Field Posts

Finding good help on the farm is an age-old problem, but in recent months and years, the difficulty seems to have risen exponentially. Between the struggle of an aging rural workforce, the new pressures introduced by COVID, and the gaps and expenses of federal programs like H-2A, the challenges are piling up, while meaningful solutions remain thin on the ground.  The DTN team is no stranger to thi...

The 90-day window that the Trump Administration created in order to negotiate new trade deals with over 200 countries comes to a close on July 9th.  The goal for this time period was to create pressure and opportunities for America’s many and diverse trading partners to come to the table, propose strategies to reduce trade deficits, and offer more favorable treatment for American businesses and pr...

An unprecedented era in U.S. cattle markets continues as what was supposed to be a hot and dry summer looks wetter and more temperate than anyone expected.  In light of that, the idea of record cattle prices is increasingly becoming standard fare, as market fundamentals like herd size remain at historic levels. DTN’s recent Ag Summit Series event on the Future of the Cowherd dug into the weather,...

For anyone who’s been hoping for a surprise to boost markets recently, good news came from an unexpected place earlier this month.  After months and months of delay, and multiple anonymous sources suggesting that biofuel levels were set to disappoint the industry, the actual numbers announced by EPA stunned watchers with a proposed 2 billion gallon jump up in the biomass based diesel requirements....

The June WASDE dropped Thursday, June 12, in the midst of a wild period of domestic and global news about everything from newly released biofuel commitments to the latest on the emerging conflict in the Middle East. There’s a lot to keep track of as the USDA aims to evaluate the old and new crops in the U.S. and around the world, and give producers a thoughtful look at what might come next — over...

Whether you’re thinking about weather, markets, trade or farm bill policy, the last several months have been characterized by one thing — chaos. It seems to be impossible to stay up with the sheer quantity of news, updates, and announcements coming from every direction, which are continuously changing the outlook for the year ahead.  Today, we wanted to take some time to talk through some time-tes...

Just a few months ago, meteorologists at DTN and beyond were expressing concern about wide swaths of drought across key U.S. growing reasons, and the likelihood of a hot and dry summer set to exacerbate the situation. Now, after an unexpectedly wet and temperate start to the season, substantial drought is largely gone and conditions look good for the summer. But changes may still be on the horizon...

Every year for more than six decades, the Wheat Quality Council has sponsored a Winter Wheat Tour that criss-crosses the state of Kansas to get a mid-season update on what conditions look like in the field and what farmers, millers, and everyone in between might be able to expect from the annual crop. This year was no exception, and DTN Crops Editor Jason Jenkins is just back from three high impac...

The months since President Trump first took office have been marked by executive orders, policy announcement, shakeups, and for many in ag, the hopes that policies will also provide protections from market and political fallout. Just this week, President Trump announced a pause for tariffs on China as trade talks continue, and that is just one of the many ways changes are leaving farmers uncertain...

The May WASDE dropped Monday, May 5th, and the market reacted to both predicted records and to a few unexpected surprises. Given the number of acres and the USDA’s trendline yield, the department is officially estimating a record breaking corn crop in 2025– at least at this early moment in the season.  To help us understand the latest, we’re joined once again by DTN’s Lead Analyst Rhett Montgomery...

The winners of the National Wheat Yield Contest, hosted by the National Wheat Foundation, represent some of the most progressive and thoughtful wheat growers from across the country.  This week, DTN Crops Editor Jason Jenkins takes the reins to lead us through a conversation with national winners Steve VanGrunsven, a grower/agronomist in Forest Grove, Oregon and Travis Messer, the grower/agronomis...

John Deere’s See & Spray technology crashed onto the precision spraying scene a few years ago, making a big splash in the industry long before it was killing weeds in commercial fields. Since then, progress on sense and act technologies has felt like it’s both made big leaps forwards and lagged behind expectations.  Now, in 2025, millions of acres are being treated with precision spray tools a...

Uncertainty and unpredictability in Washington and beyond have made following updates around ethanol, biodiesel, and the ongoing fight around sustainable aviation fuel challenging for farmers and industry watchers alike. As advocates spend time sitting down with the new Trump administration and farmers try their best to make planting decisions, the broader atmosphere around trade, interest rates,...

The April WASDE dropped Thursday, April 10, bringing with it a raft of bearish and bullish updates for the three major grains. This month’s report came in the wake not only of market-cratering tariff announcements, but also in the week after the department’s latest Grain Stocks Report and the annual Prospective Planting update, meaning the USDA had plenty to chew on when shaping the latest numbers...

Cattle sellers continue to rule in beef markets, fetching record prices in recent months and weeks as expectations for more growth in the cattle herd come up short. But there’s more than just prices to watch as multiple factors — from pests and disease to shifting trade regimes to the state of individual ranch and packing businesses — come into play. To help us find the insights in the noise, we’r...

Each year, the National Wheat Yield Contest, hosted by the National Wheat Foundation, attracts top growers from across the country to compete to grow the healthiest, and largest, wheat crop in the nation.  The 2024 results are officially in, and farmers in the Pacific Northwest and the Northern Plains managed to bring home many of the top accolades, and though 2024 didn’t quite offer record-settin...

The March WASDE dropped Tuesday, March 11th, and bullish farmers and traders looking to see upside for corn and possibly soybeans too were disappointed the USDA held pat across the two major U.S. grain balance sheets. Wheat, on the other hand, which was expected to go unchanged, overshot expectations in a bearish direction, but markets on the day ended up. Go figure. Luckily, we’re joined once aga...

We're officially on the cusp of spring, and farmers in the warmer regions are already in the planter, while those further north are raring to get the 2025 season started. But some snap cold weather in February and some roaring blizzards on March’s doorstep have us wondering if winter might stick around a bit longer. Luckily for us, DTN’s Ag Meteorologist John Baranick is joining us today, not...

The 2025 Cattle Industry Convention and NCBA Trade Show took place February 4th through 6th in sunny San Antonio, and by all accounts it was an event where ranchers came together to celebrate a good year in the beef industry, and to put their heads together about what might be ahead.  DTN Senior Livestock Editor Jennifer Carrico attended the show, and joins us today with the latest updates from th...

The National Farm Machinery Show attracts more than half a million farmers, ranchers, and ag industry professionals every year to a massive event in Louisville where everything from tractors to precision equipment to drills are on display. But after several years of excitement in the machinery market, high interest rates, low commodity prices, and an atmosphere of uncertainty means this year'...

The February WASDE dropped Tuesday, February 11th, and with few updates expected for U.S. balance sheets, the market’s attention was locked on the Southern Hemisphere, where harvest for the major grains is in view.  This week, we’re joined once again by DTN’s Lead Markets Analyst Rhett Montgomery, who took a break from his work at the National Farm Machinery Show to guide us through the latest fro...

COVID’s impact on American agriculture were legion, but one of the positive changes for the industry is the way it encouraged consumers —who were experiencing supply chain disruptions in empty shelves at the grocery store — to reconnect to where their food is grown.  Ordinary American consumers turned to farmers markets and Facebook groups, looking to go directly to farms to buy meat, flour, and a...

CES is the world’s largest showcase of technology and electronics, held every year in sunny Las Vegas. In the last decade or so, ag tech companies, and especially ag equipment companies, have been attending this event to show off their latest hardware and software tools, and so DTN has also attended to keep up with the technological forecast on display.  DTN Progressive Farmer’s Senior Editor Dan...

It has been a hectic eight weeks in Washington since the re-election of Donald Trump. There has been a non-stop torrent of news that will, and is already, affecting American agriculture, from disaster aid to Farm Bill updates to the nomination of Secretaries of Agriculture, the EPA, FDA, and others.  Luckily, we’re joined today by DTN Ag Policy Editor Chris Clayton, who’s been staying on top of al...

The January WASDE dropped Friday January 10th, and this blockbuster report left producers, traders, and analysts alike scrambling to respond to major drops in production estimates for corn and soybeans. This news came alongside a quarterly stocks report and a wheat seedings report, which meant there was a ton of new information to process from USDA on the state of U.S. grains. This week, we’re joi...