SAN ANTONIO (DTN) -- Farmers can find no shortage of marketing advice at Commodity Classic. This year, though, much of it came with a warning: The market doesn't owe you a rally.

With December corn under $4.75 and soybeans swinging on geopolitical headlines, analysts urged producers to make incremental sales, protect downside risk and clear old crop before summer.

The best advice came with legal disclosures, so keep this in mind: These conversations occurred before markets were jolted Saturday by the outbreak of a new war in the Persian Gulf.

CORN

2025 was an outlier year because the December corn contract high occurred in February. A year ago, marketing analysts said they expected there would be more opportunities in the spring to capture more upswing in prices, but that didn't happen.

Al Kluis, principal at Kluis Commodity Advisors, said last year his team had 80% of their old-crop corn sold at $4.84 a bushel, but had a target to sell the last 20% at $5.48. That was a little too optimistic, he said.

"We did not hit that target, but we did complete sales in May and June," he said.

For the 2025 crop, last year he wound up with futures hedges at $4.78 a bushel. The August crop report then pushed the December contract down below $4.

"When the corn market dropped below $4, these were great hedges to deliver on," Kluis said.

Kluis encourages producers to make incremental sales, but also said farmers should avoid selling crops between August and October. He said April has become the best seasonal time to make sales.

"I still think when you're planting corn, you should be selling corn," he said.

Ted Seifried, chief market strategist at Zaner Ag Hedge, offered a moderately bullish strategy: Buy a July $4.60 call and sell a $5.20 call -- paying about 11 cents plus fees. In this scenario, producers would be risking 11 cents to potentially make 49 cents on a rally.

"It wouldn't take a whole lot of corn rally to get this strategy maxed out, but I don't see a corn rally trading much over $5.20 unless there's an absolute weather disaster," Seifried said.

The December corn contract is now at $4.73. One thing to keep in mind is that in each of the last two marketing years, the December corn contracts moved below $4 a bushel during the marketing year, said Ed Usset, grain marketing economist at the University of Minnesota.

"I'm not particularly thrilled about it, but I think you ought to think hard about getting something done," Usset said.

Keep in mind, the corn crop insurance price settled at $4.62 a bushel on Friday. At 80% protection, that's a $3.70 guarantee.

SOYBEANS

Soybeans have posted 30-cent moves based on social media posts about China. Funds are buying rumors, selling facts. Soybean prices rallied in November based on the prospect China would reenter the market, but then prices began to wane. Prices again started to rally when President Trump posted on social media in early February that China was considering buying another 8 million metric tons.

"Trump is still planning on meeting with (Chinese) President Xi Jinping in the next few weeks and the market is really sensitive to that information," said Matthew Kruse, president of CommStock Investments.

While the Trump-Xi meeting is interesting, Brazil has a large crop of soybeans that was just harvested, and Chinese companies have a lot of infrastructure right now to move those Brazilian beans.

"China really does not need our soybeans, so fundamentally it's hard for an analyst like me to get too excited over this because when we look at the hard fact, what makes sense for China to be doing?" Kruse said. "And our beans are not competitively priced with Brazil right now."

Kruse suggested buying $11 November puts for soybeans and sell an $11.70 call, which would cost about 10 cents. That would put your price protection at $10.90 a bushel on the floor, but would create some upside risk if there was a harvest rally. At the same time, Kruse said farmers will have the physical grain that is going up in value as well to offset that upside risk.

"You could just buy the puts, but then it is more expensive," Kruse explained to DTN. "Just depends how much you want to spend on protection. This was just a simple way to get it done with a low cost."

Noting the February soybean rally, Seifried said South America's production is already made, so now might be a time to protect against a downside decline.

Seifried pitched either selling cash or July futures -- currently at $11.83 -- then buying a call at $12.20.

Such a move protects against the risk of a summer price collapse, though basis will also come into play. Buying the $12.20 call also offers a chance to capture some gains if prices rally as well. At 19 cents in costs, the price floor becomes $11.64, but soybeans on July futures would need to rally above $12.39 to start capturing some upside.

The soybean crop insurance price settled on Friday at $11.09, providing an $8.87 price protection with 80% coverage.

OLD CROP IN THE BINS

Usset has a couple of characters he uses -- Hank Holder and May Seller -- to make some points on marketing old crops.

Both Holder and Seller have unpriced bushels in the bin on their farms. The only difference between the two of them is Seller prices her corn or soybeans at some point in late spring -- hence the name "May."

Holder continues holding on to his grain until he's close to harvest for his new crop. Usset said Holder is "breaking the 11th commandment" of corn and soybean marketing. "Thou shalt not hold unpriced corn or soybeans in the bin beyond July 1," he said.

Looking at 36 years of pricing, Seller is marketing her crops at the high point of the year -- on average. Holder is typically selling his old crops at a low point in the year for pricing. Those are averages, and in any given year, the average could be wrong, but Hank Holder typically loses out to May Seller when it comes to both corn and soybeans, he said.

"May is beating Hank three out of four years with a margin of greater than 10%," Usset said.

On soybeans, Seller typically beats Holder by $1 a bushel.

Holder has lost out to Seller five years in a row now at more than 10%. He might be due for a win, but the same odds apply every single year.

"So just keep that in mind if you've got old crop," Usset said. He added, "I'm going to make some phone calls in mid-July ... and if I call you, you better step into the bin and I want to hear an echo."

Kluis offered similar advice. "There has been way more money lost by farmers hanging on too long than selling too early. Sell it, price it, cash the check and keep going."

USDA ACREAGE/SURVEYS

USDA's initial acreage outlook projected 94 million acres of corn and 85 million acres of soybeans.

Views are split on how that plays out.

One analyst said, "I think they are underestimating corn acres again this year in their preliminary report, so we'll see."

Another suggested, "We've had a nice rally here in the beans, which means they are probably buying in more acres."

Analysts also were critical of how far off USDA was on corn acreage last year -- moving from 94 million acres to 98.8 million acres as the crop year progressed. They agreed it is difficult to make marketing decisions when USDA keeps finding more acres for the corn crop.

Kluis said he sincerely feels farmers should participate in USDA surveys. One of the reasons the data isn't as accurate is the farmer participation rate is now less than 60%. In some surveys, USDA officials say the participation rate has fallen below 50%.

"The grain companies are all doing surveys. Hedge funds are doing surveys. The only way we can have a level playing field is if we provide USDA with accurate data on our acres, yields and grain in the bin. I hope you will consider doing that. If you stopped doing the surveys, please start again," Kluis said.

Chris Clayton can be reached at Chris.Clayton@dtn.com

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