Corn saw less area planted this year, but yields are also way off thanks to a watery June.
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Richard Feltes at Chicago broker RJ O’Brien said that “central and eastern Midwest row crop yields continue to fall short of expectations”.
The USDA will begin reporting soybean harvest progress in next week’s report.
USDA crop statistician Mark Schleusener reviews the latest corn and soybean numbers. In the 20 years from 1995 through 2014, the September yield forecast was lower than the August forecast in 10 years.
But the forecast is still larger than a year ago.
“There is a feeling the rise (in wheat) may have been overdone”. Analysts’ pre-report estimates and key output figures from Friday’s World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates report appear in Figure 1.
The reduction reflects increases in the estimates of domestic processing uses and exports of corn during the marketing year just ended.
“The USA dollar stabilising, or even retreating on some currencies, eliminates that “auto pilot” downward pressure” on U.S. prices, Mr Gorey said.
Dryness in Australia and Russian Federation, two major wheat producers, also buoyed prices for the grain, as did reports of a freeze in grain-producing regions of Brazil.
The September corn futures gained 25 cents this week to close at $3.745/bushel.
And that was better than December wheat managed, easing 0.4% to $4.99 ¼ a bushel – signally, falling back below the psychologically important $5-a-bushel mark.
Statewide corn production is forecast at 224 million bushels, up 1 percent from the August forecast but down 1 percent from the previous crop.
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Corn prices extended gains to their sixth straight session, rising in the wake of the USDA’s outlook on Friday for lower corn production and higher soybean production.
