USDA Releases September WASDE Report

The USDA released its September WASDE report Friday morning.

 

Dan Basse is president of AgResource Company in Chicago.

 

"The report came out very close to what the trade was looking for," he said. "We looked at a corn yield at 178.5, a soybean yield at 51.9...those strong winds in Iowa cut their corn harvested acreage about a half million acres. That was very much inline. When we look at ending stocks of corn, it's still the largest in over 33 years at 2.5 billion bushels."

 

Basse commented on world production.

 

"In terms of looking at the world crops and world production, they were dropped about 10 million metric tons in corn. They were of course left at a record on wheat 319 million metric tons. Soybeans trimmed a little about 1.6 million metric tons. Overall, on the world report, the entire decline was about 10 million tons, 9.9 to be exact, and so again a lot of that was accounted for in the U.S. shortfall in terms of Iowa winds and of course the dryness that affected that state."

 

He talked about U.S. corn harvest progress.

 

"We're just getting in the fields in the southern areas of the Midwest. Yields are coming in a little better than expected but we're early. We see corn harvest about three per cent done today. Again, lots of activity left to come. The big states to watch for corn harvested yields will be of course Iowa and Illinois. Those would be the two barometers. Minnesota had a record corn yield at 200 bushels an acre, that was nine over the Iowa yield. We're pretty solid on the northern corridor of corn yields, the Dakotas, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan all having records."

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.