DES MOINES, Iowa — According to the state’s top grain experts, what Iowa growers may have lacked in yields last year they seemed to have made up for in overall grain quality, which has also given them more freedom to choose where they store their grain.

“From what I have heard, this year’s grain quality is quite a bit better than the prior two years,” said Richard Wahl, grain warehouse bureau chief at the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship (IDALS).

Despite a few bouts of severe weather in 2011, Wahl said “there have been virtually no concerns with quality issues reported by bureau examiners on new-crop grain,” although he expressed previous concerns about possible aflatoxin development in corn last year because of the hot, dry weather during pollination.

“With good housekeeping and aeration practices, farmers should have no problem keeping their grain in condition until it’s ready to ship.”

But while grain quality was good in 2011, Charles Hurburgh, Iowa State University professor of agricultural and biosystems engineering, said it was “not always super.

“Test weights were 54 to 56 pounds, some more,” he said. “This means pretty good storage life. Corn was dry in the field, which always adds to storage life, as well. However, a lot of it was harvested in warm weather. If you don’t cool grain, even dry grain, it can spoil,” which is also why farmers need to monitor temperatures, he added.

With the wet weather last spring, dry weather late in the season and damaging storms hitting pockets throughout the state, Iowa Agriculture Secretary Bill Northey said there were some initial storage concerns. “But fortunately, we haven’t heard of those issues arising,” he said.

Hurburgh said the weather was actually not too bad during harvest, which received low humidity with much field dry-down in the western two-thirds of the state, getting progressively wetter to the east because of September rains resulting in later planting.

“Eastern Corn Belt had some pretty wet corn in places,” he said. “Their view on quality would not be the same as in central and western Iowa. There was some ear rot and field mold in the places hit by bad storms in late August, but over the whole state, the storm damage area was not that large.”

According to the latest USDA estimates, on-farm storage for grains and oilseeds in the United States reached 12.5 billion bushels last December, the most since 1989. In Iowa alone, there are approximately 1.28 billion bushels of commercial space between the state and federal licensing systems.

Northey, a fourth-generation corn and soybean farmer, said he stores some of his grain on his Spirit Lake farm, while the rest is stored at the local elevator.

“I think we are seeing more farmers move to additional on-farm storage, so that they have greater flexibility when they market,” he said. “If they have it on the farm, they can take advantage of good prices and sell when and where the market gives signals that it needs additional grain.”

Ed Kordick, Iowa Farm Bureau Federation’s commodity services manager, said the growth in on-farm storage has much to do with the buildup of the ethanol industry.

“Most plants have very little storage, so farmers have seen the need to build on-farm to respond to the market demands,” he said. “Processing plants need bushels year-round and farmers do much of the storing of that crop.”

In fact, a Dec. 18 Seattle Times article stated U.S. grain farmers are increasingly storing their grain on their properties to “protect commodity prices,” which the article stated would give them more control over their bottom lines. Kordick said storage doesn’t necessarily protect commodity prices, however, if a farmer doesn’t have some form of price protection in place.

“It can add flexibility, especially at harvest,” he said. “Market opportunities to capture basis gains and sell carrying charge markets are increased if bushels can be stored.”

Even with the steady increase in Iowa farmers building more storage bins on their farms, Hurburgh said he’s not sure it’s at a relatively faster pace than at elevators. “Farmers have a lot of cash right now; buying iron or tile is a common place to put it,” he said. “Tax benefits create a lot of leverage for doing so – especially now when you can expense it all in one year.”

But when that ends, “farmers should expect the pace of construction to fall a little. Elevators are building, too, because the countervailing trend is toward more cash rent,” he said. “Cash rent landowners aren’t interested in storage. You have to put it somewhere, and outdoor piles have already proven to be bad choices. The big factor is the increase in grain yield and total volume.”