunities, like selling to soybean processors in other states or shipping soybeans by train to St. Louis to be loaded onto barges.
Rick Dusek, CHS executive vice president for country operations, told The Progressive Farmer that elevators' biggest challenge will be to maintain enough space to handle all the corn and wheat that wants to come to market in place of soybeans.
