Grain producers price grain prior to harvest to reduce financial risk and to enhance net returns. Since accomplishing the second objective is debatable, alternative corn and soybean pre-harvest options/hedge marketing strategies were designed to test the hypothesis that pre-harvest pricing could generate statistically higher average net returns than harvest sales, without increasing income variability. Weekly seasonal futures price patterns from 1975 to 1994 were used to time marketings. The strategies were applied to Iowa and Ohio model farms. For the 1985-96 period, the hypothesis was accepted.
