We kicked off the day with Building Permits Final and Building Permits MoM at 7:00 A.M., Export Sales, Current Account, Initial Jobless Claims, Chicago Fed Activity Index, continuing Jobless Claims and Jobless Claims 4-Week Average at 7:30 A.M., New Home Sales and New Home Sales MoM at 9:00 A.M., EIA Natural Gas Stocks at 9:30 A.M., Kansas City Fed Composite Index and Kansas City Manufacturing Index at 10:00 A.M., 4-Week & 8-Week Vill Auction at 10:30 A.M., 10-Year TIPS Auction at 12:00 P.M., and Cold Storage at 2:00 P.M.

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On the Corn Front Margy Eckelkamp with AGWEB reports what is the critical points for farmers in the northern plains? Dr. Lee Briese of Central Ag Consulting, Jamestown ND, says while farmers can get a lot of work done in a short time frame, the best thing they can do to get ready for spring is set on their priorities. “The planting priorities are number one”, he says. “pre emerge herbicide sprays re number two. And then we’re actually shifting out our fertilizer applications like in corn to a number three priority. Granted, we need that for later on, but we’ve got some time there to do planting, so we’re going to focus on getting the planting and that early spraying done.” While current forecasts are indicating a potential later start to planting, Briese says farmers are busy planning, and weighing their crop decisions. “It does start to feel after Easter and we get a lot of snow,” he says. “But we typically get rolling the last week of April, and get a fair amount done through early May.” He says spring wheat is still a “winner” for farmers based on economics. Generally he refers to corn production as a “headache” for farmers, unless the planting season does get late and farmers have the logistics to support corn production. While he’s looking at a blanket of snow, he says the frost underneath isn’t to thick. “Probably the one shining positive in this whole thing is we don’t have a real deep frost in the soil. Our soils are not frozen very deep like they typically are, so we’re kind of hoping that when the melt starts and a lot of moisture is going to be able to sink in rather than have runoff. We could use a little recharge,” Briese says. In addition to crop mix and planting timing, Briese is watching two agronomic trends: biologicals and cover crops. “I’m really looking forward to the potential for some these new biologicals,” Briese says. “But I think we really need to focus on putting them in the right place. We’ve seen some hits & misses in part because some of our ground soils not quite as bad as it could be. So maybe that’s to try some of the biologicals but I think we have’nt quite figured out the placement.” AS FAR AS COVER CROPS HE’S SEEN PRACTICAL USE OF COVER CROPS ESPECIALLY IN Challenging Conditions. “ When  we’ve had some difficult planting seasons- like we’re experiencing now- we maybe can get the most of the field planted and some of that field is going to be underwater. That’s where I’ve seen more cover crops come in later into those once underwater areas as a weed fighting tool and a water management tool. That’s one way cover crops have been working.” As we close out March Madness and have the NCAA Finals in early April don’t forget about the March 31^st Grain Stocks and Prospective Plantings.

On the Ethanol Front production and stocks below a week ago. The EIA says production averaged 997,000 barrels per day (bpd), a 10-Week low and a decrease of 17,000 on the week and 45,000 on the year. The Iowa State University Center for Agricultural and Rural Development says operating margins for the average Iowa plant last week were near break even point., just below last year’s levels. The Renewable Fuels Association says net inputs by refiners and blenders were up fractionally on the week, while volume of gasoline supplied to the market was more than 4% higher. Ethanol stocks of 26.1888 million barrels were down 206,000 from the previous week’s near one-year high, but were 40,000 above a year ago. The USDA’s next corn for ethanol use estimate is scheduled for April 11^th. There were no trades or open interest in ethanol futures.

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