Your driver heads to the elevator with a semiload of corn. You are confident it is another 1,000 bushels delivered on your contract. But when he returns with the weigh ticket, you learn it only figured out to 977 bushels. At $4-per-bushel corn, that is 23 bushels and $92 less than expected. Where did the extra corn go?

Then you notice the corn tested at 13% moisture. “That’s where it went,” explains Bob Nielsen, retired Purdue Extension corn specialist. “It was already gone before the semi ever left the driveway. If corn is under 15%, you aren’t selling as much water as buyers allow.

“Maximize your ‘marketable’ grain weight by delivering corn grain to the elevator at moisture levels no lower than 15% moisture content.”

How purchasing corn works

Grain buyers purchase corn grain on the basis of 15% moisture content. So, the grain trade allows you to sell water in the form of grain moisture up to the maximum market standard of 15%. Note that 14% moisture is recommended for long-term storage, and if you plan to store into the summer months or beyond, some even recommend 13%.

No one is suggesting you take shortcuts on moisture levels when storing grain. So, either recognize that drying grain to lower moisture contents may be a cost of doing business to effectively store grain longer, or use blending or other techniques so you sell corn at 15% moisture content when you load out and deliver it.

Unfortunately, grain buyers do not apply “reverse shrink” calculations for grain delivered at moisture contents lower than the 15% standard, Nielsen notes. If you deliver corn lower than 15% moisture, you will be paid for fewer pounds than if you were delivering grain at 15%.

Simply put, there is less weight because there is less water in the corn than the grain trade allows. Office managers will apply the same math — total weight divided by 56 pounds per bushel — no matter the moisture content. If your corn is too wet, above 15%, shrinkage and perhaps drying charges will apply.

In other words, there is an implicit weight penalty for delivering unusually dry grain to the elevator. Keep this in mind and monitor moisture content closely when delivering your next semiload of corn, Nielsen concludes.