Grain Marketing Education, News & Strategies

Q&A: SAF & Biofuel Question from a client: "19 Sept 2025 Good morning, Roger, Which is the best way to produce SAF (Sustainable Aviation Fuel), corn, soybeans or crop residue? Just a few miles away they keep talking about building a SAF plant that will use crop residue, bad idea in my opinion. This is not environmentally friendly or sustainable. Removing crop residue also removes nutrients of which you must replace, and that is just for starters, the negatives go

It's our weekly US grain market prices analysis and outlook for corn, soybeans and wheat. Dow Jones Industrial Average Index settled on Friday at 46,315, +481 points for the week. Crude oil settled at $62.72, +0.12. Dollar Index settled at 97.647, +0.03. Baltic Dry Index (a shipping freight-cost index) settled at 2,203, +77. Corn December futures settled at $4.24, -6¢ for the week. Basis (Z = December; e.g. 10Z means 10¢ over Dec futures) (Futures price + Basis = Cash price)

Tidbits Conservation Reserve Program: On Wednesday, the USDA announced acceptance of 1.78 million acres into the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). About 25.8 million acres are currently enrolled in CRP, which is in its 40th year. FSA received offers on more than 2.6 million acres. The program’s total acreage is capped at 27 million acres for fiscal year 2025. About 955,795 acres are expiring on September 30 this year. Producers submitted re-enrollment offers for just over 6

Tidbits Trade talks: President Trump did talk yesterday morning with China’s President Xi. This is what Trump had to say after the call: The soybean market was not impressed. November beans settled 12¢ lower yesterday and at the lowest closing price since 11 August. Flash sale: Yesterday morning, the USDA announced the sale of 206,460 mts of 2025 crop corn to unknown. Also yesterday, Sec. of Agriculture, Brooke Rollins announced Taiwan agreed to purchase $10 billion wort

Tidbits Soybeans: The U.S. may not be selling soybeans to the world’s largest soybean importer (China), but it looks like the U.S. will be selling beans to the world’s largest soybean producer (Brazil), which sells most of its beans to China. Yes, Ladies and Gentlemen, Brazil soybean crushing plants near Brazil’s ports are running the numbers on importing U.S. soybeans instead of trying to get beans from the West Central area of Brazil, which is 600 to 1,000 miles away from t

Tidbits Farm aid: The U.S. Republican farm-state lawmakers urge the Trump administration to issue autumn farm aid by year-end due to low crop prices and a trade war. Four lawmakers are in talks with USDA and other officials about an aid package, ideally by December. Senator John Hoeven cites a similar $23 billion payout during Trump’s first term to offset China trade losses and suggests adding aid to a spending bill; he says farmers need help soon, but by year-end is acceptab

Grain market summary of price outlook, seasonal situation, fundamental & technical analysis with our recommendations for corn, soybeans and wheat (Soft Red Winter, Hard Red Winter & Spring), fuel and fertilizer for past week Wednesday to Tuesday. Read about our approach to this report here. We provide three different marketing plans (in order of decreasing our preference). The marketing decision is yours to make, obviously you can mix those plans, change the sales size or add

Tidbits

Tidbits NOPA crush for August was expected to be 182.857 million bushels; actual was 189.810 million bushels, a 20% increase from a year ago. Better yet, soy oil stocks were 53 million pounds less than expected at 1.245 billion pounds. Flash sale: Yesterday morning, the USDA announced the sale of 148.971 mts of 2025 corn to unknown. China: President Trump said yesterday he would be speaking to Chinese President Xi this Friday. Poland’s closed border with Belarus has frozen th

Tidbits Corn Acres: Zaner Ag Hedge Chief Analyst, Karen Braun, asked USDA/NASS via their chatline (paraphrased): Karen prepared state-by-state corn acres reported in June vs corn acres in September. Note the biggest acreage increases percentage wise were in Mississippi, North Dakota, Kansas, Arkansas, South Dakota, Texas, Wisconsin, and Ohio. Together, Nebraska and Minnesota added 850,000 acres.

It's our weekly US grain market prices analysis and outlook for corn, soybeans and wheat. Dow Jones Industrial Average Index settled on Friday at 45,834, +433 points for the week. Crude oil settled at $62.6, +0.63. Dollar Index settled at 97.615, -0.12. Baltic Dry Index (a shipping freight-cost index) settled at 2,126, +147. Corn December futures settled at $4.30, +12¢ for the week. Basis (Z = December; e.g. 10Z means 10¢ over Dec futures) (Futures price + Basis = Cash price)

Tidbits Yield: Darren Frye of Water Street Commodities in Peoria has been a market analyst for 42 years and is well respected in the business. He is not afraid to say what he thinks no matter who is listening. After Friday’s USDA numbers were released he wrote on X: "I am lowering my yield range in corn to 170-175 (USDA 186.7). USDA will be coming down big on next report. People think it was a perfect year for corn. Well, the corn is speaking and it is saying this is an “epic

Tidbits Flash sale: Yesterday morning, the USDA announced the sale of 22,000 mts of soybean oil to South Korea. Tariffs: U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will meet with the Chinese Vice Premier this coming week in Madrid to discuss national security, economic and trade issues. The Financial Times reports the U.S. is pushing a plan for all G7 partners to adopt steep tariffs on China and India because of their purchasing of Russian crude oil. Brazil: The former conse

The numbers were: Negative Corn and Soybeans Neutral Wheat CBOT 30 Minutes After Report Dec corn +1 Nov beans +6 July CBOT wheat -3...

Tidbits The USDA will release its September World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) at 11 AM Central Time today. As expected, CBOT ag markets were higher yesterday as they recovered from oversold conditions the previous two days. The market will trade the production numbers in the few first minutes or so after the report is released, then the market will trade the U.S. carryover numbers for 3 to 20 minutes, and then the market will trade the world carryovers in

Tidbits CBOT grain and oilseed markets are usually lower the two to four days before the USDA releases its monthly S&D. Yesterday, everything except bean oil was lower after being lower on Tuesday. Typically, prices reach a price low enough that some of the shorts (traders who sold before they buy) decide to take some profit and liquidate their short position by buying futures which results in a very modest rally the day before the S&D. The September S&D will be issued at 10

Grain market summary of price outlook, seasonal situation, fundamental & technical analysis with our recommendations for corn, soybeans and wheat (Soft Red Winter, Hard Red Winter & Spring), fuel and fertilizer for past week Wednesday to Tuesday. Read about our approach to this report here. We provide three different marketing plans (in order of decreasing our preference). The marketing decision is yours to make, obviously you can mix those plans, change the sales size or add

Tidbits Economy: Yesterday’s news that shocked the financial markets was the number of new jobs reported by the U.S. Department of Labor Statistics for the 12 months ending in March 2025 was actually 911,000 less. This news comes after last week’s report that job growth almost stalled in August and the economy lost jobs in June for the first time in four and a half years. The revision means nonfarm payroll gains averaged about 71,000 per month, instead of the reported 147,000

Tidbits The U.S. House Agriculture Committee plans to pass a five-year reauthorization of USDA’s grain inspection program, updating the United States Grain Standards Reauthorization Act (expiring Sept. 30) to promote new technology, including a requirement for USDA to prioritize adopting improved grain grading tech and an exemption of equipment and tech costs from the 30% cap on administrative expenses; NGFA's Mike Seyfert calls it a “must-pass” for the grain value chain, whi

Tidbits Harvest: There were many more areas in the Corn Belt than we expected that started harvest this weekend. The early yield results were reported to be less than expected, even areas where the weather was considered quite good, such as Northwest Iowa. Maybe the better-than-expected yields, if any, did not get reported. Of course, the worst yields for the 2025 crop will be the early harvest acres given the August weather. The Corn Belt weather for the next two wee