Row Crops Today — May 28, 2026
The 5-minute 5 AM brief for row crop producers and ag professionals
Headline Stack
📋 USDA opens 30M-acre ARC/PLC base acre update June 1 — first since 2002
🌧️ Eastern Corn Belt corn final plant date hits June 5, soybeans June 20
💰 NDSU economist: high fertilizer prices likely to persist through spring 2027
🏭 Top four nitrogen firms now control 70% of U.S. ammonia capacity
🌾 Agronomist advises 20% sorghum seeding rate cut under Great Plains drought
Top Story
📋 USDA's first base acre update since 2002 opens June 1. — LINK
The USDA Farm Service Agency will accept base acre update requests on ARC and PLC farms from June 1 through August 31, 2026, the first opportunity to add base acres since 2002, under provisions of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed July 4, 2025. Up to 30 million new base acres can be added nationwide, and if eligible requests exceed that cap, USDA will apply an across-the-board prorated reduction to all approved new base acres. To qualify, a covered commodity must have been planted or prevented from being planted on the farm during the 2019–2023 crop years, and average planted and prevented-planted acres over that period must exceed existing base acres in effect on Sept. 30, 2024. "This is the first chance for adding base acres since 2002," said Bill Beam, FSA Administrator. "These base acre improvements will help strengthen the farm safety net for producers across the country and help them better manage risk by providing greater flexibility for operations that have expanded or diversified since the last time we revisited base allocations." FSA is mailing Base Allocation Summaries to eligible landowners, available online beginning June 1 via Login.gov.
More This Week
🌧️ Eastern Corn Belt growers approach crop insurance plant deadlines. — LINK
Final planting dates across Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Michigan are June 5 for corn and June 20 for soybeans, with insurance guarantees declining 1% per day during a 20-day late planting period for corn and a 25-day window for soybeans.
"For each day that it's planted after the final plant date, the insurance goes down or the guarantee goes down one percent per day," said Jason Williamson, Williamson Crop Insurance.
Williamson said growers can shift acreage or file a prevent-plant notice before the cutoff without committing to prevent planting, preserving flexibility on still-wet ground.
💰 NDSU economist sees fertilizer prices high through spring 2027. — LINK
About 25% of U.S. corn and soybean production area is currently in drought, concentrated in Nebraska and southern South Dakota, adding to fertilizer-driven margin pressure tied to the Strait of Hormuz shutdown.
"My personal bias is, I think we're gonna see very high fertilizer prices into next spring," said Frayne Olson, NDSU Extension crops economist. "Mentally, we have to be prepared for that to happen."
Olson said any price adjustment will lag the Strait reopening by "many, many, many months," and noted Brazil — which imports nearly all its fertilizer through the Persian Gulf — is likely to flatten soybean acreage expansion that has run 2–3% annually.
🏭 Top four nitrogen firms hold 70% of U.S. ammonia capacity. — LINK
The number of U.S. ammonia plants fell from 46 in 2000 to 33 in 2023, while the top four firms' share of production capacity rose from 50% to 70%; CF Industries alone controls 39%, followed by Nutrien at 16%.
"The domestic nitrogen fertilizer industry is considered highly concentrated under the 2023 DOJ/FTC Merger Guidelines, with a HHI of 0.201," the Farmdoc Daily authors wrote.
Consolidation extends across ag inputs: the top four firms hold 80% of soybean crushing, 80% of corn seed, 70% of soybean seed, and 60.8% of farm machinery U.S. market share, per Farm Action data cited in the report.
🌾 Agronomist: cut sorghum seeding rates 20% under drought. — LINK
Under current drought conditions across most U.S. grain sorghum regions, agronomist Brent Bean recommends lowering seeding rates by 20% and applying only starter nitrogen and phosphorus, delaying additional N until yield potential is clearer.
"Choose a hybrid with a track record of good drought tolerance," Bean wrote. "This is not the year to experiment with an unproven hybrid."
Of the four most common pre-emergence sorghum herbicides — atrazine, s-metolachlor, acetochlor and dimethenamid — dimethenamid (Outlook) requires the least rainfall to activate, generally 0.25 to 0.5 inches for the others.
Basis Watch
Missouri North Central corn basis firmed 10 cents on Tuesday, the day's largest old-crop corn move. Missouri Central improved 5 cents on the low end, while Missouri Northeast broke 5 cents in the opposite direction. Iowa Northwest narrowed 6 cents on the top of its range. The pattern fit the spring clearout window, with old-crop corn basis improving across most of the Corn Belt while new-crop corn softened — Colorado North Central new-crop weakened 5 cents on the high end.
On the soybean side, South Dakota East Central and South Dakota Southeast each broke 10 cents on the top of their ranges. Minnesota South firmed 10 cents on the low end, and Missouri Northeast strengthened 9 cents.
Source: USDA AMS
CF Industries alone controls 39% of U.S. ammonia production capacity — in a market where the top four firms now hold 70% of all domestic nitrogen output.
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