2026 Harvest Update
OCTOBER 26, 2026 | PREMIER COOPERATIVE
Another busy harvest week drew to a close. Over 15,400 loads were dumped, with 2,322 at Royal and 2,148 at Sidney. Bean harvest has trailed off since Tuesday while corn stayed steady through the week. Last week, we discussed scale to scale time at 10 minutes and 23 seconds for harvest to date. That pace continued, with some elevators working to fill ground pile space. Pace at the 5 highest receiving facilities averaged 10 minutes and 10 seconds this week across 8,130 loads.
Ground Pile Storage
Premier has used 9 ground piles, with 6 completely filled and the 3 remaining wrapping up this week. Three are tarped and the remainder will be under cover by the weekend as well. Ground space in a dry year provides dumping capacity at some locations that could not be used in wet years. As space fills, Premier staff work to keep all equipment running at peak capacity, but some storage fills at dramatically reduced speeds compared to newer storage that was built for the modern pace. This ground pile space at space deficit locations not only helps to receive customer grain faster, but in Jamaica, the new nearly 1 million bushel pile has effectively saved 1,000 transfer loads from extending the line and returned those trucks to availability elsewhere.
What We Are Seeing in Yields
During the 2025 crop, we saw the second half of harvest bring higher bean yields, following a brief period of moisture that raised yields. The 2026 crop has not performed the same, with yield curves in the last week (blue) following those of earlier season harvest activity (orange). This information proves extremely valuable to Premier as we monitor space availability through harvest and work to sell the appropriate number of outbound trains to ensure space for all.
Managing Risk Behind the Scenes
Several years ago, Premier built a tool to automatically hedge grain as we buy, to offset risk in real time. This reduction in slippage is important to your cooperative and allows us to focus on servicing the customer. The 2026 harvest has brought a large amount of soybean selling while more corn has been stored. This is similar to prior years, as a fast soybean harvest has the best ability to generate cash flow quickly. Since harvest began, Premier’s hedging solution has automatically created 775 individual hedge trades of varying bushel quantity. These trades offset risk for the 1,200+ purchase contracts and 7,000+ settlements done since September 15. These transactions are in addition to the 62,000 loads and 20,000 phone calls that our staff has taken care of this harvest season. We are proud of all of their efforts!
Moving Grain Out
Our operations staff has shipped a tremendous amount of grain and does so annually, as mentioned above, to make sure there is enough space where possible to receive everyone’s crop. Since the beginning of harvest, this equates to 817 trucks and 1,871 railcars of outbound grain, with Dewey and Sidney neck and neck for outbound shipments. Hats off to all that make this possible!
Looking Ahead
In the coming weeks, barring any weather delays, the final fields of the 2026 harvest will be complete. At this time, based on prior year pace data, we estimate the likely completion date to be around November 14, while 95% will be complete in the first week of November. We look forward to the final push ahead.
