06/30/2025 Burn the Boats

On the Grains
I’m just going to say ‘morning’ because we won’t know what kind of morning it will be until 11 am. When the Vikings landed to raid and pillage, they burned their boats, leaving no way to retreat. Let’s hope that the USDA didn’t pay too much attention to history class, printing a 96-million bushel corn number would be like striking a match. The forecast has shifted from ‘risk off’ last Sunday to ‘slight risk’ as temperatures rise and rain eases slightly. Say what you will, but my crop will be in trouble if the water supply is cut off. I do believe the subsoil is recharged in many places, but roots haven’t needed to go find it yet. Downward growth slows significantly during V6 to V8, and once we reach V10 to V12, where many areas are close, the plant shifts its energy toward ear development. Enough with the agronomy, many readers know a hundred times more about that than I do. With a 96-million-acre corn crop, it will not matter what the forecast says, at 95 million, it will be enough to watch. I did not include cotton acres, but it’s widely expected they will be 9.73 million today, down from 11.7 million last year. They went somewhere, let’s hope it’s not planted with corn and beans.