I can understand the companies implementing the no return policy this year. If they didn't, about every farmer and every dealer, knowing that supplies and choice variety numbers are going to be short supply, would "pad" the order "just in case" they needed some more. This would exacerbate an already bad situation and make supplies even tighter. Then after the season is over all the "extra" seed would come pouring back in too late to do any one any good. Maybe the variety a guy needed was there but had just been horded so he couldn't get it. At least with the no return policy it makes a grower or dealer think twice about stockpiling a bunch of extra seed he probably will not need.

Now, having defended the seed companies, I sure hope once they deliver the seed to the farm they don't wipe their hands and say "it's all yours boys". If a farmer has some left over and he informs them as soon as he knows, they should do everything in their power to get that seed moved to where it can be used and if it is resold credited to the farmers account.

My case. We intend to plant every available open acre to corn, leaving only the wheat ground to go to double crop beans. Problem is we have no idea if the weather will cooperate enough to let us get this done or even if we can get the fertilizer to do that much. So we had to hedge our bets. If we get all the corn planted we want to we do not have enough corn seed ordered and quite a bit too much beans. If we had not bought the been seed though, where would we be if it gets wet at corn planting or can't get fertilizer to plant the corn? We took a middle of the road approach and figured we could get 3/4 of the corn and bought corn and bean seed accordingly. Problem is, till planting time comes around we don't know if we have too much corn seed and not enough beans or too much beans and not enough corn.

Situations like ours is why we really need these seed companies to do all they can to help farmers shuffle seed to where it is needed and do everything they can to "move" purchased seed that the grower ends up not needing. It is not a matter of hoarding at all, just not knowing for sure what acres of each crop we can/will end up with.

John