USDA Reports Preview
As Harvest Nears, USDA to Refresh Supply and Demand Forecasts
With combines across the U.S. revving their engines, traders will look to USDA to see whether the hot-and-dry August for the Eastern Grain Belt is expected to have yield repercussions for 2025 crops.
USDA will release its September Crop Production and World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) reports at 11 a.m. CDT on Friday.
CORN
USDA sent a shockwave through the corn market last month with a monster 188.8-bushel-per-acre (bpa) corn yield as well as a 2.1-million-acre increase to estimated planted acreage for 2025. However, corn futures prices have shown a surprising degree of resiliency, with December futures at the time of this writing up nearly 25 cents from the Aug. 12 closing price. In combination with seasonal tendencies to feel for a bottom over August through October, it currently seems as if traders believe USDA has likely printed the high for incoming corn supplies this fall.
For Friday's report, the Dow Jones survey of 17 analytics/advisory firms echoes this sentiment, with the average trade guess for the national average corn yield coming in at 186.1 bpa, which would be a 2.7-bpa cut from the report a month ago. This certainly seems like a fair adjustment given the more challenging conditions in the Eastern Corn Belt through August. That being said, to me, at this point, the yield conversation is almost an afterthought to the corn balance sheet for 2025. The corn yield would have to drop significantly to knock the 2025 crop out of the record-setting position its currently in.
To illustrate, the average trade guess for Friday is calling for a 16.51-billion-bushel (bb) corn crop. Using the aforementioned yield leads us to a harvested acreage figure of 88.7 million. To fall below the previous record of 15.34 bb set in 2023, the corn yield would have to drop below 173 bpa (assuming no changes to acres), taking yield from a record to the lowest in five years. In this sense, the high acreage is truly the key supply driving factor within the corn market for 2025.
To sum up the domestic corn market, the average trade estimate is calling for ending stocks of 2.02 bb, the highest in seven years, if true. Demand estimates will likely remain record strong, and I don't foresee many drastic changes there given the earliness of the new season and the already record forecast for exports currently.
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Shifting to the world corn market, analysts surveyed by Dow Jones are expecting to see a slight uptick in old-crop 2024-25 world stocks with the average guess at 284.4 million metric tons (mmt). If this occurs, perhaps it is a late adjustment higher to Brazilian production. However, it also seems likely it could be an increase in China's stocks as a result of less imports, which have fallen steadily in recent WASDE reports. For the new-crop season, given the time of year, world stocks will likely be dictated largely by where the U.S. estimates fall. But other adjustments to watch may include Canada, as well as Ukraine, where production was increased by 1.5 mmt in the August report. That will be significant to monitor, as corn stocks outside of the U.S. and China remain on the low side compared to recent history.
SOYBEANS
From the first session of August to the end of the month, November soybean futures rallied over 65 cents, fueled by the surprise 2.6-million-acre cut to estimated planted acreage, and despite a 1.1-bpa increase to the national yield in the August WASDE. Since the start of September, prices have relaxed somewhat, as traders remain very nervous about the demand situation for U.S. soybeans with China yet to book a single cargo of new-crop U.S. beans. On Friday, USDA will refresh the soybean balance sheet, which is currently teetering on the knife's edge between bullish and bearish.
On the supply side for the new-crop season, the average estimate of analysts surveyed by Dow Jones is calling for a 53.3 bpa national yield, which would be a 0.3-bpa cut from the August estimate. In my opinion, this seems like it could still be a touch high given the lack of rainfall through the crucial pod-filling period in the eastern and southern belt over August. But time will tell, and it's not uncommon to see USDA ease into adjustments, especially ahead of significant field data to inform its models. This is expected to lead to a 4.273 bb soybean crop, which would be down just slightly from the August report, and down 93 million bushels from 2024, despite 6.2 million fewer acres thought to have been planted this past spring.
The demand picture for soybeans may be the most closely watched aspect of Friday's report among traders. They will be interested to see how damaging USDA is anticipating China's delayed arrival to the U.S. market as being over the next year. Personally, given the early nature of the marketing year and the fact that USDA has already reduced its forecast by 110 mb since June, I would be surprised to see an additional bearish adjustment at this point.
Recall that at the height of the first trade war in 2019-2020, the U.S. still managed to export 1.68 bb of soybeans thanks to heightened business with other countries. Given the competitiveness of U.S. price currently within the world market, I believe it's simply too early to rule this out as being a possibility for the current season as well.
The Dow Jones survey of analysts appears to disagree slightly, with an average 2025-26 ending stocks estimate of 293 mb, a slight uptick from August. But given the previously mentioned expected supply cuts, it appears analysts, on average, are expecting an offsetting increase in stocks to come from somewhere down the balance sheet.
For the world soybean market, the trade isn't expecting many surprises, with Brazil's and Argentina's harvests long completed. But it will be interesting to monitor South American demand and stocks in combination with any potential updates to China's balance sheet through the trade standoff. It is likely, however, that given the time of year, the most significant alterations to the world soybean balance sheet will be a direct result of any potential changes USDA makes to the U.S. outlook.
WHEAT
With winter wheat harvest finished and spring wheat harvest in the U.S. 85% complete as of last Sunday, according to USDA NASS, Friday's updates to the U.S. wheat balance sheet may be minimal. On the production side, I'll be watching to see if any further downward revision is made to the spring wheat yield after USDA slashed it by 1.7 bpa in August's Crop Production report amid tough conditions in the Northwest. Otherwise, USDA's Small Grains Summary is due at the end of September, which will be the more informative report on 2025 U.S. wheat production.
For Friday's WASDE, the demand side of the balance sheet will be worth tuning into after a strong first quarter of the 2025-26 marketing year for exports. As of the end of August, wheat commitments sit at 22% higher than at the same point in 2024, with USDA currently penciling only a 6% increase, leaving room for revisions higher. The average estimate for firms surveyed by Dow Jones is 862 mb of wheat stocks, down from 869 mb in August. But that would still be the largest in six years for the U.S.
In the world wheat market, traders are again expecting small revisions higher to world stocks both for the 2024-25 and 2025-26 seasons. A top country to watch, as always, will be Russia. Private analyst production estimates for the country over the past month have steadily increased and now sit slightly higher than USDA's most recent forecast of 83.5 mmt. Recent revisions higher by Australia's ABARES to its upcoming wheat crop may have been noticed by USDA, as well, although there is still a little time until the bulk of harvest picks up there. All in all, I expect the world wheat fundamentals on Friday will continue to reflect a world market that is very stable in terms of reserve wheat stocks following a stretch of solid harvests around the globe through 2025 thus far.
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Join us for DTN's post-report webinar at 12:30 p.m. CDT on Sept. 12 as we discuss USDA's new estimates in light of recent market events. Questions are welcome, and registrants will receive a replay link for viewing at their convenience. Register here for Friday's September WASDE report webinar: https://www.dtn.com/….
| U.S. PRODUCTION (Million Bushels) 2025-26 | ||||||
| Sep | Avg | High | Low | Aug | 2024-25 | |
| Corn | 16,511 | 16,764 | 16,204 | 16,742 | 14,867 | |
| Soybeans | 4,273 | 4,347 | 4,236 | 4,292 | 4,366 | |
| U.S. AVERAGE YIELD (Bushels Per Acre) 2025-26 (WASDE) | ||||||
| Sep | Avg | High | Low | Aug | 2024 | |
| Corn | 186.1 | 189.0 | 182.7 | 188.8 | 179.3 | |
| Soybeans | 53.3 | 54.0 | 52.9 | 53.6 | 50.7 | |
| U.S. ENDING STOCKS (Million Bushels) 2024-25 | ||||||
| Sep | Avg | High | Low | Aug | ||
| Corn | 1,308 | 1,330 | 1,275 | 1,305 | ||
| Soybeans | 327 | 335 | 306 | 330 | ||
| U.S. ENDING STOCKS (Million Bushels) 2025-26 | ||||||
| Sep | Avg | High | Low | Aug | ||
| Corn | 2,022 | 2,344 | 1,748 | 2,117 | ||
| Soybeans | 293 | 347 | 223 | 290 | ||
| Wheat | 862 | 880 | 836 | 869 | ||
| WORLD ENDING STOCKS (million metric tons) 2024-25 | ||||||
| Sep | Avg | High | Low | Aug | ||
| Corn | 284.4 | 286.0 | 283.2 | 283.1 | ||
| Soybeans | 125.6 | 128.0 | 124.4 | 125.2 | ||
| Wheat | 263.1 | 265.0 | 262.7 | 262.7 | ||
| WORLD ENDING STOCKS (million metric tons) 2025-26 | ||||||
| Sep | Avg | High | Low | Aug | ||
| Corn | 282.8 | 287.6 | 279.7 | 282.5 | ||
| Soybeans | 125.4 | 127.0 | 123.2 | 124.9 | ||
| Wheat | 260.8 | 263.0 | 258.4 | 260.1 | ||
Rhett Montgomery can be reached at rhett.montgomery@dtn.com
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