Grain cars trickle into area elevators
By Edna Sailor
The good news is that grain cars have been trickling into area elevators. That makes elevator managers too busy to spend much time on the telephone. When a few cars come in it is "all hands on deck" including the managers. Dakota Quality Grain in New Town received 25 cars. They had them all loaded for market within days of the arrival. The situation in New Town is not as dire as other places according to DQG Manager Randy Froshaug.
He stated, " The cars coming into New Town off and on have allowed the local elevator to keep up with harvest, but that is also because of the weather. We have had rain and two major hail storms south of New Town recently. With some crops destroyed, we are not getting the bushels we thought we would from that area. Road construction along North Dakota Highway 23 near New Town has been an issue. Our farmers along North Dakota Highway 8 have chosen to haul grain to Parshall to avoid the heavy traffic."
Froshaug continued, "We have not had to turn anyone away yet, but farmers did not get hail across the river and Watford City is full, so that grain may be coming our way. We will need to continue to get cars in order to keep up. We are not full yet with the slowed harvest. All of those things have let us keep up so far."
No information was available for Dakota Quality Grain in Parshall.
According to personnel at Plaza-Makoti Equity Elevator, that elevator received 40 cars in Plaza last week. They were promised 20 more, but no additional cars arrived in Plaza as promised the next day. Their partner facility in Makoti, however, received five instead. They have no grain on the ground at their two facilities. The elevator is in the process of expanding its capacity, but only the exterior is completed at this time. No information was disclosed about a completion date for the elevator expansion.
