The USDA also issued its quarterly grain stocks report with stocks for soybeans bigger than anticipated, while those for corn were smaller and wheat virtually matched the average trade guess.

USDA forecasts seeded acres for 2026/27

The USDA predicted corn planting intentions at 95.34 million acres, which is down from 98.79 million acres U.S. farmers seeded last year, but less than the market projection of 94.37 million.

The shift away from corn to soybeans was not as large as the trade believed there was going to be.

“That was the big conversation, how many corn acres there was going to be, especially with the beans this year,” said Ryan Etnner, broker with Allendale Inc. in McHenry, Illinois.

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The report placed soybean acres at 84.70 million, up from 81.22 million last year, but short of the market projection of 85.55 million.

Ettner said the total wheat acres caught his eye, with how close the USDA was to the trade guess. The department placed its forecast at 43.78 million acres and trade called for 44.79 million. Last year, farmers planted 45.33 million acres of wheat.

Fertilizer issues could be down the road

The broker added that rising fertilizer prices did not have as great an effect on the switch from corn to soybeans. He said most U.S. farmers apply their fertilizer in the fall and what will go on the fields this spring was largely bought before the Middle East war.

“The bigger concern is fall of this year, if things don’t calm down over there by that point,” Ettner said. “Most people are assuming this is a larger 2027 issue if the war is still going on by the fall.”

USDA Planting Intentions (Millions of acres)

1 acre = 0.405 hectares

Grain stocks

As for grain stocks as of March 1, Ettner said there was some pre-report speculation that total corn could be as high as 9.30 billion bushels.

“The quarterly stocks all came in line. The one concern was ‘what if corn had come in bigger?’ and it didn’t,” Ettner said.

He added that corn stocks were going to be very large simply because of the size of the 2025/26 harvest.

USDA Grain Stocks as of March 1 (Billions of bushels)

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As for the Canadian soybean crush, StatCan has not published any new data since it released its report for the July crush in August 2025. The agency said any numbers have been “suppressed to meet the confidentiality requirements of the Statistics Act.”

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Soybean seedings, meanwhile, are expected to jump as some growers shift acres away from corn and wheat, which require more costly fertilizer, they said.

Farmers are entering the critical spring planting season under a cloud of uncertainty as the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran disrupts global trade, causing fertilizer and diesel costs to spike. The long-term U.S. trade relationship with China also remains unclear amid the ongoing trade war launched by President Donald Trump’s administration with the top soy importer.

U.S. net farm income

Meanwhile, U.S. net farm income is forecast to turn lower this year despite near-record government payments, marking the fourth straight year of crop producers facing tight margins, high production costs and low commodity prices.

The Trump administration is in the process of distributing $12 billion (C$16.6 billion) in aid to U.S. farmers. As the repercussions of the war rattle the broader economy, farm groups have urged Congress to approve additional aid.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is due to release its annual prospective plantings report on Tuesday, its first survey-based crop acreage estimate of the year. Analysts cautioned that the estimates, gleaned from farmer surveys conducted in the first half of March, could not fully account for disruptions and price impacts caused by the war, which began when the United States and Israel launched airstrikes across Iran on February 28.

“This particular planting intentions report, right out of the gates, is going to be viewed somewhat skeptically by the trade just because of the timing of the survey with the start of the war and how things have changed in terms of costs,” said Terry Linn, analyst with Linn & Associates in Chicago.

Analysts polled by Reuters, on average, projected corn plantings to drop to 94.371 million acres, down from 98.788 million acres in 2025, which was the most since 1936. Soybean seedings were seen at 85.549 million acres, up from 81.215 million a year ago.

Wheat plantings expected to fall

Plantings of spring wheat, grown in the northern Plains, are forecast to drop to 9.843 million acres, down from 9.990 million last year and the lowest since 1970. Prices for the high-protein grain have slumped since a record Canadian harvest last year.

Farmers in the U.S. Midwest farm belt normally rotate their fields with corn one year and soybeans the next, but profit projections and input costs can prompt farmers to deviate from their crop rotations in some fields.

“The fertilizer cost and fertilizer availability are the main drivers right now,” said Rich Nelson, chief strategist with Allendale. “But I would point out that we have questions about whether the USDA’s report will show the true story.”

Prices for urea fertilizer are up about 40 per cent since the start of the war while costs for anhydrous ammonia are up nearly 20 per cent, according to a report this week from economists at the University of Illinois.

“Given that nitrogen fertilizers are not used intensively on soybeans, higher nitrogen prices could also lead to a shift towards more soybean acres and fewer corn acres,” they said.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins this month estimated that about 75 per cent of farmers already had their fertilizer needs booked.

Hunt for alternatives

The hunt is on for alternatives that would insulate farmers from price volatility tied to natural gas in fertilizer markets, and be less carbon-intensive.

While natural gas powers the process of synthesizing most widely used ammonia fertilizers, there are efforts to power more ammonia production with renewable energy.

In Minnesota for example, a coalition of agriculture and conservation organizations launched the Minnesota Made Ammonia project on March 5 to build local ammonia production facilities in Minnesota that use renewable energy, according to a statement from the group.

Outside of the heart of the Midwest corn and soybean belt, farmers have more planting options, including hard red spring wheat, durum wheat, canola and cotton, analysts said.

Demand for biofuels swells

In North Dakota, the top spring wheat state and a key supplier of soybeans that are shipped to China via Pacific Northwest ports, rising fertilizer costs and trade uncertainty are likely to prompt some farmers to choose corn or canola over soybeans and wheat, analysts said.

The price of urea fertilizer has jumped at least $200 per ton since the start of the war, according to Jim Peterson, executive director of the North Dakota Wheat Commission.

“On a 50 bushel (per acre) wheat yield, you need another 40 or 50 cents a bushel to just cover that cost,” Peterson said.

Canola, grown in the northern Plains and in Canada, is also a viable option despite high fertilizer costs due to strong demand for vegetable oil for biofuel production. Demand for biofuels has swelled amid rising prices for petroleum-based fuels.

In the Delta, low cotton prices and costly inputs are likely to lead to the lowest cotton plantings in a decade as farmers may choose more profitable soybeans instead.

“If we go through the rest of March and into April with soybeans looking this much stronger than cotton, then, yes, we’ll see more acres move from cotton to soybeans,” said Barry Bean, president of Bean & Bean Cotton Company.

1 acre = 0.405 hectares

— Additional reporting by Ed White in Winnipeg, Renee Hickman in Chicago and Anmol Choubey in Bangalore

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Daryl Domitruk, now a research project manager for MPSG, said pulse and soybean prospects in Manitoba have become “very interesting” due to the war in the Middle East as well as speculation over upcoming weather conditions. He added that it is difficult to determine with certainty how many acres will be planted for certain crops.

“What we’ve been seeing is that soybeans are likely to increase in Manitoba. Dry beans are likely to be down and peas are tougher (to determine). We’re expecting similar acreage (from last year) but that could change with the weather,” Domitruk said.

His assessment largely reflected that of Statistics Canada’s latest principal field crop report released earlier this month. Soybean acres in Manitoba were projected at 1.869 million acres this year, up 12.9 per cent from 2025-26. Edible bean acres were projected at 120,000, down 45.6 per cent, while dry pea acres are expected to decline by 40.5 per cent at 116,700.

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Domitruk attributed the drops in dry bean and pea acres to the markets being well-supplied, which resulted in prices going down and seeded area falling.

With shipments of fertilizer and urea being held up due to the war in Iran, farmers may be inclined to grow soybeans and other crops with low fertilizer needs. Domitruk said there is already additional interest from growers.

“That is the only thing that may accelerate bean or soybean acres than what’s already being projected,” he added. “But we need to pay close attention to crop rotations in Manitoba.”

He added that the amount of snow received in central and southern Manitoba this winter could provide the moisture necessary for good growing conditions. However, pulse planting is still restricted to specific windows of time.

“That window only works if seeding for wheat and canola go according to plan,” Domitruk said.

“It’s really difficult when you have so many different factors in play this year between markets, world events, weather and prices for inputs. Weather-wise, we can only assume things will be OK. Of course, it’s not in our hands and we can just see what we get,” he added.

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Brazil, the world’s largest soybean producer and exporter, is facing rising production costs due to the conflict, including higher fertilizer and fuel prices.

“I confess that in 30 years I’ve never seen so many loose ends to tie up,” Agroconsult Chief Executive Andre Pessoa said during the firm’s forecast release event.

Brazil has expanded its soybean area year after year, with planting typically starting in mid-September.

If the war drags on amid difficult credit conditions, producers may reduce input investments and cut planting area, Pessoa said.

Earlier on Wednesday, Agroconsult estimated a record soybean crop for the 2025/26 season at 184.7 million metric tons.

— Reporting by Roberto Samora

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The USDA releases its prospective plantings report on March 31, providing the first survey-based estimates on the upcoming U.S. growing season.

The trade sentiment ahead of the report is for a three-to-five-million-acre reduction in corn area from the 98.8 million acres grown in 2025 and a similarly sized increase in soybeans from the 81.2 million acres grown last year. Rising fertilizer costs due to the war could see even more area shift to soybeans.

Soybean/corn ratio

The soybean/corn ratio is calculated by dividing the soybean futures price by the corn futures price, with a number above 2.5 historically seen as favouring planting soybeans and a ratio below that tipping the scales to corn.

With May soybeans settling at US$11.7175 and corn at US$4.6725 on March 25, the ratio works out to 2.51 — slightly favouring soybeans.

However, the localized cash bid ratios across the countryside are more varied. Looking at a sampling of elevators in Illinois and Iowa the local soybean/corn ratios range from 2.35 to 2.65, meaning seeding corn looks more favourable in some areas and soybeans in others.

The high fertilizer costs and other metrics are also not caught in the ratio, which should keep speculation on the annual fight for acres at the forefront of the trade in the coming weeks.

Charts

May corn has traded in a range of US$4.40 to US$4.76 per bushel since the Middle East war started on Feb. 28. Fund traders added to the bullish bets, to sit on their largest net long in corn since February 2025 at about 230,000 contracts. The trend is still higher in corn, as that market looks to keep too many acres from flipping to soybeans.

May soybeans settled at US$11.7075 per bushel on Feb. 27, the day before the U.S. and Israel first attacked Iran and hit a session high of US$12.3875 per bushel two weeks later. However, the contract was right back where it started by March 25.

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The finding addresses a question that has surfaced in U.S. research and among Prairie growers managing high-pH soils: does choosing a low IDC score come at the cost of yield where chlorosis is not present?

“We didn’t know the answer to this question until just now,” U of M researcher Kristen MacMillan said during a recent presentation at Ag Days in Brandon.

WHY IT MATTERS: Understanding how variety selection affects yield helps farmers make more confident decisions in challenging soil conditions.

“It’s a highly visual condition,” said MacMillan, who is also Manitoba Pulse and Soybean Growers’ agronomist in residence.

“We’re choosing varieties based on their visual response, but what is the actual yield correlation to that?”

IDC is a common issue in calcareous, high-pH soils, where iron becomes chemically unavailable to the plant.

The condition causes yellowing between the veins of young soybean leaves, typically appearing in patches and lasting from mid-June into July. While symptoms may only persist for a few weeks, early-season stress can reduce yield potential.

How much yield does IDC cost?

To understand how IDC severity translates into yield loss, MacMillan collaborated with Manitoba Agriculture to analyze six years of data from single-row plots rated annually for IDC response near Winnipeg. Those plots were taken through to harvest to compare visual scores with final yield.

The analysis confirmed that yield declines as IDC scores increase in affected areas.

MacMillan reported a yield loss of roughly 1.5 to 2.8 bushels per acre for every one-point increase in IDC score. In practical terms, a two-point difference between varieties could mean a three- to six-bushel swing in IDC-prone zones.

Is there a yield trade-off?

The more pressing question, however, was whether selecting for low IDC scores sacrifices yield elsewhere in the field.

Many growers report IDC often affects only portions of a field, yet variety decisions are made for the entire field. Research in North Dakota and South Dakota has identified yield trade-offs in some soybean populations, where selecting for IDC tolerance reduced yield under non-IDC conditions.

To test whether that trade-off exists under Manitoba conditions, MacMillan established paired trials in IDC and non-IDC areas of the same field using identical varieties. She also identified a common set of varieties grown over three years to ensure consistency in comparisons.

“What we’re finding is that yield is also negatively correlated with IDC score or not related at all. So this is good news,” she said.

In other words, varieties with strong IDC tolerance performed well in affected areas without yielding less in unaffected parts of the field.

MacMillan also examined whether precision-planting different cultivars in IDC and non-IDC zones would provide an advantage.

Because no yield penalty was detected, splitting varieties within a field offered little benefit in most scenarios. Only in fields almost entirely affected by IDC did a particularly strong cultivar show a measurable advantage.

“If IDC is a constraint in your fields, continue choosing varieties with low IDC score and high yield,” she said.

For growers managing high-carbonate Prairie soils, the data reinforce current practice: selecting IDC-tolerant varieties remains the most reliable defence without sacrificing yield potential where chlorosis never appears.

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That was one of the central messages from Michael Wunsch, a plant pathologist with North Dakota State University, speaking at CropConnect 2026 in Winnipeg in February.

WHY IT MATTERS: White mould was a top disease threat in Manitoba’s soybean fields in 2025.

Fungicides do not protect future growth. They only protect the canopy that exists at the time of application.

“When you spray, you’re protecting the canopy that’s there,” Wunsch said.

“All that new growth is unprotected.”

That biological reality has implications for fungicide timing, especially if more than one pass is planned.

Infection occurs through senescing blossoms. Once a blossom dies and forms a small pin-shaped pod, the plant becomes susceptible.

“The per cent of plants with pin-shaped pods is the per cent of plants in a susceptible state,” he said.

Because of that, he uses the percentage of plants with initial pin pods as a guide for fungicide timing.

However, timing isn’t just about bloom stage. Growers also need to think through their season-long plan.

“When you spray should be determined by the number of applications you plan to make,” Wunsch said.

During early bloom, beans are growing rapidly. Within days of an application, plants can be significantly taller and wider. That new biomass is not protected.

If only one application is planned, Wunsch said growers should generally wait until a high percentage of plants have initial pin pods — often 60 to 100 per cent — before spraying, assuming conditions favour disease.

Applying too early sacrifices protection during the period of maximum susceptibility, when the canopy is full and moisture is trapped within it.

The reason is that the second application protects the new growth that develops after the first spray.

“You don’t want to sacrifice those early infections,” he said.

In this case, the grower is no longer choosing between early and late protection. The second pass covers the expanding canopy.

He recommended that a single application be made when 100 per cent of plants reach the R2 growth stage unless canopy closure occurs earlier. In that case, application should coincide with canopy closure.

As in dry beans, the decision depends on risk. If conditions do not favour white mould as the crop enters bloom, he advised waiting until they do.

That percentage provides a practical indicator of crop susceptibility and can guide timing decisions.

He also urged growers to pay attention to droplet size when applying fungicides, saying it can “make a world of difference” in efficacy.

However, even with precise timing, optimized droplet size and multiple applications under high pressure, white mould was never entirely suppressed in his trials, indicating the resilience of the pathogen under current management practices.

“White mould control isn’t that good,” said Wunsch.

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“The markets (in 2022) were telling farmers to plant every acre that they could,” Lilja said. “The Russian-Ukraine war has been in a heavy agricultural producing area.”

“That spring, we were just coming off of a South American drought. Supplies of soybeans, corn and wheat were historically on the low side,” he added, noting there were a number of limit up days in the commodities, especially for wheat.

Today, Lilja said the situation is different, despite the hikes in soybeans, corn and wheat. There hasn’t been any limit up days.

“You can argue the view from South America right now, they have come off record yields,” he said.

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For 2025/26 soybeans, Brazil is on its way to another record harvest that’s to be about 180 million tonnes, according to the United States Department of Agriculture. Plus, Brazil is to have strong corn yields that are to produce a crop of around 132 million tonnes. Also, Argentina had a record wheat harvest of about 27.8 million tonnes.

As well, Iran isn’t as a major wheat producer that Russia and Ukraine are. Lilja said the latter two countries combined will provide about 108 million tonnes of wheat, while Iran’s production is maybe one-tenth of that.

Added to that, the U.S. situation is much different between 2022 and 2026. Lilja said U.S. wheat ending stocks four years ago were in a range of 570 million to 670 million bushels. The USDA has forecasted the 2025/26 carryover at 931 million bushels.

“We just haven’t seen the huge price spike that we saw back in February and March of 2022,” he said, but stressed the commodities are still following the increases in crude oil.

“The night crude oil spiked up (March 15-16) was the recent highs for U.S. soybeans, corn and wheat,” he continued.

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“Right now in South America, I have a corn crop being equal to last year. In my gut, I think it’s going to be below last year when the safrinha crop is finally harvested,” he said.

Issues with safrinha corn

Although that second Brazil corn crop is more than 91 per cent planted, Cordonnier pointed out there are more than 3.21 million acres still needing to be seeded and stressed the main planting window has closed with dry weather ahead.

“Planting (corn) at this point is very risky. They’ll run out of moisture before the crop has a chance to mature,” he said. “They’re already worried about the dry weather in the state of Paraná.”

Cordonnier said Brazil’s first corn crop is more than halfway harvested, but about 20 points behind this time last year. He said that isn’t too much of a concern.

He recently cut his call on Brazilian corn production this year to 133 million tonnes, from an earlier estimate of 135 million. That compares with the United States Department of Agriculture’s forecast of 132 million tonnes and 138.3 million tonnes by Brazil’s Conab.

Argentina corn

As for corn crop in Argentina, Cordonnier said about nine per cent has been combined and the average yield is about 131 bushels per acre.

“They’re harvesting the best part right now,” he said, noting that yields will likely decline as combining progresses.

Dry conditions in parts of Argentina created a wide gap in yields, from as little as 40 bu./ac. to as much as 200. Cordonnier said more recent rainfall has stabilized Argentina’s corn.

Soybeans

As for soybeans, Cordonnier said Brazil remains on pace to produce its biggest crop on record. However, it likely won’t be as large as initially expected.

The Brazil soybean harvest was about 61 per cent finished, nine points behind last year.

“It’s on the slow side. That’s because heavy rains continue to fall across northern Brazil,” Cordonnier said.

In southern Brazil, such as Rio Grande do Sul, soybeans were planted late due to drought and that state’s harvest is barely underway, Cordonnier said.

Aside from a very small amount of fields, the soybean harvest had yet to start in Argentina, he added, projecting yields of about 56 bu./ac. in the country’s core soybean-growing area.

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