Strong Yields Fill Local Elevators - KXNet - Bismarck/Minot/Williston/Dickinson

Strong Yields Fill Local Elevators

Every 14 days South Central Grain in Sterling 420-thousand bushels of grain down the tracks.

Ag Reporter Sarah Gustin takes you to Sterling where the bushels are piling up both inside and outside at elevator.

(Jeff Mehl / South Central Grain Sterling Manager) "It's almost like someone opened the flood gates."

Truck after truck..the bushels just keep coming.

(Jeff Mehl / South Central Grain Sterling Manager) "I would say absolutely it's a record."

The wheat is piling up fast At South Central Grain in Sterling.

Manager Jeff Mehl (Mell) says this is one of the highest yielding harvests he can remember--with yields in the area consistently ranging between 45 and 60 bushels.

(Jeff Mehl / South Central Grain Sterling Manager) "The size of the crop kinda caught us off guard too, for the same reason why producers didn't think they would have old crop. We remember last year, 20 bushel, 25 bushel now you take 2 to 3 times that size, and that is where you got the collision and it backed up all the way to the farm."

(Sarah Gustin / sgustin@kxnet.com) "This year's impressive yields has many bushels moving from here to here because things are just piling up a little too fast."

More than 120-thousand bushels are sitting on the ground--another 900-thousand bushels are inside.

Mell says for the past 4 days they've been dumping 150-thousand bushels of wheat a day.

And he's dealing with a problem he hasn't had before--the protein's too high.

(Jeff Mehl / South Central Grain Sterling Manager) "We have 16 pro out here on the ground and we are dumping 13's in the house because I have 14s sold on the scales. Obviously there is not protein scale right now, so what are we doing? We are dumping 13s in here to keep the proteins down on these trains going out and we are dumping the high protein on the ground. That is the dumbest thing I have done."

Mehl says wheat proteins have been high from here to Pierre, and the mills need and are demanding lower protein wheat.

(Jeff Mehl / South Central Grain Sterling Manager) "Yesterday we were dumping 17.7 protein out there again and it's like seriously?"

Mehl expects the next couple months to stay busy.

He says they've already dumped more than 3 million bushels of winter and spring wheat this harvest season.

KX also spoke with the elevator in Wilton.

The manager says they are also experiencing record yields in the area.

He says they are filling a train nearly every week to make room.