Crop Market Update: June, 2024
The 2024/25 U.S. corn outlook is unchanged relative to last month. The season average price received by producers remains at $4.40 per bushel. USDA will release its Acreage report on June 28, which will provide survey-based indications of planted and harvested area.
The 2024/25 outlook for U.S. soybeans includes higher beginning and ending stocks. Higher beginning stocks reflect reduced crush for 2023/24, down 10 million bushels on lower soybean meal domestic use that is partly offset by higher exports.
Read More
Corn Disease Update
Common rust has been reported in some fields in central Louisiana and on the Dean Lee Research and Extension Center. However, this disease has not been a major concern in previous years.
Common rust may be the first disease found in corn fields and usually occurs in the lower-to-mid-canopy. Disease development is favored when temperatures are cool (60-77oF) and leaf wetness of 4-6 hours.
Read More
Market Update for Corn, Soybeans, Rice, and Cotton: May 2024
The 2024/25 U.S. corn outlook is for larger supplies, greater domestic use and exports, and higher ending stocks. The corn crop is projected at 14.9 billion bushels, 3 percent down from last year’s record as increases in yield helped partially offset decreased area. The yield projection of 181.0 bushels per acre is based on a weather-adjusted trend assuming normal planting progress and summer growing season weather, estimated using the 1988-2023 period.
Read More
NRCS Gives Farmers Avenues for New Technology
Public and private cost-share programs give farmers the option to test new technology and conservation practices with lower financial risk before footing the bill of whole-scale implementation.
For the Wiggers Farm Partnership in Winnsboro, La., utilizing cost-share programs available through NRCS, especially the Conservation Stewardship Program, has enabled them to make compounding changes to irrigation equipment, soil improvements and more.
Read More
Step by Step: Building Quality Irrigation and Soil Health
Generational farms in the Mississippi Delta are imbibed with a special blend of history, camaraderie and commitment to quality. Visiting places where the roads share the family surname and corners carry on the legacy of tenant growers long gone puts into perspective the heritage of growing in some of America’s richest soils.
At the Wiggers Farm partnership near Winnsboro, La., next-generation producer Drew Wiggers, alongside his uncle Scott and cousin Rusty, contributes to the slow, steady progress of on-farm improvements that hallmark modern agriculture.
Read More
Louisiana Corn Planting Starts Slow in 2024
Rain is a good thing – though farmers are constantly facing the challenging reality of too much or not enough of one of their occupation’s most critical resources. In Louisiana, where corn planting typically kicks off in late February, rebounding rains after 2023’s widespread drought have stalled progress planting 2024 corn.
In USDA crop progress reports released March 11, 18 and 25, each found the state averaging just over two days per week suitable for field work – based on soil moisture and temperature. By March 25, corn planting completion hovered around 52%, a sharp difference from 2023’s 93% and grand progress form the week prior at 28%.
Read More
USDA Summary Of 2024 Planting Intentions
According to Dow Jones' survey of market analysts, USDA is expected to announce 92.0 million acres of corn plantings in 2024, down from 94.6 million acres in 2023. For soybeans, 86.3 million acres are expected to be planted in 2024, up from 83.6 million acres in 2023.
Read More
Louisiana Farm Bureau, LFETA Seeking Locations of Grain Bin Rescue Tubes
The Louisiana Farm Bureau Federation is working with the Louisiana Fire and Emergency Training Academy in compiling the locations of grain bin rescue tubes across the state.
Grain bin rescue tubes are specialized pieces of equipment used by first responders to help safely remove someone trapped by flowing grain inside a grain bin or other grain storage facility.
Read More
Louisiana Corn Acres Expected to Decline
Corn is traditionally a staple crop in Louisiana. However, this year may be different.
Beauregard Parish grain farmer David Smith planted 500 acres of corn this year, but he seems to be the outlier in the widespread production decline. Unlike many farmers, Smith is fortunate enough to still have a market to sell all the corn he can grow to a local feed mill.
Read More
Crop Market Update for Corn, Soybean, Rice, and Cotton: March 2024
The WASDE’s March outlook for 2023/24 U.S. corn remains relative to last month. The season-average corn price for producers has been lowered to $4.75 per bushel based on observed prices to date.
The outlook for U.S. soybean supply and use for 2023/24 also remains unchanged for March. While soybean crush is unchanged, the soybean meal extraction rate has been bumped up slightly, and soybean meal exports are mostly higher due to lower domestic use. The U.S. season-average soybean price forecast stays unchanged at $12.65 per bushel.
Read More
Louisiana Corn Parish Estimates: February 2024
This report contains the results from the 2023 December Agricultural and Row Crops County Agricultural Production surveys.
Read More
After War, Torrential Rains and Historic Drought, Louisiana Farmers Pray for Better 2024
In late 2022, torrential rains hammered Louisiana’s farmers, laying waste to large swaths of cotton and soybean crops, especially in the northeast. Then, last year’s historic drought stunted growth and created a whole different set of problems.
Will Ratcliff, who farms about 3,500 acres in Tensas Parish, keenly felt both events, which came on top of historically high costs for fertilizer and fuel, driven in part by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Read More
January Market Update for Corn, Soybeans, Rice, and Cotton
This month’s 2023/24 U.S. corn outlook is for greater production, larger food, seed, and industrial use (FSI), increased feed and residual use, and higher ending stocks. Corn production is estimated at a record 15.3 billion bushels, up 108 million as an increase in yield to a record 177.3 bushels per acre is partly offset by a 0.6-million acre decline in harvested area.
Read More
November Market Update Corn, Soybeans, Rice & Cotton
This report also includes Marketing Year price projections for corn, cotton, rice and soybeans.
Read More
Severe Drought is Taking a Huge Toll on Louisiana Farms, Forests
Louisiana’s abrupt transition this year from one of the wettest states to one of the driest has had crippling repercussions for its farms and forests.
The state’s agricultural and timber industries have suffered nearly $1.7 billion in losses from the long-running drought and recent bouts of record high temperatures, according to a new report from Louisiana State University researchers.
Read More
