Field Posts

Though it took some time for aerial drones to find the right application on American farms, today, drones are commonplace across much of the countryside, used for everything from scouting to spraying to helping tracking down missing cows.  But as drone technology advances exponentially, and the global geopolitical atmosphere changes, U.S. policymakers grew increasingly worried about where the data...

Today, we’re dropping on DTN’s recent Beef Industry Exchange, a beef webinar series hosted by Senior Livestock Editor Jennifer Carrico.  This month’s webinar, which took place on June 24th, included a summer weather update from DTN Ag Meteorologist John Baranick, a cattle markets update by DTN’s analyst ShayLe Stewart, and an deep dive with Aaron Berger, the Beef Systems Education Extension agent...

We are just days away from celebrating the 250th anniversary of America's Independence Day, prompting many to look back to the earliest days of our country for lessons in how to weather challenging and uncertain times.  DTN’s Farm Business Editor Chris Clayton even took a trip down to Mount Vernon, the historical farm of America’s first President, George Washington, to bring us a vision of ho...

Register for the June 24th DTN Cattle Webinar here. The June WASDE dropped Thursday, June 11th, offering the latest update on USDA’s thinking since President Trump’s historic trip to China in the middle of May and in light of the fallout from the conflict in the Middle East. But these market-moving events are far from the only things disrupting expected trends in the grain complex. So to help us s...

Weeds are always a problem for American farmers.  But a warm spring and recent burst of wet weather in many parts of the country has created ripe conditions for everything from waterhemp and Palmer amaranth to Kochia and newly arrived species like Asian copperleaf.  As farmers feel the pressure to use inputs sparingly due to cost while bringing in the biggest crop they can, keeping these weeds und...

The debate over year round E15 has become a perennial battle ground for biofuel interests, but farm state lawmakers are increasingly optimistic that 2026 will be the year.  With the extraordinary market pressures farmers are facing after 2025’s bin-busting crop, and the pain that voters are feeling every time they fill up their gas tank, policymakers are pushing forward once again. To help us unde...

While a hectic spring season brought with it welcome rainfall, it also brought an unruly mix of record heat and late local cold snaps that has set some farmers back in their planting efforts. But as May makes way for June and a Super-El Niño summer, likely the most extreme on record, emerges, American farmers are looking to what’s in store for the heart of the season.  DTN’s Ag Meteorologist John...

Coming into the 2026 planting season, many expected a significant crop shift thanks to the war in Iran. Little sign of this shift has been seen so far, but with less than half the crop in the ground and weeks left for farmers to finalize decisions, there are still plenty of wild cards on the table. To give us an update on planting thus far, and help us understand what might be ahead for the emergi...

The May WASDE dropped Tuesday, May 12th, offering some bullish surprises for the wheat market, and giving the whole grain complex a boost in advance of President Trump’s long-awaited trip to visit American agriculture’s most important trading partner — China.  With both news and the latest report driving markets this week, we’re joined once again by DTN Lead Markets Analyst Rhett Montgomery who he...

The winners of the National Wheat Yield Contest, hosted by the National Wheat Foundation, represent some of the best wheat growers in the country. And today, we're ducking behind the curtain to learn the secrets of growing bin-busting crops.  DTN Crops Editor Jason Jenkins takes the reins to lead us through a conversation with Greg Anthis, a wheat grower and agronomist from Wheatland, Indiana...

With challenging conditions across much of the ag economy, cattle markets are a bright spot in the first few months of 2026.  Despite high prices, consumers are continuing to buy beef, even in advance of what is usually the peak demand period for the year. Add that to the fact that the Southern border has been closed for nearly twelve months with no signs of reopening anytime soon, and you'll...

The April WASDE dropped Thursday, April 9th, representing the third big update from USDA in two weeks following the Prospective Planting and U.S. Grain Stocks reports. Though expectations from analysts were relatively low, wider uncertainty in the markets related to the ongoing US-Iran conflict and the blockage of the Strait of Hormuz have left farmers hungry for any clarity on what might be in st...

Lamenting the “hollowing of rural America” has become standard fare across certain types of media and policy leaders, but for those who live, work, and raise their crops and family in and around small towns, rural America feels far from hollow.  While these communities still face their fair share of challenges, these places are chock full of resilient, vibrant businesses, organizations, and famili...

Three different dicamba herbicide products are making a comeback in 2026 with new labels and new rules for use from EPA.  Whether farmers are aiming to use BASF’s Engenia, Syngenta’s Tavium, or Bayer's newly-renamed Stryax products, there are some changes that farmers and their applicators need to be aware of.  That’s why today, DTN Crops Editor Jason Jenkins is here to walk us through the ve...

We’ve been keeping up with weather and crop conditions in Latin America from afar this winter, but any farmer will tell you that the national data doesn’t tell you as much as seeing a crop with your own eyes.  That’s one of the key reasons that DTN Progressive Farmer Editor in Chief Greg Horstmeier journeyed down to Brazil earlier this month, eager to put boots on the ground and bring us the lates...

As compared to the outbreak of war between Russia and Ukraine years ago, the earliest days of the war between the U.S., Israel, and Iran did not seem likely to affect U.S. ag markets.  Then the Iranian regime announced its intent to close the Strait of Hormuz, a critical chokepoint in global fertilizer supply chains through which as much as 80% of the world’s nitrogen fertilizer travels. Concerns...

The March WASDE dropped Tuesday, March 10th, though its arrival was in part overshadowed by market concerns about an evolving conflict in the Middle East which has snarled energy and fertilizer supply chains that pass through the Strait of Hormuz.  As farmers, market analysts, and the USDA itself struggle to parse what the latest outbreak of fighting might mean for planting decisions and global su...

The 2026 Commodity Classic event attracted more than 12,000 farmers to sunny San Antonio for multiple days of trade shows, marketing workshops and big announcements from across the industry.  Even U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins was in attendance, outlining the department’s key priorities for the year, including trade progress, and elevating their new “One farmer, one file” initiative...

With at least one major winter storm in the rearview, temperatures are ticking up and the countdown to planting is on.  But with soil moisture deficits remaining across much of the U.S., key growing regions, and warm, dry temperatures causing early season fire risks in some parts of the Southern Plains, farmers are hoping that there will be more rain in the forecast before things dry out for sprin...

Despite the fact that she’s in the middle of calving season herself, DTN’s Senior Livestock Editor Jennifer Carrico has been simultaneously staying on top of an avalanche of stories affecting U.S. cattle markets here in 2026.  Today, she joins us with an update on all the latest, from cattle health to consumer demand and weather.  We kick off the conversation with news on ongoing efforts to preven...

Though employees and services from the U.S. Department of Agriculture have not been disrupted by the recently ended partial government shutdown, plenty of uncertainty remains when it comes to ag policy in the new year.  As challenging market conditions continue, farmers and their advocates are increasingly looking to Washington for help opening markets, increasing demand, and bridging the gap unti...

A highly unusual winter storm swept across the United States on Jan. 24-25, plunging parts of the midwest into long stretches of below zero temperatures while dumping feet of snow from Kansas and Missouri all the way into the Northeast. Sleet and ice clogged up conditions from Texas to the Carolinas, and despite the extreme conditions, the precipitation was welcome as drought conditions have conti...

CES, the former Consumer Electronics Show, is hosted every year in Las Vegas, Nevada, attracting the latest and greatest in futuristic tech for consumers, businesses, and everyone in between.  It was just a few years ago, in 2019, when John Deere became one of the first major ag companies to exhibit at the show, and since then agricultural equipment and tech companies have become a mainstay. DTN P...

With a long year of uncertainty in the rearview — farmers are coming into 2026 with hope for more stability in terms of global trade, prices, and growing conditions. While the outlook for some of these factors remains unclear, global fertilizer markets, for one, show signs of stability going into the new year.  To help us understand the fertilizer forecast, we’re joined this week by DTN Fertilizer...

The January WASDE dropped Monday, January 12th, shocking market watchers with an updated U.S. corn crop that’s now a record by an even wider margin. Almost no one expected USDA to add 1.3 million harvested corn acres to the mix on top of a half bushel boost to the national average corn yield, bringing the estimated 2025 U.S. corn crop to over 17 billion bushels.  To help us put this, and all the o...