North Gower Grains

Tuesday, February 24, 2026, 7:15 am

Monday was a mostly negative day for our markets.  Spot corn closed unchanged, spot soybeans closed down 4, spot winter wheat closed down 5.  In the overnight trade all of our markets have fallen onto the negative side.  Oil closed down $0.17 yesterday at $66.31 per barrel.  It is stronger in trading this morning with it now valued at $66.45 per barrel.  Our dollar had a high yesterday morning before noon of $0.732 US and then went down to $0.729 US in late in the afternoon.  After bouncing back up in the overnight trade it has faded back down to $0.729 US this morning.

With the confusion over the tariff situation in the US I wrote yesterday that the current tariffs would stay in place for an additional 150 days.  The current tariffs are now cancelled but are being replaced with a new 15% tariff that can only stay in place for 150 days without being passed by congress.  Our markets (and outside markets) are still working out what the real fallout of the change in the tariff situation will be.  We should also state that President Trump is still trying to waive a tariff hammer to everybody but it is uncertain on just what that hammer can currently hit. 

The soybean harvest in Brazil is reported at 30% completion.  This is up 9% from the previous week but lags behind 39% last year.   The current harvest pace is the slowest since 2020/21.  Planting of their second corn crop reached 50% compared to 64% at this time last year.  The first corn crop harvest sits at 28% which is behind last year’s 37%.  Although all of the numbers are behind last year none of them are currently of any major concern.

Some initial estimates out of Ukraine for their crops this year show increased production for corn and wheat.  This is even with the current war not ending.  Wheat production is projected to increase by 2.9% up to 23.1 million tonnes.  This is due to increased winter wheat acreage even though they are projecting a slight decrease in yield due to the recent winter kill concerns in some of this crop.  They are also projecting overall wheat exports to increase almost 2 million tonnes up to 17.6 million tonnes.  Their corn crop is projected to increase from 26.9 million tonnes up to 29.9 million tonnes.  Exports of corn are also projected to increase from 22 million tonnes up to 23.8 million tonnes.

Weekly exports out of the US of corn were very strong last week and came in well above traders’ expectations.  Shipments are currently up 46% year over year with accumulated sales up 30%.  Soybean shipments fell with the majority currently being the soybeans that China purchased over the last couple of months.  Overall wheat exports were above trader expectations also.