March 31, 2026
At this hour:
🌽Corn market is down 0-1c,
🌱soybeans are up 3-4c,
🍞wheat is up 2-3c,
🛢️crude oil is up $1.29-$1.30,
💲US Dollar is down 3 points
-Tensions in the Middle East are rising as the U.S. and Israel strike a target in Iran overnight.
-Crude oil is trading above $103 per barrel.
-USDA will release their March 31st Prospective Plantings and Grain Stocks report today at 11:00 am CDT.
-Estimates, courtesy of Reuters, for the Prospective Plantings report are 94.371 million corn acres, 85.549 million soybean acres and 44.786 million all wheat acres.
-Grain Stocks report estimates are calling for corn stocks at 9.104 billion bushels, 2.063 billion bushels of soybeans and 1.295 billion bushels of wheat.
🐂🐻 Look for a mixed/choppy trade until the release of the USDA Crop Report.
Support/Resistance:
May corn – Support on May corn is at $4.48 1/4 which is the 100-day moving average. Resistance is at $4.76 which is the high from March 9th.
December corn – Support comes in at $4.70 1/2 which is the 50-day moving average. Resistance comes in at $4.98 1/2 which is the high from March 9th.
May soybeans – Support comes in at $11.44 1/4 which is the 50-day moving average. Resistance is at $12.38 3/4 which is the high from March 12th.
November soybeans – Support is at $11.45 1/2 which is the 10-day moving average. Resistance is at $11.74 1/4 which is the high from March 12th.
May Kansas City wheat – Support is at $6.20 which is the 10-day moving average. Resistance comes in at $6.47 1/2 which is the high from March 9th.
Where do we go from Here:
The trade will shift its focus from the tensions in the Middle East to the USDA Prospective Plantings and Quarterly Grain Stocks report this morning. Traders are looking for corn acres to come in around 94.4 million acres and the Quarterly Grain stocks to come in around 9.1 billion bushels. A corn acre number sub 94 or in the low 93-million-acre area would be supportive to corn prices. This would put into question a supply issue given our current demand. We also need to focus on the Quarterly Grain Stocks as well. It has been felt that the USDA has been slow to adjust their “feed/residual” number lower due to the fact of low cattle numbers. The USDA is still projecting about a 700 million bushel increase in “feed/residual” from last year. So, could we see a higher stocks number this morning? The other “wildcard” I think we need to be careful is the corn and soybean acres both increasing. Get your offers in place as today should be a wild trade.
Prospective Plantings for soybeans are estimated at 85.6 million acres which is up from 81.2 million acres last year. It is not a surprise that the soybean acres will be higher, especially now with the cost of fertilizer. However, quite a bit of the fertilizer was already bought and spoken for so will we see this big shift in acres over to soybeans? With new crop soybean futures well above $11.00 and the best prices we have seen for new crop soybeans in years, I do believe we will see a significant increase in soybean acres. Down in the Delta, farmers are putting in more soybean acres at the expense of cotton and rice acres among other crops. My feeling is it will take a soybean acre report less than 84 million to get a bullish response as Global supplies are still plentiful and China is still reluctant to buy U.S. soybeans. On the Stocks side of the soybeans, the USDA seems to have a pretty good handle on the soybean stocks. We could see a slight adjustment but at the end of the day, soybean stocks feel pretty good at 2.1 billion bushels.
The wheat market is getting a little support from the continued dry weather. We could see another supporting factor today as well as the wheat acres look to lose some more ground in 2026. The simple economics of raising wheat compared to corn and soybeans is hard to justify and I would look for spring wheat acres to be down again this year. Wheat stocks look to see a slight increase from last year as U.S. and Global supplies of wheat continue to increase.
