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The NDSU Extension weekly podcast In the Pod: Soybean Updates delivers timely insights and expert advice on soybean production.
You're listening to In The Pod, soybean updates, a weekly trek into the latest soybean information from NDSU Extension. This time of year, NDSU Extension provides a budget projection for the approaching growing season. 2026 is showing low returns for some of the major crops. Here to walk us through the budget projection is Ron Haugen, NDSU farm management specialist. Ron, tell us about the NDSU crop budget projection.
Ron Haugen:Yeah. We just released our projected crop budgets that we produce with extension at NDSU. As predicted, these budgets probably don't look so good. There is some negative budgets and some low profitability budgets. We do a nine region area throughout the state. We break that state down into nine regions, and we do various crops in every region. All in all total, we do a 140 budgets that we project. Some of the main points to consider is that fertilizer prices are up, but fertilizer fertility in the soil is up as well because of a warm wet fall last fall. So the rates may be lower, but being the cost of fertilizer is higher, the overall rate per acre will probably be higher in most regions. The major crops don't show much profit. Soybeans actually are kind of holding their own a little better than we thought. And I wanted to say that chemical prices are generally flat. We have some positive things. Fuel costs are down. The interest rate on operating loans are down about a half percent on average. One thing that's always seems to go up is ownership and repair cost of equipment. With these budgets, we encourage people to take a look at those and remember that they're just a guide. We want producers to use their own numbers because every situation is different. This is just a snapshot at this point, but we try our best to project for the coming season. These budgets are available at any county extension office throughout the state, and they're also available on the extension website. We have a PDF version for each crop in each region and also an Excel file where producers can actually enter their numbers in and compare them to NDSU's numbers.
Bruce Sundeen:How does the soybean budget projection look?
Ron Haugen:One reason that soybeans looked a little more profitable because they aren't a big fertilizer user. For example, corn and wheat use more fertilizer and being the fertilizer prices are up, that kinda helps the soybean budget. There is a couple positive notes. Sunflowers, barley look good because of the projected prices, but they're specialty crops, and you can't put the whole farm into a specialty crop. Encourage you to get contracts if you're growing a specialty crop, and, of course, there's also more risk involved in a specialty crop.
Bruce Sundeen:So you're saying the soybean budget is looking good?
Ron Haugen:Well, compared to the big three crops, wheat, soybeans, and corn, soybeans look better than the other big crops. Compared to specialty crops, it's kind of hit and miss depending on your region and what type of crop you're growing. But soybeans overall look pretty well with this negative environment that we're in in almost every region.
Bruce Sundeen:Ron, where do these projections come from?
Ron Haugen:When we project this, we try our best to estimate the expenses for the year. When we use our projected yield, how can you predict the yield for this coming year? The only thing we can do is project an average. So we use a seven year average where we throw up the high and the low. And then our prices are developed by our crop marketing specialist, and he does a lot of work, a lot of toil involved to to come up with those prices, and that's his best guess on the coming year.
Bruce Sundeen:Thanks, Ron. Our guest has been Ron Haugen, NDSU farm management specialist. You're listening to In the Pod, soybean updates, a weekly trek into the latest soybean information from NDSU Extension supported by the North Dakota Soybean Council.