Fundamentally Speaking

In as blog piece earlier this month we noted that this year's week 24 (around June 20) U.S. corn rating of 696 is the lowest since at least 1990, and the combined 55% either good or excellent is the second lowest since 1990 with only 1992 worse at just 52% good or excellent.

1992 also the had second lowest rating of 698 using our usual ratings system where we weight the crop based on the percent in each category and assign that category a factor of 2 for very poor, 4 for poor, 6 for fair, 8 for good, and 10 for excellent and then sum the results.

Last Tuesday's weekly corn crop condition rating released by the USDA was a real shot across the bow as percent of corn rated good or excellent as noted was just 55%, down 6% from the prior week when trade was looking for just a 2-3 % drop.

In this chart we go a little deeper and look at the week 24 corn ratings for the top 18 corn producing states and U.S. for 2023, the 1990-2023 average and low rating since 1990 on the left-hand axis while reported on the right-hand axis is the percent that the 2023-week 24 rating deviated from the 1990-2023 average.

Again, this year's U.S. rating of 696 is the worst at least since 1990 and is 6.4% below average.

Illinois at 636 also has its lowest week 24 rating since 1990 at 13.4% below average, Michigan is at its lowest at 606 with the largest drop vs average at 17.4%, while Pennsylvania is also seeing its worst week 24 rating since 1990 at 648, down 15.8% from its average.

NE, SD and WI are seeing their third worst ratings since 1990 with IN, IA, KS, KY and MO also not faring well at all.

In fact, the only two states that have week 24 corn ratings above their 1990-2023 average are Colorado and Texas, two states that have seen recent rains that came too late to help their hard red winter wheat crop but have been quite beneficial in boosting their corn crop potential at least so far this season.

These two states also have ratings well above year ago levels especially Texas, with NC and OH also above their 2022-week 24 rating with KS and MN about steady.

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