North Gower Grains

Friday, February 20, 2026, 7:15 am

Thursday was another mostly positive day for our markets.  Spot corn closed down 1 1/4, spot soybeans closed up 7 1/2, spot winter wheat closed up 12 1/2 and spot spring wheat closed up 8 1/2.  In the overnight trade corn and winter wheat are positive with soybeans and spring wheat negative.  Oil closed up $1.24 yesterday at $66.40 per barrel.  It is weaker in trading this morning with it now valued at $66.08 per barrel.  With some choppy trading our dollar has traded between a low of $0.729 US and a high of $0.731 US over the last 24 hours.  This morning it is right in the middle of the range with it currently valued at $0.730 US.

Stronger wheat prices led our markets higher yesterday.  Continued thoughts about a decreased crop this year in Ukraine due to winter kill continues to provide support.  More support came from no positive news coming out of the discussions to end the current war between Russia and Ukraine.  Some days it seems like this war will end soon and some days it looks like it will continue to drag on.  Yesterday was a drag on day and the market decided to use this reason to drive prices higher.  A long term weather forecast that is looking at very dry conditions over most of the US HRW wheat growing also provided support for this market yesterday.

Soybeans were also stronger and were supported by continued strength in the soybean oil market.  Remember soybeans on the CBOT are extremely overpriced compared to in Brazil.  If the market decides someday that China will not be making any increased purchases of old crop soybeans from the US for this year we would expect to see prices pull back hard.

Weekly ethanol production in the US increased just under 1% last week to come in at 1.118 million barrels per day.  Strong exports and blender demand helped to keep the stocks level stagnant.  The market is looking for production to stay in the 1.1 million barrels per day range to keep up with the increased corn demand the USDA has already accounted for.

Yesterday the USDA released their first real look at acres and yield for this coming growing season.  Corn acres were decreased from 98.8 million acres down to 94 million acres this year.  Soybeans acres were increased by 3.8 million acres up to 85 million acres.  Total wheat acres came in at 45 million acres down 0.3 million acres from last year.  No big surprises on yield prospects.  The only real surprise they with this report was that corn acres came in 1 million acres lower then pre report average trade estimates.

Friday’s thought: Forgive people in your life, even those who are not sorry for their actions.  Holding on to anger only hurts you, not them.