Bulk bags shipped to Oklahoma

Who fills bulk bags in Oklahoma

The roads meet in Oklahoma City

I-35 and I-40 cross in Oklahoma City, which makes it a natural place to split or combine loads. I-35 runs north to Kansas and south past Ardmore to Texas. I-40 runs west toward Amarillo and east past Shawnee to Fort Smith. I-44 runs northeast as the Turner Turnpike to Tulsa and on as the Will Rogers Turnpike toward Missouri, and southwest as the H.E. Bailey Turnpike to Lawton.

Turnpike tolls are part of the freight on some lanes, one more reason we quote bags and truck as a single load rather than a bag price with freight tacked on later.

Western Oklahoma means long hauls to small towns. A full trailer to Woodward is easier to plan than a string of small LTL drops, so tell us if a neighbouring buyer could share the truck. Panhandle towns such as Guymon and Boise City sit farther out still, nearer Amarillo or Dodge City than Tulsa.

Wheat harvest and seed for fall planting

Winter wheat is the crop most of the state's elevators are built around. Harvest starts in southern Oklahoma in late spring and works north into summer, and elevators around Enid and across the north-central counties take in most of it within a few weeks.

Bulk bags show up on the seed side. Seed cleaners bag wheat for fall planting, often in new uncoated bags with a spout bottom so the seed can breathe and meter into a drill tender. Seed is part of the food chain in our book, so it gets new bags only.

Wheat is not the only crop. Canola fits into wheat rotations in the north-central counties, and southwest Oklahoma around Altus grows cotton, some of it irrigated. Canola seed is tiny and slick, so ask for sift-proof seams and a closed spout; a bag that is fine for wheat can leak canola at the stitching.

• SWL matched to the weight of seed each bag holds
• Uncoated or vented body for grain that has to breathe
• Spout bottom sized to the tender or auger
• A bale count that fits the cleaner's storage

Proppant and gypsum

Drilling in the state's oil and gas basins uses sand, and sand travels in heavy bags with spout bottoms. Once-used sand bags can carry sand or aggregate again after inspection, but a 5:1 bag is built for one trip and we will not quote it as anything else.

Western Oklahoma has gypsum beds, and gypsum goes into wallboard, cement and soil amendment. Ground gypsum is dusty and dense, so the asks are a duffle or spout top, a spout bottom, and coated fabric or a liner to keep the dust inside.

For either product, do the arithmetic before buying. A 3,000 lb SWL bag at 5:1 is tested to 3,000 x 5 = 15,000 lb; at 6:1 the same SWL means 18,000 lb. The label is the only place that number counts. Gypsum also gets damp easily, and wet gypsum sets hard enough to jam a discharge spout.

Cattle, hogs and spring weather

Oklahoma City has long been a cattle market town, and ranches spread across the state from the Osage hills to the shortgrass country of the west. Ranchers feed protein cubes, minerals and salt; the mills that make those products fill Type A bags, usually with a duffle top so a loader bucket can reach in.

Out in the Panhandle, around Guymon, large hog farms and the feed mills behind them run on strict biosecurity. A bag that has been on another farm is a carrier for disease, so those sites usually want new bags or none at all. Read the farm's plan before quoting used.

Spring is storm season on the southern Plains, with hail, high wind and tornadoes. Bales stored under a lean-to can be soaked or torn loose. Keep them in an enclosed building, wrapped until needed, and inspect any bag that rode out a storm outdoors before lifting it full.

Barges from Catoosa and Muskogee

Oklahoma reaches the Mississippi by water. The McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System runs from the Tulsa Port of Catoosa on the Verdigris River down the Arkansas River, past the Port of Muskogee, to the Mississippi. Dry bulk such as fertilizer and grain moves on it, and some of that is bagged near the port for local delivery.

If your bags fill at a port warehouse rather than a farm, give us that dock and its hours. River timing sets the barge, so the plan we work toward is bags on the floor before the barge ties up.

A chain of locks and dams lifts tows from the Mississippi up to Catoosa, and floods or drought can halt traffic for a stretch. Warehouses around both ports also handle steel, pipe and machinery, so ask the yard where bagged freight is received; it is often a different door from the one for heavy lifts.