Weather Impacts U.S. Yield Estimates

A Guest Column by AgriVisor’s Karl Setzer

trade estimate, and given the recent improvement in crop conditions, we may see an even higher production number in August. Old crop ending stocks were left unchanged at 1.4 bbu, down 50 million bu (mbu) from June. The USDA reduced ethanol demand by 25 mbu and exports by 75 mbu for this year, but increased feed and residual by 150 mbu to reflect the tighter June quarterly stocks. New crop ending stocks are now estimated at 2.26 bbu, up slightly from last month. No changes were made to new crop corn demand. The stocks to use on 2023/24 corn now stands at 15.6% and requires no rationing. The average new crop corn value was left unchanged this month at $4.80.

level where price rationing would be warranted. The U.S. cannot afford any crop loss from this point forward on soybeans. The average new crop soybean price projection increased 30 cents this month to $12.40 per bushel.

While the U.S. production season and crop estimates remain key factors in the market, trade is also focusing attention on the global grain crops. The United Nations is predicting a 2023/24 world grain crop of 2.82 billion metric tons, up 1.1% from 2022/23. Much of this is the result of large wheat crops in several production regions, mainly Russia and South America as countries recover from the La Nina event that trimmed global grain yields.

One of the most highly debated topics in the market right now is U.S. yield potential given recent drought conditions across much of the Corn Belt. The U.S. Department of Agriculture agrees the crops have been stressed but is only adjusting corn yield potential at this time.

The average U.S. corn yield estimate now stands at 177.5 bushels per acre, down 4 bushels from the June projection. Total crop size was bumped up to 15.32 billion bu (bbu) though as harvested acres increased 2.2 million following the June planted acres revision. This level

The USDA left the average U.S. soybean yield unchanged this month at 52 bushels per acre. This is expected to give us a crop of 4.3 bbu which was at the top end of trade guesses. Harvested acres were trimmed on soybeans to reflect the data from the June revisions which gave us the smaller crop. The only change to old crop soybean demand was a 20 mbu reduction to exports. This put 2022-23 ending stocks at 255 mbu, up 25 mbu from June. A large 125 mbu reduction to 2023-24 exports negated much of the lower production figure but still lowered ending stocks to an even 300 mbu. This

The Safrinha harvest in Brazil is also coming in larger than expected this year. Initially it was thought the Safrinha crop may be limited by the delays to the start of the soybean harvest in Brazil. Progress was quickly made up and Safrinha plantings were not delayed as much as expected. When combined with near perfect growing conditions the crop is now expected to total 132 million metric tons, well above last year’s crop.