For Kent Harfmann, Mantorville Township, Dodge County, Minnesota Sunday, October 4, 2026. Filed by The MI Farm AI Desk.
Weather, Dodge County, MN
What this means for today: Sunny. High near 67, with temperatures falling to around 65 in the afternoon. Wind 3 to 14 mph through the day (see the hour by hour table below). Source: NOAA National Weather Service via the MI Farm AI weather layer for Dodge County, MN, pulled this morning. Hour by Hour, the day ahead
Source: NOAA National Weather Service hourly forecast and station observations, pulled this morning. Wind this morning at your nearest weather station was about 7 mph. Rain WindowWe could not get a reading right on your field this morning. The nearest weather station (Rochester MN, about 18 miles north) recorded no rain in the past 24 hours. Your own ground may differ, so check your gauge. Rain expected at your field: Next 24 hours: 0.00 inches expected Next 48 hours: 0.23 inches expected Next 72 hours: 0.30 inches expected Source: NOAA National Weather Service forecast and NOAA radar rainfall estimates, pulled this morning. Futures board reference (not your cash)
The board is a labeled futures reference, not your cash bid. Your cash and net after haul are below. Corn Today (Dec 2026 board)
Cash bid, your nearby buyers, ranked by net after haul, best first
Cash bid is each buyer's own posted local price (the local cash plus basis). Ranked by net after haul, best first (ties break to the shorter haul, then higher cash). Net is the cash bid minus the cost to truck it there. Patronage is money a co-op pays back on the bushels you deliver, often a few cents a bushel.
Local cash bids, as of 2026-10-04.
Grain and Livestock, corn, soybeans, wheat, cattleFriday's close. Markets closed for the weekend. These are the most recent settled prices; the boards reopen the next trading day. Cal's Grain Call: Price a portion of 40,500 bu corn at $4.74/bu via Crystal Valley, Mantorville Branch (a recommendation, see the factors).Corn: Your 2025 bin corn has rolled to the December board, now its nearby contract, in October. Soybeans: The growing 2026 crop is new crop soybean; it prices on the November board.
Source: CME livestock futures. Cal's Market ReadAt Friday's close, corn steady; and beans added about 2 cents. Recent trend, over the last 5 sessions, corn has eased and beans have eased. That is the backdrop your cash bid is moving against. Here is our read on why grain closed where it did Friday, and the facts do not point to one clean cause. No USDA report is on the live calendar, so there was no fresh government number to trade. The two likeliest drivers are the sunny, warm, dry stretch in the Ohio forecast from Ohio Country Journal, which eases harvest and dry down, and simple weekend positioning that left corn steady while beans picked up about two cents. Stocks point higher into the open, S&P futures up about 0.2 percent. A firmer tape eases the borrowing and input-cost mood your lender watches, though it does not move your cash bid by itself. Cal Wall Street, Friday's close
WHY IT MATTERS FOR YOUR FIELDS Decision DeliveredYour decisions for today and the week ahead:
What to Watch Today
From Cal's News DeskThe 10 stories that moved across the wires since yesterday's Brief, sourced, dated, and verifiable. Each one carries Cal's review, the same one the news page shows, with a link to read it straight from the source. 1. Thinking back to radio days, could I be an anachronism?
A longtime columnist reflects on his lifelong fondness for unusual words, recalling the day he first stumbled onto the term "anachronism" and had to look up what it meant. Thinking back to his years in radio, he playfully wonders whether he himself has become an anachronism, a leftover from an earlier time. The piece is a warm, personal musing on how language and old ways of doing things can feel out of step in a changing world. It is a light, reflective read that reminds us the words and traditions we grew up with still carry plenty of meaning today.
Read the full article. Tri-State Neighbor, Sun Oct 4, 2026 10:00 AM CT 2. Ohio Ag Weather and Forecast, October 5, 2026
Expect a stretch of sunny, warm and dry weather right through next Wednesday, with mostly normal to above normal temperatures giving you excellent dry down each day, though heavy morning dews will hang around for a couple days before easing by the weekend. A few scattered showers may sneak up from the southwest next Thursday at about 30% coverage, but the real action comes next Friday the 16th into Saturday the 17th, when rain and thunderstorms are likely at a quarter inch to 1.5 inches with 100% coverage. After that front clears, a very strong surge of cold Canadian air pushes across the northern Plains, Upper Midwest and Great Lakes, bringing likely frost Sunday night the 18th and a couple more mornings during the week of the 19th. It mostly stays dry that week, so this briefing lays out your harvest window before the wet and cold arrive, which is why it is worth a full read.
Read the full article. Ohio Country Journal, Sun Oct 4, 2026 3:34 PM CT 3. Iowa 4-H Dairy Judging Contest Winners Announced at 2026 Iowa State Fair
Delaware County swept the top honors at the 2026 Iowa State Fair 4-H Dairy Judging Contest on August 12, with Braden Ronnebaum leading the champion Senior Team alongside Madalynn Arnold, Alison Schulte, and Karl Zumbach. Ronnebaum also took the individual senior championship, while Cooper Schulte captured both the junior team title and the individual junior crown for Delaware County. These young people proved their skills by evaluating dairy cattle, ranking classes to industry standards, and defending their picks through oral reasons, building the kind of confidence and public speaking ability that pays off in any ag career. Now Iowa's top senior competitors are headed to the National 4-H Dairy Judging Contest this fall at the World Dairy Expo in Madison, Wisconsin, carrying the state's reputation against the best young judges in the country.
Read the full article. Morning Ag Clips, Sun Oct 4, 2026 3:31 PM CT 4. Iowa Learning Farms Webinar: Midwest Farmland Market Trends and Outlook
On October 7 at noon CDT, Iowa State University economist Rabail Chandio, a faculty affiliate with the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development, will headline a free Iowa Learning Farms webinar titled "Farmland Markets in the Midwest: Recent Trends, Drivers, and Outlook." She will break down where land values, cash rents, and sales activity are heading, and how interest rates, commodity markets, and investor demand are pushing prices. Since farmland is usually the most valuable asset a farm family owns, Chandio says understanding these forces helps landowners make smarter financial and management choices for the years ahead. You can register through the Iowa State Zoom link or join with webinar ID 999 3709 5398, the session is recorded for later viewing, and a Certified Crop Adviser continuing education credit has been applied for those who attend live.
Read the full article. Morning Ag Clips, Sun Oct 4, 2026 3:25 PM CT 5. Louis Dreyfus Company Reopens Burns Harbor Grain Terminal in Portage
Louis Dreyfus Company has brought the Burns Harbor grain terminal in Portage back to life, reopening the Lake Michigan gateway on September 30 after it sat idle since 2023. The facility holds 7.2 million bushels and can load 90,000 bushels an hour into vessels while handling up to 200 railcars and 20 barges, giving Indiana corn and soybean growers a multimodal outlet by truck, rail, barge and Great Lakes ship right when harvest bottlenecks hit. Since 1979 the terminal has shipped more than 500 million bushels, and LDC expects to buy as much as $70 million in crops each year after investing $18 million and hiring 11 workers to restart it. More buyers at the dock means more competition and more marketing choices for farmers, a welcome edge when local elevators and on farm bins fill up fast.
Read the full article. Hoosier Ag Today, Sun Oct 4, 2026 9:50 AM CT 6. Barn Boards and Baling Wire
The Rev. Dr. Sun-Joong Kim, welcomed with a cake on July 12 for his first Sunday, has taken over as pastor of two congregations in the Janesville, Wisconsin area, including Asbury United Methodist Church. Kim began his ministry leading a Korean immigrant congregation in Texas, then moved to Wisconsin in 2013 and served churches in Cumberland, South Milwaukee, East Troy, Lake Geneva and Hartford before this new appointment. Columnist John Sumwalt, a retired pastor and son of dairy farmers who wrote "Shining Moments: Visions of the Holy in Ordinary Lives," says Kim's reflection on seeing clearly struck a chord with him on several levels. The piece closes with a tender meditation on how hard it is to leave this world when so much still calls us back, the people we love, our unfinished work and unfulfilled dreams.
Read the full article. Tri-State Neighbor, Sun Oct 4, 2026 1:00 AM CT 7. Meet Purdue's 9 Distinguished Agriculture Alumni Award Honorees for 2026
Purdue University honored nine mid-career graduates on October 2 as its 2026 Distinguished Agriculture Alumni, recognizing work that stretched from livestock health and agronomy to food science, forestry and landscape architecture. The group included Indiana state veterinarian Kyle Shipman, who is helping the state's livestock industry tackle biosecurity and disease threats, along with two Iowa State University leaders, assistant professor Jacob Goheen and Extension vice president Jason Henderson. Others recognized were researchers and professors from the U.S. Forest Service, Ohio State, Wisconsin and Kentucky, plus a PepsiCo senior director, with degrees earned between 1991 and 2015. Since the award began in 1992, Purdue has honored hundreds of graduates whose work now reaches farms, labs and communities worldwide, showing how far an agriculture education can carry beyond the field.
Read the full article. Hoosier Ag Today, Sat Oct 3, 2026 12:05 PM CT 8. South Dakota man's vintage tractor collection grows from family roots
Meet Miller, a 31 year old from Ethan, South Dakota, who has rebuilt a collection of about a dozen vintage tractors after reviving his great-grandfather's 1936 Farmall F20 that had sat dead since its radiator broke in the mid 1970s. Self taught through the original owner's manual, YouTube, online forums and his uncles, he got the F20 running at age 15 to earn it from his grandfather, and it remains his favorite today. His barns now hold Farmall H and M models, a 1952 Ferguson T30, a Massey, an Allis-Chalmers and three John Deeres, including a 1936 Model A he snagged for just $200 from a friend who saved it from the scrap pile. Rather than parking them behind ropes, Miller runs belt driven corn shellers and threshers at the Twin Rivers Old Iron show in Delmont and farms a five acre plot with 1950s equipment, passing the old knowledge along to FFA students so the next generation can see how harvest worked before computers took over.
Read the full article. AgWeek, Sat Oct 3, 2026 7:30 AM CT 9. Ohio Ag Net Podcast, Ep. 464, The Future of A.I. Enabled Farm Equipment
On this Ohio Ag Net Podcast, powered by Ohio Corn and Wheat, AGCO's Andrew Sunderman explains how artificial intelligence enabled equipment is turning machine data into real decisions right in the field. As farmers wrestle with tight operating windows, labor shortages, rising input costs and tricky field conditions, Sunderman lays out where this technology is headed and what you need to know before it reaches your operation. The episode also brings James Jacobs of Seed Genetics Direct, who warns that late season rains, while helpful to later planted corn and soybeans, could invite mold, disease, sprouting, poor stalk quality and vomitoxin. Jacobs makes the case that mud may not be the biggest worry this fall, so give it a listen before you roll into harvest.
Read the full article. Ohio Country Journal, Sun Oct 4, 2026 2:45 PM CT 10. Live updates: Trump taps Clayton to lead AI force; Cornell victim's attorney alleges more involved in gang rape
President Trump has stood up a new "Super Intelligence Force" and tapped Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton, reported as his pick for AI czar, to run it. The move follows a Saturday night rally near Dayton, Ohio, where Trump pushed for a Republican win with the midterms just a month away, even as recent polling shows Democrats gaining ground in the fight for Congress. He kept Sunday light with only a morning stop at his golf club in Sterling, Virginia, before heading to Nebraska on Monday while Vice President Vance travels to Alaska. In other news, attorney Thomas Giuffra, who represents the Jane Doe in the 2024 Cornell gang rape case now handed to special prosecutor Letitia James, said on CNN that he believes more than seven men were involved.
Read the full article. The Hill, Sun Oct 4, 2026 11:26 AM CT Around the WorldThe world news moving your markets this morning, the same read from Cal's desk that runs on your dashboard. EA on Pakistan TV: Ukraine The Black Sea Blockades Are Choking Grain ExportsGrain shipments out of the Black Sea and Sea of Azov are being strangled as Ukraine and Russia block each other's ports, and that logjam reaches all the way to your local markets. EA analyst Cormac Smith laid out the situation on Pakistan TV with host Sana Maqbool, warning that these two countries together handle nearly 35 percent of the world's wheat exports. Over the summer, Ukraine damaged or destroyed more than 200 Russian vessels while fighting back against the invasion. Russia, for its part, has hammered Ukrainian ports and even foreign flagged ships to choke off exports from hubs like Odesa. Smith stressed that the real victims are some of the poorest people on earth, especially across Africa and the Middle East who depend on that grain. He put the blame squarely on Moscow, saying Russia could end the war tomorrow by leaving Ukraine, since this crisis is a direct result of its illegal invasion. EA WorldView (via world wire). Read the full story.Europe Faces Pressure as Ukraine Seeks Help to Export Millions of Tons of Grain Amid Transit ChallengesUkraine's farm minister Taras Vysotsky rushed to Brussels this week calling the grain situation "extremely critical," begging Europe for help moving millions of tons stuck behind a Black Sea blockade. Two key neighbors said no, with Poland refusing to change its transit stance and Romania's Barna Tanczos insisting "the interests of our own farmers remain the priority" as his ports choke on surplus Ukrainian grain and a low Danube. Experts warn that up to 35 million tons could sit stranded inside Ukraine by the end of 2023, with exports already down to a third of normal and a 1.1 billion price tag just to cover added shipping costs. Attacks on ports and vessels have dragged on for a third straight month, pushing Kyiv to hunt for new routes through the Netherlands and Germany and even to propose a mutual halt on civilian strikes with Moscow. This matters far beyond Europe, since the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations says lost Ukrainian and Russian grain could hit more than 17 percent of global grain trade and threaten food supplies worldwide. For a corn and soybean grower, it is a front row look at how war, port politics, and storage gluts can swing world grain prices and the competition you face at the elevator. inkorr.com (via world wire). Read the full story.Local ObituariesNo local obituaries for your area in today's papers. Cal's ReceiptCal's Receipt is the running ledger of every call this desk made for your farm, what was at stake, whether you followed it, and what it actually saved (or cost). Append-only, and every dollar cites its source. You will find it on your farm Dashboard, on the Farm Services desk. Open the Dashboard from the button at the bottom of this Brief. Today in Farm SafetyStay inside the cab with the operator presence controls engaged when working a skid-steer loader. Most skid-steer deaths happen when someone climbs in or out under a raised lift arm. Lower the arm to the ground and set the parking brake before you exit. Source: NIOSH skid-steer loader safety alert. Cal The Coffee ShopToday in Farm History, Dust Bowl peak 1934On May 11, 1934, a single dust storm carried 350 million tons of topsoil from the Great Plains to the East Coast, so much that dust fell on ships 300 miles off Boston. The Dust Bowl years (1930-1936) cut Great Plains farm income by 60%. The Soil Conservation Service (today NRCS) was founded in 1935 as a direct response. Source: USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service history archive. [CAL'S QUIZ]
Who was named the first Commissioner of Agriculture on May 15, 1862?
(a) Isaac Newton
(b) Norman Jay Colman
(c) Henry A. Wallace
(d) Justin Smith Morrill
Answer at the bottom of the Brief. [CAL'S JOKE]
A raccoon chewed a hole in the silage bag. The farmer said, "I should be mad." His wife said, "Why aren't you?" He said, "At least somebody around here still has an appetite for what I'm growing."
The MI Farm AI Desk
Cal "Corn-Bread" Halvorsen, your AI Agronomist and Editor in Chief Quiz Answer(a) Isaac Newton (a Pennsylvania dairy farmer, not the physicist). Lincoln named him on the same day he created the USDA. Newton served until his death in 1867. Source: USDA history office.
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The MI Farm Brief is the independent daily farm intelligence brief that earns zero when you buy inputs. Cal "Corn-Bread" Halvorsen is the editorial persona of the MI Farm AI desk, the AI-orchestrated production team that produces this Brief every working morning. The Monthly Receipt is signed by the Founder, MI Farm AI. Honest. Independent. Loyal. Transparent. The HILT Covenant.
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Signed by Cal "Corn-Bread" Halvorsen, Editor in Chief, The MI Farm AI Desk.