Chicago Close: Corn, Soys Up on First Trading Day of 2025

Jan 03, 2025

Corn and wheat futures closed slightly higher on the first day of trading in the New Year on Thursday, while wheat was lower.

Soybeans traded to both sides of unchanged during the day amid light volumes, with most of the support coming from drier weather in Argentina. Much of Argentina is expected to be mainly dry over the next couple of weeks, with crop stress rising as soil moisture declines. Areas of southern Brazil are drying down as well. March soybeans were up 1 ½ cents at $10.12, and new-crop November gained 2 ¾ cents to $10.28.

There was little fresh news and light volume to move the corn market, which also traded to both sides of unchanged during the day. The developing dryness in Argentina and southern Brazil offered support to corn. March gained a penny to $4.59 ½, and December 2025 was up 2 ¾ cents at $4.46 ½.

Wheat was undermined by chart selling and strength in the American dollar, especially as the currency of Russia – the world’s top wheat exporter – weakens, making American supplies even more uncompetitive in the international market. March Chicago wheat fell 5 ¾ cents to $5.45 ¾, March Kansas City was down 7 ½ cents at $5.51 ¾, and March Minneapolis dropped 6 ¼ cents to $5.89 ½.

Click here to see more...

Video: Seeing the Whole Season: How Continuous Crop Modeling Is Changing Breeding

Plant breeding has long been shaped by snapshots. A walk through a plot. A single set of notes. A yield check at the end of the season. But crops do not grow in moments. They change every day.

In this conversation, Gary Nijak of AerialPLOT explains how continuous crop modeling is changing the way breeders see, measure, and select plants by capturing growth, stress, and recovery across the entire season, not just at isolated points in time.

Nijak breaks down why point-in-time observations can miss critical performance signals, how repeated, season-long data collection removes the human bottleneck in breeding, and what becomes possible when every plot is treated as a living data set. He also explores how continuous modeling allows breeding programs to move beyond vague descriptors and toward measurable, repeatable insights that connect directly to on-farm outcomes.

This conversation explores:

• What continuous crop modeling is and how it works

• Why traditional field observations fall short over a full growing season

• How scale and repeated measurement change breeding decisions

• What “digital twins” of plots mean for selection and performance

• Why data, not hardware, is driving the next shift in breeding innovation As data-driven breeding moves from research into real-world programs, this discussion offers a clear look at how seeing the whole season is reshaping value for breeders, seed companies, and farmers, and why this may be only the beginning.