The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) estimates of March 1 grain stocks last week contained a few surprises, but no major shocks, University of Illinois economist Darrel Good said last week.

Corn stocks in all positions on March 1 totaled 7.01 billion bushels, up 30 percent from March 1, 2013, the USDA said in its grain stocks report.

The estimate was about 100 million less than the average trade guess and implies that feed and residual use of corn in the domestic market during the first half of the current marketing year totaled 3.851 billion bushels, Good said.

Of the total...