Commodity Markets

The 2025 U. S. corn and soybean harvests are either fast approaching or already here, depending on your location, bringing with it the annual question of what to store and what to sell. The move to harvest season also means it’ s time for a discussion of what Kenny Rogers told us many decades ago, something I call“ The Gambler’ s Secret.”

At this point, feel free to have the song“ The Gambler” playing on a loop in the background as you read this piece. When you get to the part that says,“ Every gambler knows that the secret to survivin’ is knowin’ what to throw away and knowin’ what to keep.”

Two Paths for Harvest Planning

When it comes to U. S. agriculture, the lesson here is knowing what to sell, even if prices are low( throw away), and knowing what to hold in storage, private or commercial,( keep). While the answer is relatively simple, it also depends on actions taken leading up to harvest. We can simply put this into two categories: Those who have done some price protection strategies along the way and those who are open on price. Now,“ for a taste of your whisky, I’ ll give you some advice.” Let’ s start with the former group, those who have some price protection in place. For this discussion, let’ s say the U. S. producer has roughly 80 % of expected corn production hedged with short December 2025 futures and about the same amount of expected soybean production hedged with short November 2025 futures. Average prices will vary by individual, depending on how aggressive sales were made over the past few years.

To make the decision on what to store and what to sell, we have two factors to evaluate:

• How much total commercial carry is covered by futures spreads.

• Seasonality of national average basis.

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