[Paul Yeager] Welcome to the table for the Friday, May 8th, 2026 installment of Market Plus.

Joining us now, Kristi Van Ahn-Kjeseth.

We begin with NIL and college basketball.

Where do you want you want to go with that, Kristi?

Yeah, we do talk a lot of things.

[Kristi Van Ahn-Kjeseth] We do.

[Yeager] We do.

Before I forget, one of the things you've been outside this spring in the cold.

[Van Ahn-Kjeseth] Yes.

[Yeager] The first question is about cold.

We'll get to it in a minute.

But what do you.

I always think of the North Dakota parts of Minnesota where you're at.

It's cold all the time.

So, when you got out of the car today in Iowa and it was like 65 degrees, were you like, oh, this is great?

[Van Ahn-Kjeseth] Yeah.

I was like, this is sweet, sweet summertime.

Like, this is great.

This is lake weather.

No, it actually isn't so bad around Alexandria.

We actually have pretty warm summers, but it has been extremely cold.

And I think that's one thing that's been talked about is just, you know, how, how cold it's been, especially southern Minnesota.

[Yeager] But it's been so different across the growing area.

I mean, we looked at the drought monitor heavily yesterday.

We were just kind of looking at it that Missouri Valley River, North Ohio River, it looked like somebody photoshopped 101.

Did the copy paste on the drought monitor?

Everything north of there.

Clear?

Yep.

Everything else is problematic.

So, when you have such a divided country with the weather, what does that do to the market?

[Van Ahn-Kjeseth] I think it just it's going to take a little bit before you want to talk about either one of those stories.

So, I think back to probably like 4 or 5 years ago, it was disastrously dry in parts of Minnesota, the Dakotas, even a little bit of Iowa.

But then you went into the eastern Corn Belt and it was like lush.

And it was, what story is going to win out?

But it took a really long time before you really acknowledged both of that.

And I think that's what you're at right now is you're saying, hey, it's early enough in the season.

Minnesota has had two back-to-back summer Springs that have been very difficult to get the crop planted.

And so, this go around, you saw the opportunity to be able to get planted earlier, and you had a lot of people roll on both corn and soybeans early in southern Minnesota, even into central Minnesota.

And then we got really cold.

[Yeager] And that's significant now because that's almost where some of the top half of the Corn Belt has gone, and it has become a much bigger story that maybe the market didn't realize at first, but the government certainly did in their report last year.

[Van Ahn-Kjeseth] Yes.

So, I think you're acknowledging that, but I think it's still too early to really talk about those stories.

[Yeager] Okay.

Well, should we we'll just let's get the official question that we are dancing around Gary in Wisconsin wanted to know on X, will the USDA have to start adjusting yields down due to cold weather?

The cold, wet states are the ones that have driven the record yields the past few years, and now we are lagging with poor growing day units to start.

[Van Ahn-Kjeseth] Yes.

So last year actually GDUs were extremely far behind for the first like month, month and a half.

And then we really caught up and let's look at where yields ended up here this last year.

So, I just think that yes, it's been miserably cold.

I sat at a track meet with 28-degree wind chill this week.

It was not fun.

And it has been cold, but it's so early in the season.

I think that's just not what we're realizing is that we haven't had snow cover in a lot of areas.

It is just feels like it should be a little bit later and you feel like you're behind.

But I think, you know, it's too early in the season.

I think USDA is really going to come in and do what they normally do, which is acre numbers from the end of March, and then trendline yield for their production estimates.

And I if you were to say, hey, are they going to adjust one of those numbers?

I wonder if the adjustment won't come in acres from the fact that our end of March number for acres really came in off of surveys prior to.

The fertilizer talk.

And so, if you were to see a change in those.

I think I'm not holding my breath for acre change yet, but I think if you were to say, hey, which one is it going to be?

I'd lean more towards an adjustment in acres over yield at this point.

[Yeager] Okay, pull the crystal ball out.

This is a question from Paul, who sits to the left of you at this table.

Next week we are going to have by the end of the week, we're going to have a. Presidents of China and the US talking trade.

Yes, we're going to have.

We still have Iran and US.

If a cease fire holds.

And we also are going to have this first yield and carryout story a week from tonight, which one is our lead topic in this discussion, which moves the market the most?

[Van Ahn-Kjeseth] I think it's a meeting between Trump and XI.

And I think that's just because it is such a wild card.

You do not know what's going to come out of their mouths, either one of them.

You just don't know what can come out of a meeting.

You could come out and they would say, hey, you know what?

We're not willing to do anything until we figure out something on Iran.

That was our focus.

And you could say, oh my gosh, they didn't talk about agriculture at all.

Now where are we?

Or you could come in here and say, they're committing to buying.

And you know, that China's even willing to still be buying right now.

So, it's such a toss-up.

And I think because it's so unknown, it's going to have the biggest impact on the market.

[Yeager] And we've had that before where the two powers talk.

And there's not an agriculture is nowhere near because we're about IP, we're about other things.

Yes.

And we're left in the dust.

Does the bottom fall out of the market or at least a good sell off?

[Van Ahn-Kjeseth] Yeah.

I think you really struggle if you don't get any sort of information out of this.

For soybeans.

I think that soybeans are really banking on getting something out of this.

I think that you could also be looking at this situation and saying, if we don't get anything out of this and planting progress is going good and we don't get anything out of USDA, what is left to be a buyer of this soybean market?

Who is going to step in to push it above $12?

Because we know $12 is that level that likes to bring sellers out.

Manage money is not that far off of contract highs for holding length of soybeans.

So, who is going to be that buyer if we don't get some sort of information?

[Yeager] Let's back to one of those if statements we've discussed, we have to have a lot of ifs go our way.

All right.

Let's go.

Tom.

In North Dakota, the question is pretty simple.

Is the rally over?

[Van Ahn-Kjeseth] I don't think so.

But I'm honestly it's I cannot stress this enough how important it is to do marketing.

I know it's early in the season, we had those conversations with some producers that they're like, I haven't even got my crop completely.

And I just can't stress that enough.

We look at years like last year where it never turned back around.

And I think about, let's say one month from now, especially for corn, let's say one month from now, we don't have a weather story.

We don't really have much of a story here from USDA on adjustment of numbers.

We have not had the June 30th report yet.

Who is going to be the buyer?

If you see the war in Iran start to resolve, you don't have managed money really wanting to be buyers.

You have farmers now comfortable selling.

I'm just worried that one month from now, if something doesn't escalate, you just have the ability to have a lot of sellers.

[Yeager] I don't know if it was you or someone in your office in your newsletter this week talked about you can't outguess what's going to happen.

And so that's what you're saying is you've got to make some marketing to protect what's happening.

[Van Ahn-Kjeseth] Correct.

And I, I just think that the risk is more featured around maybe one year from now when you just don't know what kind of input cost you have.

I think that this year you've kind of shored up some things, right?

You might not have everything completely booked.

You might have that question of, you know, how much am I going to side dress?

But for the most part, you know, a good chunk of your breakevens and a lot of people are there or better that it's just so important because I stress this over and over again, your farming operation is an operation.

It is a business, and it needs to be treated like that and make sure that when you are making money, you're doing some sort of downside.

[Yeager] All right, let's talk about looking ahead.

If we could, because Wayne in Iowa wants to know how much should we be selling of new crop corn and beans?

[Van Ahn-Kjeseth] Yeah.

So right now, we are 50% marketed on new crop corn and 40 on new crop beans.

If somebody wanted to be more aggressive in beans, I would have no problem with that.

I think that the breakeven levels that we have in soybeans are so different for each producer.

So, I think that's where it plays a big role into it.

And I even had conversations that if you want to be more marketed than 50% in corn and you have some flexibility at the top side, once again, I'm okay with that.

I am just fearful that how many times do we really sustain $5 futures in corn and $12 futures in soybeans?

If you're saying, hey, I think that there's more to come.

These are those type of years that you can use trailing stops to say, hey, we're $5 now.

But if we get to $4.80, I'm going to make sure I sell something because I have some $5 sold.

So, and that is one of the trickiest things to do in marketing, in my opinion, is to sell when the market is breaking.

But so many times it is something that drastically needs to happen.

[Yeager] I think a year ago at this time, we were looking at how timelines have changed of when you would look to make some sales.

Are we repeating much more last year?

Like, hey, remember that high came in May, not June last year.

[Van Ahn-Kjeseth] It has felt like corn has been making its highs a little bit earlier lately.

So that is one thing that has I will say, you know, the two years are a bit different because corn is pretty consistent for getting back to its spring crop insurance price.

Last year.

We never got to it.

We got about a half cent away from it this year.

We went through it and we got quite a bit higher than it.

So, I just think it's important to say, hey, we are at levels that we never even got the chance at last year, so let's make sure we're doing something here.

[Yeager] And that's the whole like rear view marketing.

I wish I would have done something 12 and five are numbers.

Is that the new norm for a high?

[Van Ahn-Kjeseth] You know, I think without some sort of story.

Yeah.

You know, how do you accelerate much past this?

You know, for corn we're looking at we got up above five, got to 503517 is our next price count.

I'm going to be honest, if we go through 517 there's a much bigger story technically.

Why is that?

We'll look at covering some sales, but it's going to take a lot to get through.

It's got to get a story.

And what kind of story can we get this early in the season?

I'm just worried we're in that time frame that it's hard if we're having good planting conditions.

[Yeager] All right.

Let's wrap with this.

Kevin.

And Missouri's question is how high are fertilizer prices going?

And will there be enough for the world?

This story has multiple answers and things that extend beyond '26, I think is what you're going to tell me.

[Van Ahn-Kjeseth] Yeah.

I think that this story is more of a '27 story than it is this year.

I think that there's so many parts of this story as well.

So, I think that if you're looking at here and you're saying fertilizer prices are so expensive, but my corn looks really good right now, I'm going to take the chance and I'm, I am going to put it on.

I am going to spend that money.

So, I think that plays a role into it for this year.

The people's willingness to spend it.

But I truly think that you're looking at more of a story for next year.

It's just it's backlogged.

And I don't foresee that fixing itself.

And right now, we know that the supplies might be more expensive, but we have supplies here.

It's a question of, you know, six months from now, eight months from now, is it here?

[Yeager] I hope you don't have to sit out in any more 27-degree weather.

[Van Ahn-Kjeseth] I hope not either.

[Yeager] Happy Mother's Day to you.

[Van Ahn-Kjeseth] Thank you.

[Yeager] All right, Kristi, thank you so much.

[Van Ahn-Kjeseth] Thank you.

[Yeager] Kristi Van Ahn-Kjeseth.

That's K-J-E-S-E-T-H.

We'll have a pronunciation and spelling quiz later next week.

Iowa dirt tracks rev up fans, drivers in rural communities, and we'll have the commodity market analysis with Naomi Blohm.

Thank you so much for joining us.

Have a great week.