While North American potash producers calculate how much product is yet needed for this season without oversupplying the market, other manufacturers are importing product. “That could put some pressure on Canadian producer prices and keep the market from taking off this spring,” says Scott Manwarren, domestic product manager for CHS.

Global supplies of phosphates continue to tighten, with prices moving higher again last week. The Tampa DAP price rose another $25 per ton, as export sales continue out of Florida. “The international market continues to drive the domestic market here in the U.S., with producers taking product wherever they can get the highest price,” observes CHS product manager Tom Mulrooney.

The commodity markets and the weather are creating worries for growers, and contributing to the general feelings of buying hesitancy among growers and dealers. The corn market headed lower early this week, which coincided with a sell-off of the dollar. Then midweek the corn market attempted to rally, says Keith Swanson, CHS risk management services. “But new crop estimates out of South America just keep sounding bigger and bigger, so corn closed down at new lows. That’s a very bearish signal for the market. The message is that rallies in corn prices can’t be sustained at this time.”

It has been a tough winter for train movement in the upper Midwest. Outbound rail shipments of grain, as well as inbound shipments of crop nutrients, have been slowed in recent weeks. “When there is heavy snow, and more importantly, blowing snow, railroads can be grounded just like other modes of transportation, which has been the case several times this winter,” says Dan Mack, vice president, transportation and business development, CHS Grain Marketing. He says mounting snow plows on locomotives can help them blast through snow drifts.

China’s influence on the international potash market may be tempered, if it starts to sign shorter-term contracts. One industry executive says he thinks the country’s officials will move to using more quarterly contracts rather than year-long buying agreements. Calling annual contracts “nonsensical,” Bill Doyle, PotashCorp President and CEO, says he believes such long-term contracts are detrimental to global food production.

Two of the world’s largest mining companies are making investments in the fertilizer business. Just one week after saying it would pump $240 million into potash mine development in Saskatchewan, Australian mining giant BHP Billiton announced it was buying Athabasca Potash Inc. (API). Earlier last week, Brazil-based mining company Vale S.A. announced agreements to buy the stakes of Yara and Bunge in the Brazilian fertilizer company Fosfertil.