WDGS vs DDGS: wet vs dry distillers grains

WDGS and DDGS are the same feed: the distillers grains a dry-grind ethanol plant makes from corn, sold wet off the line or dried. On the USDA board wet distillers grains have sold for about a third of the DDGS price per ton since 2022, which is close to the share of dry matter a ton of wet grains carries, so the real choice is whether the discount covers the freight on the water.

Wet, modified and dried

NDSU Extension describes three forms off the same stream: wet cake at 60 to 65 percent water, modified wet cake at about 50 percent and dried meal at 8 to 10 percent. USDA's weekly Grain Co-Products report quotes two of them: wet distillers grains at 65 to 70 percent moisture, in six states (Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska and South Dakota), and dried at 10 percent, in eleven. It does not quote modified. So a ton of the wet product USDA prices holds only 0.30 to 0.35 tons of dry matter, against about 0.90 for DDGS.

The water is the plant's choice to make. USDA's Economic Research Service notes that drying takes large, capital-intensive dryers and adds energy cost, and that drying costs account for most of the price difference between co-products that differ only in moisture. Selling wet skips that cost, and the buyer takes the water and the short shelf life instead.

Shelf life and haul radius

NDSU puts the shelf life of wet grains at under seven days in warm weather and two to three weeks in cold. Its dairy guide gives five to seven days as the norm, notes that sealed bags extend it, and puts storage losses for dry product in bins at 2 to 5 percent. University of Georgia Extension adds that wet grains can mold in transit and calls them most practical within 30 to 35 miles of the plant. Dried distillers grains, NDSU notes, handle and store like shelled corn or soybean meal.

What the board shows: wet vs DDGS since 2022

The chart is USDA's wet distillers grains price, the median of its state quotes. Set against the national DDGS median in the same week, across the 209 weekly reports from Jul 25, 2022 through Sep 28, 2026:

• Wet averaged 37 percent of the DDGS price in the second half of 2022, 36 percent in 2023 and 35 percent in both 2024 and 2025. The share ran from 25 percent (Jul 31, 2023) to 42 percent (Oct 17, 2022).
• By year the two averaged $89 and $240 a ton in 2022, $83 and $229 in 2023, $58 and $165 in 2024 and $54 and $153 in 2025.
• 2026 broke the pattern. DDGS climbed from a $159 average in December 2025 to $189 in September 2026, while wet averaged $58 in both months. From March through September wet sold at 30 to 32 percent of the DDGS price, and it averaged 31 percent for the year through September.

The season shows too. Wet's share of the DDGS price was lower in June through September than in October and November in 2022, 2024 and 2025 (2023 was level), and across all years it averaged 34 percent in the summer months against 36.5 percent in the fall. That is the season NDSU says shortens shelf life.

Per ton of dry matter the answer turns on the moisture of the load. At 35 percent dry matter, the wet end of USDA's range, wet grains cost less than DDGS per ton of dry matter in 202 of the 209 reports, at a median 91 percent of DDGS. At 30 percent dry matter they cost less in only 48 (median 106 percent). The wet discount on the board is mostly the water.

The states that quote both products show the 2026 gap too. On the Sep 28, 2026 regional board, wet ran 28 to 31 percent of DDGS in each: Iowa $57 against $185, Minnesota $55 against $186, Nebraska $59 against $208, South Dakota $59 against $195, Kansas $69 against $220 and Missouri $61 against $213. USDA quotes DDGS FOB plant and does not state a freight basis for the wet quotes.

Worked example: the Sep 28, 2026 board

Wet distillers grains were $59 a ton and DDGS $195.

1. Put both on a dry-matter basis. DDGS: $195 ÷ 0.90 = $216.67 per ton of dry matter. Wet at 35 percent dry matter: $59 ÷ 0.35 = $168.57. At 30 percent: $59 ÷ 0.30 = $196.67.
2. Price a ton of wet grains at the DDGS rate. At 35 percent dry matter a wet ton carries the dry matter of 0.39 tons of DDGS, worth $195 × 0.35 ÷ 0.90 = $75.83. Wet at $59 sits $16.83 under that. At 30 percent the DDGS equivalent is $65.00, a $6.00 gap.
3. Find the freight that eats the gap. Every wet ton hauls 0.61 tons more weight than the DDGS carrying the same dry matter (0.67 tons at 30 percent). $16.83 ÷ 0.61 = about $27.50 per ton hauled at 35 percent dry matter; $6.00 ÷ 0.67 = $9 at 30 percent. Below that freight rate wet is cheaper per ton of dry matter delivered; above it, DDGS.

NDSU's dairy guide values wet grains the same way, carrying a dried-grains value over to the wet product's dry matter and then allowing for delivery, storage, handling and spoilage. The delivered feed-cost calculator runs freight and shrink on your own numbers.

Feeding value can tilt it further. In the University of Nebraska analysis of 50 finishing experiments (over 6,100 head, distillers at more than 15 percent of diet dry matter), wet distillers grains had a feeding value of 129 percent of corn when full-fat and 120 percent when de-oiled, against 113 and 103 percent for DDGS, with modified in between. The dry-matter arithmetic above prices the dry matter, not that difference in what cattle do with it.

What is DDGS? covers the feed itself, and What is corn gluten feed? works the same wet-against-dry trade for the wet mill's co-product. The Ration reports USDA's wet and dried distillers grains prices as published and does the dry-matter arithmetic on them. It does not tell a reader which to feed.