Fundamentally Speaking

Early July Corn & Bean Ratings Above Average

Joel Karlin
By  Joel Karlin , DTN Contributing Analyst

Early July 2015 corn and bean ratings actually above average

While the heavy rains in June have pared both planted and harvested acreage for this year's corn and especially soybean crops, the trade is wondering whether enough damage has been done for USDA to lower the projected row crop yields in this Friday's WASDE report.

Despite widespread trade expectations that crop conditions for corn would continue to slide, they actually improved over the past week with 69% of the national crop as of yesterday rated either in the good or excellent categories, up 1% from last week. 

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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 this week's rating is 746.

Even though this is the second lowest rating as of July 5th since 2008 the accompanying graphic shows this is still above the 1986-2014 average of 742 and it is even higher than the ten year average of 736.

Furthermore this week's figure is very close to the extrapolated 7/5/13 rating of 749 and the 7/5/11 rating of 748, and both years the USDA kept its July corn yield estimate unchanged from its June projection.

We also note talk that the USDA may also lower its 2015 soybean yield projection but there is even less precedent for such action than in corn unless it's a disastrous year like 2012 when it was lowered by 3.4 bpa due to extreme drought conditions.

This week's soybean crop rating, unchanged at 63% in the good or excellent categories, was also a surprise to the trade anticipating a 1-3% combined decline.

Furthermore, while this week's crop rating using our system clocked in at 726, also the second lowest since 2008, it is above the ten and 30 year averages of 722 and 719 respectively.

(KA)

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Comments

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Fred Stites
7/9/2015 | 2:45 PM CDT
I am with Raymond. Got unsold old crop and bin space to carry to next year. Can remember 95/96. Wet trending year but no prevent planting causing concern. Market and USDA thinks rain makes grain, however, the saying "Worry to death in a dry year, starve to death in a wet". Second year with bins in 95/96, harvest price, if I remember correctly, sub $3.00. Was not until the spring when low production became apparent. Sold 5.93 beans in Feb, 5.35 corn in May! Paid for bin twice! Only takes a couple of weeks of wet weather at the right time to cause big losses, had that last year. Wet here in Delaware.
HARLEY DRAKE
7/9/2015 | 7:52 AM CDT
This years crop has a lot of problems, soybean growth is way behind average, corn fields have a lot of holes in them!
Raymond Simpkins
7/7/2015 | 4:57 PM CDT
Really,are you kidding!!!You guys are living in a dream world,you need to get out of the office. USDA can stick their rating system. You brought up 2012 and I believe that year actual yields were off 21 bu. after harvest ,So how good is their rating? Bare corn fields don't yield well. Get in contact with growers in Ind. Oh.and Ill.and see what they have. We have very good corn in a small area but the beans suck. Someone needs to show me how corn conditions can improve in a week of heavy rain. The stunted yellow corn will never improve with nitrogen lost and roots standing in water. We've had corn like that before and it does not recover even with normal weather the rest of the season. I for one am going to wait to price this crop.