These numbers made the corn and bean market  decline when it was released midday. Corn came in at 89.2 million acres.  Corn acres look to be higher in the south and Texas.

Soybeans came in at 84.6 million acres.  This is a new record high for soybean acres, but still below most estimates. 

Corn Stocks came in 7.745 billion bushels, 136 million bushels higher than the average guess, and over 736 million bushels more than a year ago. Indiana, Iowa, and Illinois are the the state holding most of the corn, and that is not surprising since they sit right in the middle of the corn belt. April Supply and Demand Report might show more ending stocks, depending on the feed usage.

Bean Stocks came in at 1.333 billion bushels, 12 million bushels lower the the average guess, and 340 million bushels more than a year ago.  Indiana, Iowa, Illinois and Ohio still has the majority of bushels on hand.

Wheat usage and stocks had no surprises, no record highs or lows.

What does this report mean? In my opinion, we are looking at another big crop year.  We are far from it being harvested, and many factors can change the game at any time.  Traders will keep an eye out on the weather this spring, of course.  Planting in the south and Texas is currently being delayed with rains moving in, but they are not wide spread. They will also watch corn stocks closely, and the bushels being distributed. If farmers hold on to their bushels going into summer, they might see a very supportive basis level, but they might also see the basis level go the other way very quickly.  

USDA reports are not always easy to decipher.  But understand the timing of the report and how it might affect the grain markets is important for your operation and marketing plan.

Happy Spring. Spring break begins. Can you imagine the kids counting down the final hours of school today?

The beginning of a new season means many things to us.  Dave and both sides of our families will be in the field soon. Long hours and lots of packed meals!

Kids will start baseball and softball practice after spring break. Many miles are put on my truck this time of year. 

Ground breaking for the house will be happening soon. 

Many changes for our family, working on our forever home. Lots of decisions to make!

Hope you have a blessed spring!

When I think of March, I think of GREEN.  Green grass, St. Patrick's day, and first day of spring!  We woke up on the first day of March, and were welcomed with snow.  Six inches of snow!

Dave and I were on our way home from my company dinner in Indy, knew the kids really wanted to go sledding, but didn't pack their snow suits to stay at Meme and Papa's! I thought we had things under control preparing for a crazy weekend. We left the house early Saturday morning, went to the kids last basketball game, and everyone was packed for the weekend.  I had things under control, right?!? Until I turned my camera on to take pictures at their last game and realized the battery to the camera is dead.

If it is on the internet, then it is real, the truth, the law. Right? Just Google it! The answer is there.

I am curious where you go for your grain marketing advice online and do you go to those sites everyday? Agriculture web sites are more coveted, factual, and local.

The most up-to-date site is the CME Group. Quotes are delayed by 10 minutes, but you can view all commodities on this site. Chicago Board of Trade, Chicago Mercantile Exchange, New York Mercantile Exchange, and Commodity Exchange are all rolled into this web site, including news, charts, history.

U.S. Department of Agriculture  features may agency topics and reports. It features employee services, drought, climate solutions, farm bill, food safety,  housing assistance, trade, and travel and recreation.

 Agri-Talk is a great website to go for daily news updates from a very popular farm broadcaster, Mike Adams. I met Mike when I was a farm broadcaster with WDZ in Decatur. Mike was working in Jacksonville, IL.   He has live streams on his web site daily.

AgWeb is a website from Farm Journal company.  I go to this web site every day for market information. News, Markets, Weather, Crops, Machinery news is all streamlined on this web site.

Agriculture.com is another streamlined web site, with lots of information, backed by the Successful Farming company. 

These are the top five web sites I use on a daily basis.  Please share with me the sites you use!

We had a great family day last weekend.  Stayed home all day Saturday, and if you know us, you know that is very unusual.


We had a few new kitchen toys from Christmas to try out. The Kitchen Aid Ice Cream Maker.  There are so many different recipes I want to try.  I wanted to go all out with a Chocolate Peanut Butter recipe. We started out with vanilla.  It was delicious, and so creamy.  This did not last long! It was fun to make, and everyone helped. Kids thought it was fun to see the ice cream grow in the mixer! See a problem with this picture? One beater and three kids :)


So when we were making the ice cream, Dave asked what are we going to do with the 8 egg whites that we had leftover from the ice cream recipe.  I found an Angel Food Cupcake recipe online.  It seemed easier than making an angel food cake.  You can find the recipe here. I didn't have cake flour, so I am sure the cupcakes would have came out of the oven a little taller. She also suggested not using paper cupcake linings and spraying the pan very well.  I was nervous, but they came out just fine!



When we discussed what we would make with the left over egg whites, we talked about how Dave's grandma Lois Kellner would always make her angel food cakes from scratch. (Then we knew noodles were coming soon afterwards.)  Grandma Lois always used her caramel frosting (not icing) recipe. She made it very runny, so it went over the cake easily and didn't weigh it down.  It's all delicious, and brought back great memories of her special baking.


Grandma Lois' Caramel Frosting

2 tsp.       Margarine (or butter) 
2/3 cup    Brown Sugar
1/3 cup    Evaporated Milk
pinch salt

Bring to a boil, constantly stirring. Remove pan from heat, add  1 tsp vanilla. 
Stir in enough powdered sugar to make spreadable. Immediately pour over cupcakes

PRINT RECIPE HERE

Grandma Lois, we know you always put the extra frosting on saltine crackers, but we licked the pan clean. It was delicious!

Hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas!  
We had a great Christmas in Indiana!

What are the USDA markets? How do they come up with these numbers?

It is very hard to describe into one post everything that goes into the USDA reports. The Agricultural Marketing Service, AMA, has been conducting reports for over 90 years.   It is a very comprehensive, monthly report.  Reports come in from all over the United States and international locations from USDA officials. 

Reports include markets, prices, volume, and bushels.  Commodities included in the report are corn, beans, wheat, tobacco, cotton, fruits, for example. Certain fields are earmarked to be a representative field for the year.  No one outside the Washington, D.C. office is to know about the final numbers of the report until it is released to the public.  There are many USDA employees who work all night compiling the numbers into the report.  Until a few years ago, the report was released in the morning. Now it is released in the afternoon. 


A few years ago, actually it was four years ago, I traveled to Washington, DC with a group of ag professionals.  We were invited to watch the August 2010 USDA report being presented to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. 



 

Before we were led into the room for the presentation of the report, we were briefed in a separate conference room.  They explained us the procedure, gave us a USDA pass, and we left all forms of communication in the conference room.  All cell phones, tablets, etc were left in the middle of the table.  Then we toured a media room.  It wasn't time for the report to go public yet, but some had the numbers in front of them, entering the information into a computer.  It is entered into a decrypted data system, and that information is not released electronically until the published time.

Many people play a part of the report, and it is a very big process.  They also described the history of the report. Before computers, the report was shared via telephone.  Those reporting from DC were in a media room, standing in the middle. At the time of the report being released, they were allowed to go to the perimeter of the room and use the telephones. The USDA employees who gather the information for the report are not allowed to leave the designated areas of the USDA building until the report is released.  That means some work all night long.

I realize there is so much that goes into preparing each monthly USDA report. The results that come from these reports impact the grain markets because if the report numbers are not within private analyst estimates, it is impacted immediately.  Grain markets can go limit up or limit down if there is a big change in the USDA markets.  It doesn't happen every report, but it is possible.