Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Harvest is slow relative to last year

USDA crop progress by state for the last week shows that the corn and soybean harvest is slower than last year which is consistent with the late planting this year. The question is how this will affect end production given cold weather is coming. This will add variability to the supply equation which will result in more market volatility.

For corn, 39% of the crop has been harvested versus 53%  average for the last five years.  This is the slowest harvest since 2009. Corn shows 60% of the crop being rated good to excellent.  For soybeans, the latest numbers show 11% harvested which is the worst for the data available since 2007. Last year at this time, 41% was harvested. Crop conditions for soybeans show 53% good to excellent which is better than last year but below the 5 year average.

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