Cash Market Moves

Just as parts of the Lower Mississippi River were showing signs of flood recovery, Category 1 Hurricane Barry made landfall in Louisiana on July 13. Later that day it weakened to a Tropical Storm as it moved inland and became a tropical depression on Sunday...

While the flat price of corn has fluctuated recently, the basis remains strong and shows no sign of retreating.

The U.S. House Appropriations committee recently passed a 2020 government funding package that would effectively stop the U.S. DOT from eliminating the 30-minute break requirement from current hours of service regulations.

U.S. planted spring wheat acres are expected to be lower than original intentions due to poor weather and final plant dates affecting how many acres went in.

While water is beginning to recede in some areas along the Mississippi River and tributaries, transportation woes continue.

When the calendar turns to June 1 every year, soft red and hard red winter wheat end a crop year and starts a new one. Here is a look back and a look ahead for hard red winter wheat.

Parts of the Mississippi River have been in flood stage since early January and a wet weather pattern continues to raise the water levels on the rivers.

For most of 2019, inclement weather has disrupted barge traffic along the Mississippi, Ohio and Arkansas rivers. This has caused year-to-date grain barge tonnages through the locking portions of the rivers to fall below the three-year average and last year, according to USDA.

The Surface Transportation Board has been struggling to fill vacancies since late 2017 after becoming a two-member board.

As the Mississippi River moved south from St. Paul, Minnesota, heading towards the Gulf, flooding ensued in the middle Upper Mississippi River and into St. Louis, Missouri, causing the river to close to all traffic in the St. Louis Harbor.

The Mississippi River in St. Paul had started to drop after cresting above major flood stage at the end of March. Then it changed course and started to rise again.

A recent study released on the condition of U.S. bridges showed some degree of progress in addressing the structural shortfalls but much more needs to be done, especially in the rural areas.

It has been a challenging spring for farmers in most of the Midwest, with the Upper Midwest still waiting to plant spring wheat, especially in areas that may have already started under better circumstances if weather conditions had been better.

As floodwaters have been moving through the middle Mississippi River and south to the Gulf for most of 2019, the Upper Mississippi River remained asleep for the winter until March 21 when it crossed in to "action" flood stage (10 feet) on the NWS Hydrograph. It hasn't stopped rising since.

The Great Lakes prepared for the start of the 2019 shipping season with the U.S. and Canadian Coast Guard icebreakers moving up and down the lakes to cut away ice for ships to begin safely moving in and out of the ports.

High water continues to besiege the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers and tributaries as the spring thaw has begun.

Increasing water levels as a result of heavy rain in the Mississippi and Ohio river valleys prompted the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to open the Bonnet Carre Spillway on Feb. 27 to regulate the flow of the Mississippi river through the greater New Orleans area.

The weather was brutal in the Northern Plains and Midwest for most of February, with heavy snow and ice and extreme cold, all adding to rail transportation slowdowns.

The U.S River system has been battling high water as far back as December 2018, and it's only going to get worse.

In his second State of the Union address last week, President Donald Trump called for a bipartisan effort to address the needs of the nation's infrastructure. Now it's time to put those words into action.