Tennessee farmer Todd Littleton is thousands of miles from the Strait of Hormuz, but he's seeing the early fallout from the shipping lane's effective closure as fighting continues in and around Iran. The turmoil couldn't have come at a worse time, as planting season starts. Littleton has 4,000 acres for corn (C00), wheat (W00) and soybeans (S00). Now he's facing an unplanned $50-per-acre increase in the cost of nitrogen, a critical fertilizer, for his corn crop. Diesel fuel is up 50 cents a gallon, he said, and the natural gas (NG00) used to heat the Gibson County farmer's poultry houses is more expensive too. ... (full story)