Weather and Market Commentary- August 18, 2009

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Weather and Market Commentary- August 18, 2009

August 18, 2009 by sabrina829

Tuesday, August 18, 2009:

Crop progress and crop condition numbers released on Monday afternoon confirmed what the markets already knew: we have some nice looking corn and soybean crops this year, but it is going to be a race to get them all to maturity before we see our first fall frost. National corn and soybean ratings were unchanged this week, but this comes at a time of year when normally we start to see ratings slip a bit (as the crops do not “look” as good as they start to move into the process of maturing). The national corn rating of 68 percent good/excellent is the highest rating given to the crop at this time of year since 2004, and is tied with 1998 for the fourth highest rating since 1994. The national soybean rating of 66 percent good/excellent was also the highest for the middle of August since 2004, and is the third highest since 1994. With regards to maturing, it is the corn crop that is clearly the slower of the two. 40 percent of the Nation’s corn crop has reached the dough stage, behind the (slow) 46 percent pace of a year ago. I would call this the third slowest maturing crop since 1990, behind only the crops of 1993 and 1995.

At least ten percent of the crop had not even reached the silking stage this week in the Dakotas and Wisconsin; it is hard to believe that all of that acreage will make it to maturity before frost hits this fall. Just nine percent of Minnesota’s corn crop had reached the dough stage this week; other than 1993, I show that to be the slowest maturing Minnesota corn crop going back to at least 1990. 46 percent of the Illinois corn has reached the dough stage this week; that may not seem bad, but I show it to be the slowest maturing Illinois corn crop in at least two decades. 72 percent of the Nation’s soybean crop has started to set pods; that is behind last year and well behind the 5-year average, but admittedly is a good distance ahead of years like 1990, 1993, and 1995. The fact that the crops are maturing so late is likely allowing them to take better advantage of an uptick in rainfall seen in most of the Corn Belt this month (something that we did not see in last year’s crop, and yields likely suffered as a result, especially soybeans). It still looks like a “coolish” weather pattern (i.e. no sustained above-normal temperatures, with some days featuring below normal readings) coming up for the end of this week and into next week, so we are not going to be seeing the crops “pushed” towards maturity during the final days of this month.