Fertilizer, Black Swans, the Acreage Battle Ahead and Quieting the Global Noise With Matt Bennett

[PAUL YEAGER] Welcome back to the table for the September 11th, 2026 installment of Market Plus Matt Bennett. Here we talk sports. At the end of the program. We could keep doing it, but I think they want us to talk commodities instead. Let's talk balance sheets. To start, please. Soybean balance sheet. You wanted to discuss that. Why?

[MATT BENNETT] Well, I mean, yeah, you look at adding the acres that we had this year. Clearly we needed to. This crush industry keeps growing. China stepped in and bought beans last year being prices rallied to the point where guys said, and let's face it, bean acres were low two years ago. So, you add all these acres, 5.8 million planted acres, and you have a 52.8 yield. But we end up with 15 million bushel less than a year ago. As far as the way balance sheets look today. So that tells you that what you really need to plan a few more acres again next year, I mean now, yes, 310 is somewhat comfortable. But you know, if China does buy all the beans that we expect them to, if the crush industry continues to, to, to grow the way that we've seen it grow, we're not going to have an abundance of beans. And then the problem you would run into is, what if you have some sort of a crop failure?

[YEAGER] Well, what if you have this September meeting that goes sideways and China shuts off the buying of the rest of the deal or counter it? China says, you know what? We want more. Yeah. What happens then?

[BENNETT] Yeah. Well, I mean, first of all, I let's just see if that meeting happens. Sure. You know, because there's always a chance that it could get pushed off if they said they wanted more. Paul, then you would be in an intense acreage battle. We haven't had an acreage. I mean, the last few years it's been hot potato. You know, we don't really want the acres. Why don't you take them? You know, now we know the U.S. Farmer loves to plant corn, right? We all like to plant corn, but at the same time, last year, you had 98.6. Clearly, nobody probably made a whole lot of money on the 25 crop unless you held all the way to the 26 crop. That's who got the best price for corn for 25. But most people struggled for three straight years on corn profitability. So, it's been tough to consider an acreage battle.

[YEAGER] Well, we have a few questions about 27 as well as fertilizer. But I want to start with the obvious that everyone always wants to know Holt's view farms in Iowa. All right Matt, are the highs in on corn and beans or do we still have the opportunity for prices to go higher?

[BENNETT] I mean, clearly that's a very tough question to answer, but my thought is on corn, I think you could see higher highs. Now is it going to happen on the December contract where you take out the 5.49 AND three-quarters? It's a possibility. If you come into this quarterly stocks situation here at the end of the month, if you get some friendly news there or you lower the yield again, I mean, a lot of times when you lower the yield from August to September, you continue to lower on farther out. If that happens, you know, you're going to have to feed the bull every day. We all know that. I would be more curious about the market making a new high, if you will, going into this March contract. If I look at it, if the El Nino has any impact on South America whatsoever, if even parts of South America don't get beans planted for first crop as quickly as what they need, if there's any question at all on Safrinha planted acreage, the market's going to be very, very close attention. Not to mention you look at December 27th corn. It's been running neck and neck with 26. And why is that? Because people already understand we need these acres. Would that be in the case fertilizer. Yes. It's expensive. I totally agree. I know that people are going to shoot me for this, but you corn to fertilizer ratio is better than what it was a year ago. It's just all there is to it. Fertilizer is still high, but you can sell less bushels of corn to pay for all your fertilizer this year than what you could a year ago. And I think we've got to pay attention to that, even though I think we've got potentially higher prices on down the road.

[YEAGER] Well, Matt in Iowa wants to ask Matt in Illinois, and I think you just kind of answered most of this question, though, with the possibility of extremely high priced fertilizer and or fuel. How much will corn have to bid up for acres to keep from losing them to soybeans? So, take what you've been saying, but just take it a little differently.

[BENNETT] Six weeks ago, I said, I think that these corn needs to get between five and a quarter and 550 to really get folks interested. Now, what happens on that move higher? You know, a lot of folks in our part of the world had 850 quoted for anhydrous, which turned into 890, which turned into 950. That is what happens as the price goes higher. And so clearly, if you're going to get people that are going to wait on fertilizer, for instance, it's going to be problematic. Now, if you buy your fertilizer and don't sell any corn, your temptation is that the bullishness that everyone's feeling is going to be in your benefit. We've seen that go backwards on us before. I'm always, hey, every year, let's go ahead and hedge off some of our 27. At the same time, we buy fertilizer lock in ratio, especially if it's better than the year before. Diesel fuel is frustrating. There's no question about it. I don't know that I see a whole lot of relief there based on everything we're hearing. The one good thing, Paul, and again, I know people are going to come up for air, but as a percentage of our input cost, it's fairly small. Which is the nice thing. Yes, $6 road diesel fuel and then farm fuel where it's at. It's expensive. It's frustrating. But I think that most of us would trade to get this 5.25, 5.35 Dec 27 corn and pay a little bit more for fuel.

[YEAGER] As long as you're making the sale.

[BENNETT] As long as you're making a sale.

[YEAGER] Because how many times have you had someone call you and ask you, hey, what do you think, Matt? 

[BENNETT] Yeah.

[YEAGER] And you basically think they are all but ready to place an order and they don't. 

[BENNETT] Yeah.

[YEAGER] So, some people are going to have to actually make that sale to make what you're saying come true.

[BENNETT] The problem that we're into, though, Paul, is that we've rallied to levels we haven't seen in the last three years. We all know that. Okay. But the questions that you get on a consistent basis are how much higher do you think this market's going to go? And I always answer it the same way. I really don't know. I wish I did, but what I want to know is with today's market, how much net income can you lock in and how does that compare to last year's net income? We have to know because if we're going to snub our nose at the best prices we've seen in years, we have no one to blame but ourselves. If this thing, if black swan events, right? What's the next black swan event? I'm sure you get asked that sometimes too. Well, if I knew that, I mean, I'm probably I probably wouldn't need a job, right? I have no clue what the next black swan. But if we have one and all of a sudden you take $0.50 out of the market on a guy with 250 bushel corn, I mean, $125 an acre right there. It's gone.

[YEAGER] That's why it's back to one of your fundamentals. No, your cost of production. You got to know where. Absolutely where the cents and the dollars are at. All right. Paul in Minnesota's question has already been asked, so thank you, Paul, for that one. Let's go to Rob in Nebraska on the next question. And this one ties back to the very first thing we talked about in analysis. Do you see an increase in winter wheat planted acres? If so, do those acres come at the expense of corn?

[BENNETT] First of all, absolutely. I see an increase in winter wheat acres. Last week we heard from a lot of growers. For instance, in the state of Kansas said, hey, if we could get some moisture out here, we're going to plant a bunch of wheat. And what did they get over the last week? Some of them got a fair amount of moisture. Would they like to have more? Of course, but getting some moisture is exactly what they were looking for. They're going to plant the wheat, in my opinion. Our office in Kansas estimates we'll see at least a million acres in Kansas alone. And so, if I was going to estimate, I think total winter wheat acres go up any again, anywhere from a million and a half to 3 million acres. Is it going to come at the expense of corn? That's a great question. And I think the first thing we do is we quantify what wheat acres are. And then the next thing you do is how many acres are available. They're going to battle for acres, in my opinion. To an extent, yes. The farmer likes plant corn, but farmers also in state, Illinois, if they're harvesting 80 bushel beans this next week at $13 on the board, that is not something they're upset about. And so, with the less cost involved, you're still going to have a lot of bean acres, in my opinion. So, what could happen, though, Paul, is that you get into next spring and some folks may say, if the week doesn't look very good and corn and beans have rallied like that, tear it up and put something else in it.

[YEAGER] It sounds like almost there's the scenario of, I'm not going to make a decision until March or April, because I'm going to let it ride on fertilizer, on fuel, on seed if my price can, if my price and if -- so, some people like to lock in and do lock in. Yeah. Do you see that percentage of people locking in what their plans are for 27? Are they going to be able to do that in November and October and the rest of this month?

[BENNETT] I think a lot of people have already locked in fertilizer, quite frankly.

[YEAGER] In everything, and all their acres?

[BENNETT] Not all. You know, I've heard several people say, hey, we went ahead and booked half our fertilizer needs or we booked all of our anhydrous and, you know, backing off on dry once again, particularly phosphate is something we've heard quite a bit about. Phosphate is ridiculously high. Unfortunately. That's something that I don't think is going to go away anytime soon. Potash is pretty reasonable, quite frankly, but again, all the ifs, ands or buts, I think the first thing you do is we know in my opinion, I'll be shocked if winter wheat acres aren't higher. That, in my opinion, is going to call into question how many acres of corn and beans do we even have available? One, 83.5 is what we had this year. All-time record. I don't think you have it available next year.

[YEAGER] Let's some of the fundamentals are going to quickly slip in, Phil in Ontario here. I'm going to just kind of cut to the chase. He wants to know our prices had downward. But his curiosity is on the geopolitical side. If that's creating too much uncertainty for a rise in the acres or the bushels here for soybeans.

[BENNETT] Long time listener, first time writer in right. Phil? You know, in my opinion, the geopolitical issues that we have clearly make this whole thing very hard to navigate. Okay. Whenever I get questions about, for instance, yeah, our prices have prices topped out, what do you think is going to happen due to the Strait of Hormuz due to the Black Sea region? The problem Black Sea region is that you just have disrupted world flows. We understand. And when you can't get a hold of a commodity, even though it's there, it takes prices higher. I think that corn could be another one of these products that I just don't see Ukraine being able to export near the corn that we're currently looking at. So, one thing I continue to tell people is we've got so much noise out here, okay. And I don't know, Phil probably won't be totally happy with how I answer this, but we have so much noise and we've got to tune it out as much as what we possibly can. And again, go to the basics. If you want to step in here and let's say you're going to sell some corn for five and a quarter, okay? If you're in an area where you can do that and you're bullish, oh, you're bullish. Okay. And people are bullish. You know that Paul spend $0.25 or $0.20. Spend something on a call strategy that has no margin ability. And then what do you know you have you've got $5 corn. Worst case scenario. And if the market goes up, you're going to participate. But I certainly don't want to sit here and try to bank on how much higher price is going to go because of this, this and this. It's impossible to outguess it. Last weekend we had a three day weekend. I fully expected something crazy was going to happen in the world. And it does. I mean, every weekend it seems like we get some sort of a big shocking type event. And what did we see crude do this week? Skyrocketed. And so WTI was over $100 on Friday. I mean, it's a very hard to predict world we're in right now.

[YEAGER] But I still make you answer hard to predict questions. 

[BENNETT] That's fine. 

[YEAGER] Thank you for giving us some insight as well. Yeah. Good to see you Matt Bennett. Good luck on harvest this fall.

[BENNETT] I appreciate it.

[YEAGER] All right Matt Bennett everyone. Next week we're going to talk about the thrill and tradition of dirt track racing. And Karen Braun will be here to offer her commodity market analysis. Thank you so much for joining us. Have a great week.

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