Bulk bags shipped to South Dakota

Who fills bulk bags in South Dakota

East River and West River

South Dakotans split their state at the Missouri River, and the bag business splits the same way. East River is row-crop country: corn, soybeans, wheat and sunflowers, with ethanol plants, elevators, seed dealers and feed mills along I-29 and the US highways that cross it.

West River is range, ranches and the Black Hills. Cattle need feed and mineral supplement brought to them. The Hills have a long mining history and still have quarries, gravel pits and mines that bag sand, crushed rock and specialty mineral product.

So a bag order from Brookings and one from Rapid City are different orders. One is usually new, Type A and sized for a seed or feed line. The other is often heavier, coated and filled with something abrasive.

Hog barns and dairies in the east add their own demand: soybean meal, minerals, vitamins and milk replacer powders arriving in bags at farm feed rooms. Milk replacer is fed to calves, so treat it like a food ingredient and keep it in new, clean, lined bags.

Distillers grains, seed and cattle feed

Ethanol plants in eastern South Dakota turn corn into fuel and leave distillers grains behind, a feed sold to cattle and dairy operations. Most of it ships bulk by rail and truck. Smaller feeders and mixers sometimes take it in bags, and dried distillers grains are known to cake and bridge, so ask for a spout bottom wide enough to keep it moving, or a full-open bottom.

Seed corn and soybean seed go in new bags, often treated, so the dealer may want a liner to keep treated seed off the outer fabric. Cattle mineral and feed premixes are dusty and sometimes hold moisture; a coated bag with a duffle top fills fast and keeps fines in.

North-central South Dakota around Aberdeen and Redfield grows wheat and sunflowers as well as corn. Confection sunflower seed bound for snack processors is a food product and travels in new bags. Oil-type seed bound for a crusher more often goes bulk.

• Distillers grains: coated fabric, duffle top, wide spout or full-open bottom
• Seed corn and soybeans: new Type A, spout top, spout bottom, liner for treated seed
• Cattle mineral and premix: coated, duffle top, sift-proof seams
• Black Hills sand and rock: coated, four loops, 3,000 lb SWL or more

Getting the truck to Sioux Falls, Rapid City or a ranch gate

I-29 runs along the eastern edge of the state, through Sioux Falls, Brookings and Watertown, north to Fargo and south to Sioux City. I-90 crosses the whole width, from Sioux Falls through Mitchell and Chamberlain to Rapid City and on into Wyoming. US-12 serves Aberdeen, US-14 runs through Huron to Pierre, and US-83 carries north-south freight through the middle of the state.

The Missouri is dammed into a chain of reservoirs here, Lake Oahe and Lake Francis Case among them, and carries no commercial barges in South Dakota. Bagged freight is a truck job, with rail moving the grain and the distillers grains in bulk.

Ranch deliveries are the ones to plan carefully. A trailer needs room to turn and someone with a forklift or a loader with forks at the other end. Tell us what unloading gear is on site and whether the drive is gravel.

Sioux Falls is the freight center for the eastern side, with warehouses and cross-docks where an LTL shipment can be broken down and sent on. Yankton and Vermillion in the southeast corner are often easiest to reach across the river from Nebraska or up from Sioux City, Iowa.

Black Hills product and the long haul west

Around Rapid City, Spearfish and the northern Hills, operators bag sand, gravel, landscape stone, crushed aggregate and mineral fines. Sharp-edged rock chews through light fabric, so for crushed stone ask for a heavier fabric weight and a coated body. Landscape rock headed for a garden center usually rides in a flat-bottom bag, because the buyer cuts it open.

Rapid City sits at the far end of I-90 from most bag sources, and the freight on a single pallet can rival what the bags on it cost. Grouping a season's need into one or two trailers usually pencils out better, provided there is a dry shed to hold it.

Used bags show up in the West River more than in the east, because sand and rock are the loads they suit. Look for intact loops, no cuts or scuffing through the weave, no brittle sun-bleached patches, no torn spout ties, and a label that reads 6:1.

Ordering and empties

Spring is the crunch: seed and fertilizer bags need to be on hand before planting in April and May. The fall harvest pulls feed and grain bags, and ranchers stock mineral ahead of winter, when hauling across the West River gets harder.

Ask for a quote with the bag you use now: SWL, safety factor, top and bottom, liner, loops and fabric. Read it off the sewn-in label if you have one. Add the delivery ZIP and how many bags you go through in a season, and we will price a load to match.

We book pickups of empty bags from feed mills, seed dealers and sand operations. Multi-trip 6:1 bags in good shape can go back into service for non-food loads after inspection; single-trip 5:1 bags go to recycling.

If a bag held treated seed, say so when you book. Seed treatments are crop chemicals, and those bags are kept apart from clean feed and mineral bags all the way to the recycler.