USDA will release its Quarterly Grain Stocks report Wednesday at 11:00 A.M. central time, giving final stocks for corn and soybeans for the 2025-26 marketing year and giving details on first quarter wheat use. USDA will publish the Annual Small Grains report as well, detailing 2026-27 wheat production, along with production figures for oats, barley and rye.
| Corn | Soybeans | Wheat | |
| Average trade estimate | 1.918 | 0.324 | 1.889 |
| Highest trade estimate | 2.005 | 0.349 | 2.342 |
| Lowest trade estimate | 1.843 | 0.304 | 1.771 |
| Pro Farmer estimate | 1.925 | 0.317 | 1.837 |
| Sept 1, 2025 | 1.551 | 0.325 | 2.134 |
| September WASDE | 1.922 | 0.325 | .717 |
Estimates compiled by Reuters and are expressed in billions of bushels.
Trade sees corn stocks coming in modestly below USDA’s September WASDE figure after use remained strong going into the final month of the marketing year. The key will be how the Feed & Residual figure stacks up. USDA has Feed & Residual at a record 6.35 billion bushels for the marketing year. USDA will give its final update to 2025 production in this report as well. Analysts pegged 2025 production at 17.003 billion bushels, a modest revision to USDA’s latest figure of 17.021 billion bushels. The drop in production explains analysts drop in ending stocks.
Analysts typically do not have much bias in guessing USDA’s ending stocks figure. Analysts have pegged stocks too high 14 times since 2000, too low 12 times and have been dead-on once. Over the last five years, analysts have been too high three times and too low twice.
Trade sees soy stocks as coming just a million bushels below where USDA pegged stocks in the September WASDE. That whole drop can be attributed to a million bushel drop in 2025 production, as analysts pegged the 2025 soy crop at 4.261 billion bushels, down a million from USDA’s latest figure at 4.262 billion. We anticipate tighter stocks as exports remained strong in the final month of the marketing year.
Analysts have been too high on soy stocks 12 times since 2000, too low 13 times and hit the figure right on the head once. That leaves little bias to discern if analysts are too high or too low. The last couple years, analysts have been close to hitting USDA’s figure.
Analysts see very little change in 2026-27 wheat production, pegging the crop at 1.524 billion bushels, just below USDA’s previous figure at 1.531 billion bushels. Quarterly wheat stocks of 1.889 billion bushels would be sharply below a year ago, due to the drop in production. Use is implied at the lowest mark since 2022-23. Both domestic use and exports are seen as below average.
As a whole, the market is not pricing in much change from previous assumptions in the upcoming reports. That leaves room for a surprise, especially in corn. USDA’s production figure was well above where we pegged the crop a year ago and we believe USDA could cut production by a significant amount, especially given the high Feed & Residual estimate. Still, those changes would be largely off-setting, so it may not have much of an impact on the balance sheet. For soybeans, most use is known, especially with the big increases in crush the past couple years. That leaves little room for change, with the bulk of any adjustment coming from the notoriously difficult-to-peg residual use.