Last weekend University of Illinois Extension farm broadcaster Todd Gleason and his Commodity Week radio program guests spoke with Jerry Bange of the World Agricultural Outlook Board. The board is responsible for the WASDE numbers released by USDA Thursday morning. During the radio program Bange explains how USDA came up with the 166 bushel national average corn yield, why this year's ending stocks were raised 50 million bushels, and what considerations USDA will make as it decides how to deal with the release time of future reports as related to the CME Group's 22 hour trading day.

You can listen to the interview online. The Bange interview is about 40 minutes long and starts 18 minutes into the program. Click here to download the mp3 file, or you can visit www.willag.org, scroll down the page and hit the Commodity Week tab.