November 20, 2020

Welcome to our Strategic Crop Marketing Video Series

by Nathanael Thompson and James Mintert

We’ve recorded a series of short videos to help you improve your crop marketing skills. The first two videos review the importance of understanding basis when marketing crops and how to use historical data to forecast basis. Subsequent videos detail how storage hedging can work to your advantage, provide a comparison of historical returns to both unpriced storage and storage returns and discuss using knowledge of seasonal patterns in corn futures prices and corn futures price spreads to improve returns.

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Corn & Soybean Basis Outpace Historical Averages across the Eastern Corn Belt

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As corn and soybean harvest progress across the country, recent basis movements have pushed nearby basis levels above their historical averages in much of the Eastern Corn Belt. Typically, basis weakens through harvest, with nearby basis levels often bottoming out between mid-October and November. This marketing year, however, corn and soybean basis began below the two- and three-year averages, respectively, and recent movement has flipped the relationship in many USDA crop reporting districts.

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Crop Basis Review 2024–2025 and Early Indicators for 2025–2026

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For much of the 2024-2025 marketing year, the basis for both corn and soybeans looked much different than their historical averages. Both crops started well below what previous trends would suggest.

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Corn & Soybean Basis Weakens as Focus Shifts to New Crop

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UPCOMING EVENTS

We are taking a short break, but please plan to join us at one of our future programs that is a little farther in the future.

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2025 Farmland Values & Market Trends

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Farmland Prices Increase Despite Downward Pressure, Purdue Ag Econ Report August 2025

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