March 25—The corn market may have been fundamentally quiet in March, but the markets crumbled as financial woes triggered a massive sell off in the entire commodity complex.

At press time the USDA planting projections weren't available, leaving volatility in the marketplace. The current supply/demand table was left unchanged in the March report. The carry-out still rested at 1.438 billion bushels. The factors that will impact the demand portion will be the value of the U.S. dollar and its impact on exports. The other two factors are corn for feed usage and ethanol production. The ethanol sector could very well see a smaller demand figure than what the USDA has calculated. Hence, could carry-out be slightly increased? With the planting number still lingering, weather will have become a huge factor as this issue of EPM hits the streets.

The chart displays the U.S. corn crop at 70 percent planted (horizontal) versus the final percentage of trend yield (vertical). This is by far the best correlation to yields—better than any summer weather data you can find. The "big money" guys think that rain makes grain, but the commercial crowd knows that "plant in the dust and the bins will bust." We need to start closely watching the April weather patterns. A dry spring is the best thing possible for good yields. When 70 percent of the crop is planted by May 12, the worst yield has only been 1.9 percent below the trend. When late plantings occur, there is far greater chance of much lower trend yields. This cannot be tolerated in 2008.