Crop conditions were a mixed bag this week, with corn losing a point over last week’s progress.
The nation’s corn crop is sitting at 67 percent in the top category, which is down a point from last week but well ahead of last year at this time. 68 percent of soybeans are rated good to excellent, gaining one point. 74 percent of spring wheat is coming out on top, with 6 percent already in the bag. Winter wheat harvest is 88 percent complete, two points ahead of the five-year average.
Economists with Kansas State University say market conditions are reactive to crop ratings, but right now, they lack any signs of risk.
“We don’t have any risk premium in these markets. Basically we’re we’re seeing good crop condition ratings and especially as you use this kind of numbers-oriented quantified view of things that the AI trading and more increased AI trading has brought. Hey you know it says if it gets a signal that we’ve got good crop ratings and we’ve come through a certain time frame, then boom, we go right to that, we go right to that market outcome with high yields and we really aren’t as likely to retain any yield risk yet. I think it sure seems anecdotally anyway just observations in one year. That sure seems to be what’s happening here. We, you know, we just don’t have any signals that there are those types of crop production problems,” said Dr. Dan Obrien.
Around one-third of old crop corn is still in storage in the United States, and with little hopes of a rally in the coming days, some farmers are starting to cut their losses.
