Corn futures plunged near six-week lows after USDA reported Sept. 1 stockpiles sharply above expectations, confirming abundant supplies left over from last year’s record harvest with farmers in early stages of bringing another big crop. Soybeans climbed after stocks fell short of expectations.
USDA, in its quarterly Grain Stocks report released Sept. 30, estimated U.S. corn stocks in all positions at the start of the month at 2.095 billion bushels, up 35% from the same date a year earlier and a seven-year high. Analysts expected a figure closer to 1.918 billion bushels, which would have been down just a few million bushels from USDA’s current ending stocks figure.
U.S. farmers reaped a record corn harvest of almost 17 billion bushels in 2025 after ramping up planted acreage to a nine-decade high while benefitting from generally favorable weather conditions that summer. Today’s numbers underscored the heavy supplies still weighing on the market even with demand from exporters and other grain users reaching a record high.
USDA also made slight revisions to 2025 numbers, lowering planted acreage by 75 million acres to 98.713 million acres but keeping its average U.S. yield estimate unchanged at a record 186.5 bushels per acre. That adjustment reduced the harvest about 57 million bushels, or 0.3%, to 16.964 billion bushels.
Sept. 1 soybean stocks were reported at 315 million bushels, down 10 million bushels, or 3.1%, from the same date a year earlier and about 9 million bushels below the average analyst estimate. Wheat stocks as of Sept. 1 totaled 1.846 billion bushels, down 13% from a year earlier but about 43 million bushels below expectations.
Near midday, December corn futures were down 21 cents at $5.01 per bushel after earlier dropping to $5.0025, the contract’s lower intraday price since Aug. 21. November soybeans erased initial gains to post a 0.5-cent decline at $12.9725. December SRW wheat fell 16.75 cents to $6.76, near a seven-week low.
