Farms.com Home   News

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

Trending Video

Wheat Yields in USA and China Threatened by Heat Waves Breaking Enzymes

Video: Wheat Yields in USA and China Threatened by Heat Waves Breaking Enzymes

A new peer reviewed study looks at the generally unrecognized risk of heat waves surpassing the threshold for enzyme damage in wheat.

Most studies that look at crop failure in the main food growing regions (breadbaskets of the planet) look at temperatures and droughts in the historical records to assess present day risk. Since the climate system has changed, these historical based risk analysis studies underestimate the present-day risks.

What this new research study does is generate an ensemble of plausible scenarios for the present climate in terms of temperatures and precipitation, and looks at how many of these plausible scenarios exceed the enzyme-breaking temperature of 32.8 C for wheat, and exceed the high stress yield reducing temperature of 27.8 C for wheat. Also, the study considers the possibility of a compounded failure with heat waves in both regions simultaneously, this greatly reducing global wheat supply and causing severe shortages.

Results show that the likelihood (risk) of wheat crop failure with a one-in-hundred likelihood in 1981 has in today’s climate become increased by 16x in the USA winter wheat crop (to one-in-six) and by 6x in northeast China (to one-in-sixteen).

The risks determined in this new paper are much greater than that obtained in previous work that determines risk by analyzing historical climate patterns.

Clearly, since the climate system is rapidly changing, we cannot assume stationarity and calculate risk probabilities like we did traditionally before.

We are essentially on a new planet, with a new climate regime, and have to understand that everything is different now.