Grain prices have already printed their harvest lows, according to Dan Basse, president of Ag Resource Company, and he says farmers should treat any rally from here as a selling opportunity rather than a reason to wait.

The timing matters. Basse says grain markets hit their annual lows in late June. Then prices took another leg down after USDA released its Quarterly Grain Stocks report in September — the standard September 30 data drop that reshapes old-crop balance sheets and often resets basis ahead of harvest.

"We now believe the market is going" — Basse's fuller forecast was cut off in the published report, but his core call stands on its own: the lows are in, and the marketing playbook for growers should shift accordingly.

What does this change for growers holding old and new crop?

In practice, Basse's message directs farmers to reward rallies as harvest progresses. That means pricing incrementally into strength instead of holding unpriced bushels for a post-harvest recovery that, in his read, isn't coming. For operations carrying 2024 crop into bins, each rally becomes a risk-management decision: sell cash, hedge, or roll — not sit.

The pattern Basse describes follows a familiar seasonal rhythm. Annual lows in late June, a second downdraft tied to the September Quarterly Grain Stocks report, and then harvest-time trade. When an analyst with Ag Resource Company's global reach calls the lows "in," he's telling clients the downside has been priced and the remaining risk skews toward opportunity — fleeting, rally-shaped opportunity.

Why the September stocks report keeps setting the floor

USDA's Quarterly Grain Stocks report, issued four times a year with the September release landing September 30, is one of the market's hardest data points. It measures actual inventories on and off farm as of September 1. Larger-than-expected stocks pressure prices; tighter stocks lift them. Basse points to this September's report as the trigger for the second leg lower in grains — evidence that old-crop supplies weighed on the market deeper into the calendar than the June lows alone.

For farmers, that sequence compressed the window for profitable old-crop sales. Anyone who missed the pre-June strength faced a market that, in Basse's framing, revisited the lows once USDA's bins count hit the trade.

The marketing instruction is simple: sell the rallies

Basse's directive is blunt. Harvest is progressing, lows are in, and rallies are for rewarding — grower shorthand for making sales, pricing bushels, and capturing basis when the board offers it. He isn't forecasting a demand-driven bull run; he's framing rallies as gifts the market hands growers during harvest logistics, when basis can tighten as country movement slows.

The analyst isn't telling farmers to dump everything at once. Rewarding rallies, as the term functions in farm marketing, means scaling sales into strength — selling thirds or increments as price targets hit, using the rallies Basse expects rather than hoping for a recovery above them.

Watch what confirms or breaks the call

Two things will test Basse's thesis from here. First, harvest progress itself: pace and yields determine how much new-crop pressure remains after the combines finish. Second, USDA's next major data sets — including the follow-on supply and demand updates — will show whether the September stocks shock fully reset the balance sheet or left another surprise in the pipeline.

For now, Basse's floor is firm in his own analysis: late June marked the annual low, September marked the retest, and farmers who want margin from this crop should plan to sell strength as harvest rolls on.