TC's 08 wheat harvest.

[chilliaa]

TOPCROPPER, you mentioned last year how all the farmers where up in arms with incitic pivot, about fertiliser prices.
How is that situation progressing now?
are farmers more relaxed about pricing now that they have had a good crop year?
is there still a large surplus of fertiliser stock?

Your views as always are appreciated, especially as im a city boy.
thanks mate.

 

[topcropper]

The fertilizer situation has settled down.

Basically, incitec claimed aussie farmers would not get cheaper fertilizer till we used all their expensive stuff that they had stockpilled at the top of the bubble, even though global fertilizer prices had crashed. That was like waving a red flag at a bull. Numerous loads were imported by different people, and incitec straight away had to meet the market and they dropped prices immediately.

I'm looking at a urea price of about $550 per tonne, which is half what it toppped out at last year.

This was an article on the cover of 'THE LAND' a few weeks ago,....

http://theland.farmonline.com.au/ne...-fight-for-the-fertiliser-market/1510595.aspx

See ya's.

 

[chilliaa]

The fertilizer situation has settled down.

Basically, incitec claimed aussie farmers would not get cheaper fertilizer till we used all their expensive stuff that they had stockpilled at the top of the bubble, even though global fertilizer prices had crashed. That was like waving a red flag at a bull. Numerous loads were imported by different people, and incitec straight away had to meet the market and they dropped prices immediately.

I'm looking at a urea price of about $550 per tonne, which is half what it toppped out at last year.

This was an article on the cover of 'THE LAND' a few weeks ago,....

http://theland.farmonline.com.au/ne...-fight-for-the-fertiliser-market/1510595.aspx

See ya's.

Thanks topcropper, your views are valuable as always.
Is urea at $550 per tonne a reasonable price as an input cost for you? In otherwords at that price is it possible to achieve decent margins, or is it still 'expensive and risky'.
Are you using Incitec products now?
Are there any quality differential factors between Incitec's products and generic imported stuff?

What is the difference between urea and 'DAP'.
Sorry for so many questions, i have a lot of learning to do.

 

[topcropper]

Is urea at $550 per tonne a reasonable price as an input cost for you? In otherwords at that price is it possible to achieve decent margins, or is it still 'expensive and risky'..

Grain, oil and fertilizer are all linked. Generally as oil goes up, so does grain and fertilizer. It takes a lot of oil to grow grain, and it takes a lot of oil/natural gas to make fertilizer. And if grain is worth a lot, fertilizer companies hike up the fertilizer price as they know farmers will pay up.

Fertilizer would only ever be too expensive for a brief period like in Nov 08. This was a situation where grain had crashed, and so had global fert prices, however farmers had no choice but to use existing fert stocks. It's not likely to be a permanent situation.

Urea at $550 a tonne is fine with grain prices at current levels.
Urea at $1000 per tonne was fine too at last years grain prices, but not at todays grain prices.

Are you using Incitec products now?
Are there any quality differential factors between Incitec's products and generic imported stuff?
What is the difference between urea and 'DAP'.
Sorry for so many questions, i have a lot of learning to do.

I'll probably use what ever is cheapest this season.
Generally no difference in product.
DAP stands for di-ammonium phosphate and it's analysis is 19% N and 20% P.
Urea is 46% N. zero P.

We don't use much DAP, as it has a lot of P in it. A typical grain crop removes 10 times as much N as P. So we use heaps of urea, N, and small amounts of the other nutrients.

See ya's.




ps. I think urea is worth $650 per tonne, not $550. My mistake.