When Pioneer Hi-Bred International senior market analyst Virgil Robinson spoke to 40 young farmers near Des Moines, Iowa on Wednesday, December corn futures had hit $2.60. That's a good price, he said. Year in and year out, new crop corn futures may hit $2.50 to $2.60 some time during the year, "but often not more than that."

In fact, unless drought conditions in the central Corn Belt worsen, Robinson sees about 50 cents of downside risk in those midsummer new-crop futures, according to a balance sheet prepared by Iowa's State University Agricultural Economist Bob Wisner.

"I think his work is top notch," Robinson told participants chosen by the National FFA Organization to attend this year's New Century Farmer conference, sponsored by Pioneer and Rabobank.

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He recommended Wisner's website, www.econ.iastate.edu/faculty/wisner, along with others from Pioneer, and land grant universities in Illinois, Kansas and Michigan. Wisner's best-case scenario for fall corn futures puts them at $2.45 if crop conditions worsen.

Robinson recommended that the students' farm families consider pricing a portion of their 2006 crops if prices hold up. Next year's U.S. farm income could still be among the top five of the past 15 years. And with high energy and input prices, he expects cash expenses to hit a record $192 billion in 2006.

At harvest, he recommends making sales decisions partly on local basis, not futures. "It's probably the most accurate barometer of the degree of demand locally," he says. Considering the stocks of corn and soybeans, right now, it looks like the market will reward storing corn and selling beans, he said.

"Think about the returns on storing corn," he said, "in contrast to a strong, demand-driven soybean market where they want your inventory today."