I started in the fall, 2018. I'm making planting decisions starting last September, basically. I'm getting calls when I'm actually combining 2018's crop, or whatever year that happens to be. Right now it's 2018.
I'm making decisions on rotation, as I mentioned in my talk. There's rotation, insects, margins, input costs, all of that is thought about and considered.
By the end of the year I have, in large part, all of my canola seed. I pay for it, because that's the best price I can get. A large part of my crop nutrition is also bought and paid for. Once that's done, it's very difficult to take seed back.
Basically, by the end of December 2018, I was committed to my acres for the spring of 2019. Crop input retail will take a bag or two back. They don't want 78 bags back from me right now. I'm really committed to what I had for plans already, based on the fall of 2018.
I grow the crop and I'm harvesting again in September and October. In 2019 I can certainly store it. On our farm we usually try to market from fall through to the next July. I like to have my bins emptied out again by July so that I have room for next year's crop to come off again. I can't afford to have double the bin space. I try to cycle once a year.
That's not saying that I can't store longer than that with due diligence and making sure that there are no issues in the bin through storage. The summer heat can be an issue. You have to be a little more diligent, for sure.
It's not the way I'm set up, though. It's a fill-the-bins-once-a-year, empty-the-bins-once-a-year cycle. In large part my plans are set in stone, pretty well. I can make small adjustments by the end of the fall, or by the end of the previous year, for sure.