doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Kansas Drought

I will be happy to send anyone in need of rain, some of the daily rain we have been wading through here in Maine the last week or so.

PM me with your address.

Now, I have to go and clean some more mildew off my shoes.

That is switchgrass, Gnomon.

We're getting loads of rain, too, now. But, it just started in the couple weeks. We have had so many dry summers here that almost no one plants dryland corn anymore. If it's not under pivots it is just not planted. When corn shot up in price several years ago, so did fertilizer and seed prices. Few can afford to gamble what it costs to grow an acre of corn to see it burn up.

Corn is eight dollars on the CBOT, but that won't last, I predict. All ethanol plants are losing money at these prices, and chicken growers, too. High prices will cure high prices as demand drops.

SRH

Quote
"
The idea behind ethanol, however, was not strictly economic. It also focused on energy independence. In other words, not counting on unreliable foreign sources to keep providing us with oil. By creating an ethanol industry, we now have the capability of making at least some of the fuel on which our vehicles run, should there be a problem with the supply of oil. It is certainly not THE answer to energy independence, but it's one aspect of moving us in that direction."


There happens to be more than a 'Saudi Arabia' in the western states that the 'greenies' in Washington won't let us touch.

Fair enough, so far as it goes, but the result starts to turn out to be that we can starve while stuck in traffic while driving to no place special.

Eh.....OK...?????

I won't be surprised if corn hits $10/bu this year. Much of the crop across the Midwestern "corn belt" got cooked in the heat and drought this summer.

One of the uses of ethanol is as a substitute for MBTE which is an anti-detonation or anti-knock compound. Wikipedia article implies that un-subsidized ethanol can't compete with MBTE. I believe MBTE replaced lead in gasoline.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MBTE

"MTBE is a gasoline additive, used as an oxygenate to raise the octane number. Its use is controversial in the US and declining in that country in part because of its occurrence in groundwater and legislation favoring ethanol. Worldwide production of MTBE has been constant at about 18 million tons/y (2005) owing to growth in Asian markets which are less subject to ethanol subsidies."

Not advocating or endorsing anything.

Speaking as a farmer who grows corn to sell to the market every year, it would probably be a bad thing. $10 corn would cause many end users to go broke and close their doors, reducing the demand so badly that it might take years to recover.

It probably won't go that high, anyway. The USDA August 10 crop report, that the market was anxiously awaiting, contained no news concerning the crop that the market did not already know. The market was down after the report, indicating that the news of the drought is old news now, and that most of the considerations for it has already been factored into the market.

SRH

Stan, what's milo running per bushel? Last year was high enough but I'm sure it will be even higher this year. Fortunately, still have 3000 lbs left over from last season. Supplemental feeding quail hunting courses isnt cheap...

Adam

thanks Stan- had a neuron black-out!

According to a Scientific American article some time ago switchgrass ethanol returns about 5 times the energy needed to produce it.

Not too bad if true