Bulk bags shipped to Idaho

Who fills bulk bags in Idaho

Phosphate from the southeast corner

Phosphate rock is mined in the hills of southeast Idaho around Soda Springs and processed into fertilizer near Pocatello. Fertilizer is the bag job here: granular product that pulls moisture and cakes if it sits in damp air.

Coated fabric and a PE liner keep it dry, and a spout bottom meters it into a spreader or blender. These are single-trip 5:1 bags. A 2,000 lb SWL bag at 5:1 has been tested to 2,000 x 5 = 10,000 lb once, and after discharge it goes to a recycler.

The ore is turned into phosphoric acid and into granular ammonium phosphates, the familiar MAP and DAP, that blenders mix with nitrogen and potash for each field. Each blend may need its own bag tag, and a spout sized for the blender's hopper keeps spills off the floor.

Crops of the Snake River Plain

The Snake River arcs across southern Idaho, and irrigation from it grows potatoes, sugar beets, malting barley, wheat, beans and alfalfa. Eastern Idaho around Idaho Falls and Rexburg is potato and barley country; the Magic Valley around Twin Falls and Burley grows beets, beans and potatoes; the Treasure Valley near Nampa and Caldwell grows seed crops along with onions and sugar beets.

Seed companies there fill bean, corn and vegetable seed in new, uncoated bags with document pouches. Dehydrated potato plants fill flakes and powders in new, food-grade, lined bags.

Sugar beets are dug in fall and piled at receiving stations before going to the factories for slicing. Barley from eastern Idaho goes to maltsters, and beans from the Magic Valley are cleaned and bagged for food and for seed.

Seed potatoes are grown in the cooler, higher country around Ashton, where fewer insects carry disease, then sold to commercial growers across the West. On the Camas Prairie near Grangeville, wheat, barley and canola ride the long grades down to Lewiston.

• Seed: new, uncoated, no liner, document pouch
• Potato flakes and powders: new, food grade, liner, spout bottom
• Fertilizer: coated, liner, spout bottom

Dairy and cheese in the Magic Valley

Dairy herds are concentrated around Jerome, Gooding and Twin Falls, and the milk goes to cheese plants that dry whey into powder. Whey and milk powder are food, so they ride in new bags with liners.

The dairies buy feed and minerals in bags too. Mineral premix is one of the jobs where an inspected 6:1 multi-trip bag can be reused, if the mill and the dairy agree.

Cheese plants also produce lactose and permeate powders, used in foods and in calf feed. Those powders cake when damp, so the bags need a liner tied off tight and a discharge spout long enough to reach the receiving bin without dust.

Jerome and Wendell sit on I-84 near the Snake River Canyon, and US-93 crosses the canyon into Twin Falls on the Perrine Bridge. Dairies scattered across that country take bags by the pallet, so a single LTL run often makes several stops.

Getting trucks across Idaho, and booking

None of the coastal or Midwest lanes cross Idaho, so loads come in on the state's own interstates. I-84 runs from Oregon through Boise and Twin Falls to Utah; I-86 branches east to Pocatello; I-15 runs north from Utah through Pocatello and Idaho Falls toward Montana. I-90 crosses the panhandle through Coeur d'Alene, and Lewiston, on the Snake River, is reached by barges coming up the Columbia.

Treasure Valley warehouses take LTL easily. A seed plant at harvest or a fertilizer blender before spring often fills a full trailer.

Give us the product, SWL, top, bottom, liner, static type and ZIP, and how many bags a season takes. For empties, a count, a bale photo and the yard's hours are enough to book a pickup; 5:1 bags go to recycling.

Trout farms, the Palouse edge and the panhandle

Spring water pours out of the canyon walls along the Snake near Hagerman and Buhl, and fish farms there raise rainbow trout in long concrete raceways. Fish feed is a pelleted product, and pellets that crumble into fines are wasted money, so feed mills ask for bags that discharge gently through a spout instead of dumping the whole load at once.

Up north, Moscow sits on the Idaho side of the Palouse, where wheat, dry peas, lentils and chickpeas are grown much as they are across the Washington line. Pulse cleaners there use the same new, food-grade bags for edible product and uncoated bags for seed.

The panhandle's Silver Valley along I-90 has a long mining history, and timber and wood products remain part of the north's economy. Winter on Fourth of July Pass and Lookout Pass can slow trucks, so a panhandle drop is planned around the forecast rather than a fixed day.

The Boise metro, from Meridian and Eagle out to Nampa and Caldwell, has grown fast, and warehouses and building-supply yards line I-84 through the Treasure Valley. Stucco, mortar and sand for that construction move in bags, with inspected used 6:1 bags acceptable for sand.