corn

U.S. corn plantings grew 10 percent in the past decade, driven by the commodity boom that began in 2006. Economist Gary Schnitkey says the expansion occurred mostly in the western Corn Belt, with North Dakota and South Dakota accounting for one-third of the increased U.S. acreage of 7.9 million acres.

Fertilizer runoff could be reduced significantly if row crops such as corn and soybeans are replaced with perennial grasses harvested for biofuel production, say researchers from four Midwestern universities. Nitrogen runoff in the Mississippi River basin, blamed for creation of a "dead zone" each summer in the Gulf of Mexico, could drop 15-20 percent if switchgrass or miscanthus were planted on a quarter of the land now devoted to row crops, according to computer simulations.

An unseasonably dry spring induced a moderate drought in Iowa, the country’s leader in corn and soy production, the weekly U.S. Drought Monitor reports. The National Weather Service issued a heat advisory yesterday after heat index values reached between 101-105 F, a chief concern for farm operators working on Iowa’s 87,000-plus farms.

The agricultural giant of South America, Brazil, is altering the world corn market in ways that challenge the United States, the No. 1 grower and exporter, say USDA economists Ed Allen and Constanza Valdes. Brazil is now the second-largest corn exporter and its shipping season coincides with the U.S. harvest, which could mean lower market prices at the moment the U.S. crop cascades onto the market.

If USDA agrees with analysts, its monthly crop report will say U.S. farmers are growing slightly more wheat and soybeans and marginally less corn than previously thought. One thing would not change in the report, due today at noon ET: a slump in commodity prices that began in 2014 is forecast to persist for years to come.

Entomologists across the Midwest and South say a commonly used strategy to preserve the potency of GE corn that makes its own insect-repelling toxins, known as "refuge in a bag," "may actually increase the risk of Bt resistance in above-ground insects, particularly in the southern United States," reports DTN.

Corn, soybean and wheat growers would receive significant payments — as high as $80 an acre for corn — under the insurance-like Agriculture Risk Coverage subsidy based on the low commodity prices now forecast, says Ohio State economist Carl Zulauf.

The outlook for wheat and corn crops in the major grain-growing countries of the world has improved by 10 million tonnes in the past month, said the International Grains Council in forecasting the second-largest global grain harvest ever. Despite an upturn in consumption, the grain carry-over at the end of 2016/17 would be a record 474 million tonnes, up 6 million tonnes from 2015/16, the current record.

Bunge and Archer Daniels Midland, two of the largest grain processors in the country, say they will not accept delivery of a new genetically engineered soybean strain from Monsanto because of marketing questions, reported Bloomberg. The European Union has not approved the strain, called Roundup Ready 2 Xtend, for import.

If they take their cues from recent changes in the futures markets, U.S. farmers will plant slightly more soybeans and correspondingly less corn, says the think tank Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute.

Based on average yields and costs, Corn Belt farmers would barely make money at the corn and soybean futures prices now offered for this year's crops, says economist Gary Schnitkey of U-Illinois.

The second-largest seed company in the world, DuPont Pioneer, announced development of a new strain of waxy corn using CRISPR-Cas gene-editing technology.

Corn masa flour is a common part of Latin American foods, used in making tortillas, tamales, taco shells, corn chips and tortilla chips. Now, foodmakers have FDA approval to fortify masa with folic acid,

U.S. law enforcement officials are calling on farms growing GMO seed to bolster their security against foreign nationals set on stealing the technology, says Reuters.

Farmers in the top corn-growing province of China say they will shift land to soybeans or other crops now that the government is reducing the support price for corn. The decision to allow the market to set the price for corn "should transform the agricultural landscape," says Reuters.

The corn earworm is a widespread crop pest, particularly in the U.S. South, and adept at quickly developing resistance to genetically engineered crops. Over time, researchers looking at lab-selected strains of earworm have identified 20 genes that harbor mutations conferring resistance to pest-killing proteins in so-called Bt crops, which have been genetically engineered to produce bacteria that repel the earworm.