Harvest Update from the Drier Network

So far, this has been a smooth harvest. We were fortunate to have the majority of the Division’s storage plan met before harvest began, leaving only a few locations that required heavy shipping. Dumas, Pendleton, Wheatley, Hickory Ridge, Corning, Knoble, Newport, and Dudley were the primary shipping points this year, and our teams managed those efficiently. 

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We kicked off harvest on July 26 with the first load of soybeans at Pendleton. We are currently 90% complete with rice and 45% complete with soybeans. To help offset rough-rice purchases later in the year and generate additional drying revenue, we extended green-rice sign-ups at select locations that could handle the additional volume without incurring extra costs. The rice has been coming in relatively dry, and we’ve seen improvements in milling yields compared to last year, averaging 50/68. 

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Soybean quality has also been very good so far, and we hope this trend continues as we progress deeper into the second half of the harvest.  With a wet planting season, harvest has been more spread out than usual, which has made cost control challenging—especially in a low-volume year with limited revenue. Despite that, all managers have done an exceptional job keeping expenses in check, and we’re currently operating at 98% of our projected budget.

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The new load-out system at Wheatley has proven to be a great investment, allowing us to move rice efficiently without interrupting dump operations. We also successfully executed our plan to ship Newport’s green rice to Jonesboro, which went smoothly and helped offset fixed expenses at a larger facility without disrupting patron deliveries.  Overall, our teams have done an outstanding job executing the plan, maintaining quality, and managing costs across the division.