Looking back over the past 18 months, Scott Davis, founder of Bullpen Trading, said he hadn’t seen any surprises coming out of USDA reports in all that time.
Then Tuesday arrived. Davis was taken back by what the agency predicts for 2025-26 corn and soybeans, he told Chip Flory, host of AgriTalk.
“They double-barreled it,” Flory said.
“I think there might have been even more barrels than that. They reloaded and shot again,” Davis replied.
The eyebrow-raising USDA-NASS August 12 report pegs the U.S. corn crop at 16.7 billion bushels, with an average yield of 188.8 bushels per acre (bpa). For soybeans, the agency predicts a record 53.6 average bpa, up 2.9 bushels over 2024.
Both crop yields would be U.S. records. However, USDA predictions for 2025 harvested acres were a mixed bag.
For soybeans, the agency cut 2.5 million acres, lowering the total to 80.9 million planted acres. At the same time, USDA increased its corn acreage estimates by 2.1 million acres to 97.3 million acres planted.
Numbers Are Likely To Miss The Mark
Davis said he believes USDA overshot on its corn acreage estimate, as well as the corn and soybean yield estimates based on data from previous years.
Flory agreed, citing information from a Pro Farmer article published last week that said USDA typically shoots too high with corn, specifically.
“In the past 32 years, USDA has raised its corn yield in August 17 times. Final yields came in below the August estimate in 15 of those years,” the Pro Farmer article states. “Each time in the past decade USDA has increased their yield estimate in August, yields have come in below that forecast.”
In addition, the satellite imagery USDA used, along with feedback from farmer surveys, might not have been able to detect pollination or disease problems that could trim yield.
Davis also weighed in on the difference in the corn carryover number for 2025 versus 2024 and the importance of demand.
“On this date, a year ago, we were staring at a corn carryover estimate of 2.073 billion bushels. We had a December corn contract that was trading within cents of where we are right now,” he told Flory. “This year, we’ve got a 2.117 billion projection from USDA, with a 44-million-bushel increase from a year ago, is all, and that’s with a 10-bushel jump in yield from our previous record on tremendous acreage. Just highlights how much demand bailed us out this last year.”
That doesn’t mean corn will now suddenly get bullish, according to Davis. While USDA estimates went low on usage a year ago for corn, he doesn’t believe that’s necessarily the case now.
“I think usage is going to be very good, but it’s going to be harder to get carryover under 2 billion,” he said. “Still can happen, I think, potentially, but it’s not going to be tight anytime soon.”
The Demand Story For Soybeans
Davis also questions the 53.6 bpa average yield projection for soybeans, noting there is considerable disease pressure in Midwest soybeans this summer.
“More than anything I’m hearing there’s a lot of yellow early soybeans. They don’t like wet feet,” he told Flory. “There’s tremendous vegetative growth out there, but that doesn’t mean that there’s going to be a tremendous pod set or pod fill.”
Davis also offered a look back on soybean demand now versus August 12, 2024. Prices were $9.55, at the end of this week for November 2025. He adds that the carryover number on August 12, 2024, was 560 million bushels.
“With soybeans today, carryover is half of that. With a record yield plugged in, we have 290 million bushels carryover projected,” he said.
A 290-million carryover on beans is not a particularly big carryover, in his opinion.
“If you took a bushel off that then we’re talking tight, and we can’t do that,” he said. “We would already be at a price point today where you could almost afford to bring beans out of the U.S. into Brazil to reload and ship to China, and that, of course, makes zero sense.”
Davis said some level of positive demand from China is the ticket to breaking soybeans out of their demand slump. While some farmers, analysts and others are concerned a deal won’t happen with China, Davis doesn’t see things that way. He cited social media comments noting agriculture has President Trump’s ear, with regard to soybeans.
“He did address the fact that beans could be something that China would benefit from buying from us,” Davis said. “A lot of people might say, ‘Our math doesn’t work. They’re not going to buy from us.’ But the math doesn’t have to work. Beans could be just the sweetener.”
What could occur would be a type of quid pro quo, a scenario where China would buy soybeans in order to have more access to something else — like chip technology from companies such as Nvidia and AMD.
“Don’t assume China won’t be willing to pay up for a few U.S. beans to play in the chip market,” Davis contends. “If they pay an extra billion dollars for U.S. beans to get access to Nvidia chips, for China, it would be the equivalent of throwing an extra fortune cookie into the takeout container.”
Listen here for more insights from Flory and Davis on AgriTalk regarding the latest crop estimates and outlook from USDA.
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