Fall corn and soybean harvest for the U.S. and Ohio as of early October continues to lag behind past years. As of Oct. 8, the U.S. corn harvest was 22% complete and the U.S. soybean harvest was 36% done. The Ohio corn harvest was only 13% while the Ohio soybean harvest was 45% done. Ohio rains that fell during October 6 to 8 were major as rainfall totals ranged from 2 inches to nearly 3.5 inches for much of the state. The resulting harvest halt allowed for rest and the opportunity to complete those repairs, which had been on the back burner. The rains were enthusiastically welcomed by those producers who had been able to plant wheat in early October and then saw emergence quickly take place.
The mood among producers quickly shifted once soils dried out and harvest was underway again. It is now mid-October and daylight hours are shrinking with the passage of each day. The morning sun does finally come but there are hours of dew to burn off before soybean harvest can even begin. It is no longer the pre-season scrimmage game in basketball for example, with months of games yet to follow. It is now the beginning of the fourth quarter. The full court press is on to win the game, completing corn and soybean harvest as quickly and efficiently as possible.
As producers once again returned to the game in clean uniforms there was frustration with corn harvest as moisture levels often rose 2% to 4% following the early October rains. Soybeans yet to be harvested also brought on additional stress. The fear of rain soaked soybean pods swelling and then splitting open, dumping soybeans onto the ground before the combine ever showed up, was huge and ever present.
The Oct. 12 USDA Supply and Demand Report put brought a much welcomed uptick to the mood of producers as the recent bearish reports were almost forgotten. Heavy emphasis on ?almost.? USDA lowered the U.S. soybean yield to 49.5 bushels per acre. It was 49.9 last month. While USDA lowered the soybean yield, they did increase harvested acres. Soybean production was estimated at 4.431 billion bushels, unchanged from September. No one was really surprised to see soybean acres increase. In the bullish surprise for the day, USDA lowered the 2017-18 ending stocks of soybeans to 430 million bushels, down 45 million bushels from the September report. Soybeans on report day were up 26 cents. In addition, some are suggesting China?s imports of soybeans with USDA?s projection of 95 million tons is too low. Other non-related news that same week revealed that China rejected several boats of soybeans imported from Brazil due to poor quality. Some thought those soybeans originated from silo bags in Brazil that could prompt more soybeans to instead come from the U.S.
The U.S. corn yield was estimated at 171.8 bushels per acre, up from the September yield of 169.9. The corn numbers were bearish, resulting in corn moving even lower following the noon report. However, corn did not decline 10 to 15 cents that day on bearish news as seen with previous bearish reports. Instead, soybeans pulled corn 3 cents higher as corn sellers wondered what happened. The technical picture had the corn chart making a new contract low with report day posting a key reversal higher for corn. Old-timer chart followers will suggest that seeing friendly price action on negative news negates the negative news.
World ending stocks for corn and soybean declined while world ending stocks of wheat increased. Those pesky Russians are once again to blame as they had record wheat production this year. It is well known that they desire to become the world?s largest exporter of wheat. Weeks ago they floated the idea of reducing rail rates to move wheat from production areas into export silos. Details are still sketchy as to whether they will push rail rates for other grains higher in order to get record quantities of wheat moved into exportable positions. This story is still being written.
