Grain Shrink and Drying Charges, Explained

Why wet bushels aren't bushels

Corn trades at a standard 15% moisture (soybeans at 13%). Deliver wetter grain and the buyer adjusts your weight down — because part of what crossed the scale was water that's about to be dried off — and usually charges for the drying, too.

The shrink math

Shrink converts wet weight to dry-equivalent bushels using a shrink factor per point of moisture. The pure water-loss math works out to about 1.18% per point (for corn going to 15%); elevators commonly apply 1.3–1.4% per point, with the difference ("handling shrink") covering invisible losses and margin.

Example: 1,000 bushels of 20% corn, 1.4% shrink factor:

5 points × 1.4% = 7% shrink → you're paid on 930 bushels

Drying charges stack on top — typically a few cents per bushel per point of moisture removed. Five points of drying at, say, 4¢/point is another 20¢/bu equivalent. Every elevator's schedule differs, and schedules change year to year: read the sheet.

Sell wet, dry on-farm, or field-dry?

The real comparison has three legs:

• Deliver wet: their shrink factor + drying charge, zero hassle.
• Dry on-farm: your propane/electric cost + your (true, ~1.18%) shrink + labor and dryer time — often cheaper per point, if you have the capacity at harvest pace.
• Let it field-dry: free drying, paid for in harvest-date risk — stalk quality, phantom yield loss, weather, and a later basis window.

Run it per point, not per load: the question is what removing one point of moisture costs by each path. And keep your true dry bushels in your marketing math — 200,000 wet pounds in the wagon is not the number your contracts settle on.