Corn Stocks Are Up 35% and Wheat Stocks Down 14%. The Wheat Crop Itself Fell 23%.

The US Department of Agriculture released two reports at the same time on September 30: the quarterly Grain Stocks report, which counts what is physically in storage as of September 1, and the Small Grains Annual Summary, which closes the book on the wheat, oat and barley crops just harvested. Read side by side, they point in opposite directions. Corn is abundant. Wheat is not.

Corn: a large carry-in

September 1 is the end of the corn marketing year, so the figure reported is the carry-in to the new one. Corn stored in all positions totalled 2.10 billion bushels, 35% more than on September 1, 2025. The split matters as much as the total: 787 million bushels sat on farms, up 22%, while 1.31 billion sat off farms in commercial elevators and processor storage, up 44%.

Disappearance — the USDA's term for everything that left the pipeline through feeding, processing and export — ran at 3.20 billion bushels over June, July and August, against 3.10 billion in the same three months a year earlier. So consumption rose. Stocks rose anyway, which is what a large harvest looks like once it has worked through the system.

Soybeans: flat to slightly tighter

Soybean stocks were 315 million bushels, down 3% from a year earlier, with 90.4 million bushels on farms and 225 million off farms. June-August disappearance was 744 million bushels, against 683 million a year before.

Wheat: smaller crop, smaller stocks

All wheat stocks on September 1 were 1.85 billion bushels, down 14%. On-farm holdings fell hardest, down 21% to 547 million bushels; off-farm holdings fell 10% to 1.30 billion. June-August disappearance was 608 million bushels, itself down 14%.

The Small Grains Summary explains most of that. 2026 all-wheat production was 1.53 billion bushels, 23% below 2025. Both halves of the equation moved the same way: harvested area fell 15% to 31.9 million acres, and the national yield fell 10% to 48.1 bushels per acre. Winter wheat, the largest class, dropped 27% to 1.02 billion bushels; other spring wheat fell 10% to 450 million; durum fell 24% to 64.8 million.

• All wheat: 1.53 billion bushels, down 23%
• Winter wheat: 1.02 billion bushels, down 27%
• Other spring wheat: 450 million bushels, down 10%
• Durum wheat: 64.8 million bushels, down 24%
• Harvested area: 31.9 million acres, down 15%
• Yield: 48.1 bushels per acre, down 10%

Durum stocks on September 1 were 62.9 million bushels, down 13%, of which 43.8 million were on farms.

Why the two reports are read together

Stocks reports are a census of inventory; production reports are a measure of supply. A grain can show falling stocks because the crop was small, because demand was strong, or both. For wheat in 2026, the production number does the explaining: a crop down 23% leaves less to store, and the on-farm figure falling faster than the off-farm figure is consistent with growers holding less back.

This article is for general information. It is not investment advice and is not a recommendation to buy or sell any commodity, future or security.