Bulk bags shipped to Mississippi

Who fills bulk bags in Mississippi

Three regions, three routes in

The Delta is the flat, rich bottomland in the northwest between the Mississippi and Yazoo rivers, and US-61 and US-49 are its farm roads. The middle of the state is rolling pine country around Jackson, Meridian and Hattiesburg. The coast runs from Bay St. Louis through Gulfport and Biloxi to Pascagoula along I-10.

I-55 is the north-south trunk, from Memphis through Grenada and Jackson to McComb and on to New Orleans. I-20 crosses from Vicksburg through Jackson to Meridian and Alabama. I-59 runs from Meridian down through Laurel and Hattiesburg toward the Louisiana line, and I-22 links Tupelo with Birmingham and Memphis.

Northwest Mississippi below Memphis, around Southaven, Olive Branch and Horn Lake, is warehouse country tied to the Memphis freight hub. A load bound for a Delta gin yard or seed dealer often comes through there and down US-61.

Feed for broilers and catfish

Broiler houses spread across the central counties, and the feed mills that supply them run around the clock. Finished feed travels in bulk trucks to farm bins. What comes to the mill in bags is the smaller, costlier stuff: vitamin and trace mineral premixes, enzymes, amino acids and specialty ingredients.

Delta catfish ponds work the same way. Floating pellets go out in bulk to bins on the levees, while ingredients reach the feed mill in bags. Anything that goes into feed for animals raised for food should arrive in a clean new bag, usually coated and lined, with a spout bottom that ties off over a mixer.

Soybean meal, cottonseed and other bulk ingredients rarely need FIBCs at a big mill, but smaller mixers and on-farm operations buy them by the bag when a truckload of loose meal is more than they can store.

• Premix and micro-ingredients: new, coated, PE liner, spout top and spout bottom
• Bagged meal for small mixers: coated, duffle top, spout bottom, 2,000 lb SWL
• Pond and farm supplies: new bags; do not reuse a bag that held a crop chemical

Delta row crops

Cotton, soybeans, corn and rice cover most Delta acres. Planting seed for all four comes to dealers in bags, much of it treated, and treated seed belongs in a new bag with a liner. Cotton planting seed has been delinted and coated, and it pours differently from soybeans, so tell us which seed a bag is for.

Fertilizer is the other spring rush. Urea, potash and phosphate blends go out from dealers to the field in bags when a spreader cart or tender is filled from an FIBC rather than a bulk bin. These bags want coated fabric to keep moisture out of hygroscopic product, a duffle top for a fast fill and a spout bottom with a tie for metering.

Ginning runs in the fall. The seed that comes out of the gin goes to oil mills and feeders, mostly in bulk, and planting seed for next year is cleaned and bagged over the winter.

Rice in the Delta is drilled or water-seeded in spring and flooded through the summer. Rice seed, like soybean seed, wants a new bag with a clean interior, and milled rice bound for a food plant goes only in food-grade bags.

Ports, rivers and coastal storage

The Port of Gulfport and the Port of Pascagoula handle container, breakbulk and bulk cargo on the Gulf. Mississippi River ports at Vicksburg, Greenville and Natchez handle barges on the west side of the state. In the northeast, the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway carries barges past Columbus and Aberdeen toward Mobile.

The coast has a long, wet summer. Atlantic hurricane season runs from June through November, and even a day of heavy tropical rain can soak a bale left on an open dock. Keep stock indoors, off the floor and wrapped until it goes to the fill line.

Polypropylene breaks down in sunlight. Bag makers' handling guidance says UV exposure softens and powders the fabric surface, and that a bag left out in the sun for a long period should not be lifted. On a Gulf Coast yard that warning is not theory.

Tupelo, Columbus and Starkville in the northeast are closer to Birmingham and Memphis than to the coast, and loads there usually come in on I-22 or US-45 rather than up from the Gulf.

Quotes and empties

To price a Mississippi load, send the product, SWL, safety factor, top and bottom, loops, liner and the delivery ZIP. If you have a bag that works, a photo of its sewn-in label covers most of that list.

Two pallets of bales into Jackson or Hattiesburg usually travel LTL. A feed mill that empties bags every shift may do better with a full trailer, if there is a dry warehouse bay to receive it. The arithmetic is per bag: freight divided by count.

We book empties pickups from feed mills, seed dealers and plants statewide. Multi-trip 6:1 bags that pass inspection can be bought back for sand, gravel or aggregate. Single-trip 5:1 bags and anything that carried crop chemicals go to recycling, kept separate from clean bags.