Grain dockage: what it is, and what it costs you

Dockage is what the elevator cleans out of your load before grading it, and you are paid on the weight that is left. Put in a load and your price to see what the dockage takes off, and what each tenth of a percent is worth.

By Ruslan Glick, Winnipeg · Updated 3 October 2026

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What dockage is

Dockage is anything mixed in with your grain that has to be, and can be, separated from it before the grain is graded. In practice that is weed seeds, chaff, dirt and other material the cleaning takes out. The Canada Grain Act defines it; the Canadian Grain Commission's Official Grain Grading Guide sets how it is cleaned out for each crop.

It is not the same as shrink. Shrink is weight lost to moisture when wet grain is dried (the shrink calculator works that out). Dockage is material that isn't grain at all.

How it is measured, and what the ticket shows

At a licensed elevator in western Canada, the operator takes a representative sample from each load, cleans it with equipment the Commission has authorized, and records the dockage to the nearest 0.1%. You, or whoever hauled the load, have the right to watch it being done.

The Commission's example cash purchase ticket shows the weights in this order:

Gross weight

The loaded truck.

Vehicle weight

The empty truck.

Unload weight

Gross minus vehicle: what you tipped into the pit.

Dockage, and dockage %

The weight cleaned out, and that weight as a percentage.

Net weight

Unload weight minus dockage. The price is per net tonne, so this is the weight you are paid on.

Other buyers' tickets may use different words, such as "net" for the weight before dockage. Check which weight the price is applied to. The scale ticket tracker adds up tickets against a contract after dockage.

What it costs, worked through

The example above is a 26 tonne load of canola at $628.50 a tonne, with 2.4% dockage:

Dockage isn't grain, so you were never going to be paid for it. What it costs you is the hauling, and any reading that is higher than it should be: at this price, half a point too much is about $82 on one load. Across 1,000 tonnes delivered, 2.4% dockage is 24 tonnes hauled and not paid for.

If you think the dockage is wrong

In Canada, at a licensed primary elevator, you can ask the Canadian Grain Commission to decide. It is called a Final Quality Determination, formerly "subject to inspector's grade and dockage":

• Tell the elevator operator you disagree and want the sample sent to the Commission. You must ask within 7 calendar days of delivery, and you don't need to be there when the load is delivered.
• You can ask for dockage alone to be checked, or the grade, moisture or protein, or several of them.
• The elevator keeps the representative sample for 7 days, sends it in, and pays the Commission's fee. The inspector's result goes on a new receipt or cash purchase ticket.
• If you disagree with the result, you can appeal to the Chief Grain Inspector within 15 days of the date on the Submitted Sample Certificate.
• It is not available at process elevators, only at primary elevators.

That is why the delivery date on each ticket matters: it starts the 7 days.

Checking dockage on the settlement

The settlement should pay on the net weight from your tickets. Add up the tickets after dockage and compare with the weight on the settlement. A gap the dockage doesn't explain is worth asking about. The free settlement checker splits the difference between contract and cheque into price, weight and deductions, and the contract tracking guide goes through each line.

In GrainPosition, the dockage on each ticket is read from a photo along with the weights and grade, and when a settlement pays on less weight than the tickets, the check shows whether the dockage explains it.

Questions