Crop / Weather Update

Crop / Weather Update

Corn Crop Condition Percent of Acreage Rated Good or Excellent 85 80 75 70 65 60 55 50 45 In its weekly Crop Progress Report for September 16, the USDA stated the 18-state average reading at 68% good-toexcellent, which was unchanged from last week. In fact, the ratings for all five categories were unchanged from the week prior. The good-excellent figure also matched industry expectations, so no futures reaction is anticipated. As has routinely been the case this summer, the 2018 readings have easily exceeded comparable year ago and 10-year average results, at 61% and 60%, respectively. The most notable changes from last week were a 9% jump in Colorado conditions to 79% goodexcellent and an 8% dive, to just 33% good-excellent, in those for North Carolina. This obviously reflected the impact of Hurricane Florence. Another decline seems likely next week as well. Overall, conditions improved in 6 states, declined in 7 and remained unchanged in 5. As for the heart of the Corn Belt, the Nebraska reading was unchanged at 82%, as was the Iowa result at 73%. Those for Illinois and Indiana both slipped 1%, to 76% and 71%, respectively. The Ohio reading was unchanged at 79%.

Corn Harvesting Progress 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% 9/9 9/16 9/23 9/30 10/7 10/14 10/21 10/28 11/4 11/11 11/18 11/25 The USDA stated the corn harvest at 9% complete as of September 16. That was slightly ahead of last year s 7% rate, but matched the 10-year average. Conversely, it fell 1% behind industry expectations at 10%, which might spur some buying in Chicago futures. The 10-year mean implies a result around 14% complete next week. As one would expect with Hurricane Florence looming, North Carolina had harvested 66% of that state s crop by Sunday, up 23% from the week prior. The Texas harvest also reached 66% complete, but last week s rains apparently limited weekly progress to just 3%. Harvest is not nearly so far advanced in the mainline Corn Belt states, with Illinois leading with 12% combined. The Indiana harvest is 7% complete, but Iowa, Nebraska and Ohio have only just begun at 2%, 4% and 2%, respectively.

Cotton Crop Condition Percent of Acreage Rated Good or Excellent 70 65 60 55 50 45 40 35 30. Despite the negative impact Hurricane Florence had upon cotton conditions in the Carolinas and Virginia, the 15-state reading published by the USDA today (9/17) actually edged up one percentage point to 39% good-to-excellent. That remained well below comparable year-ago and 10-year average levels at 61% and 48%, respectively. The reason for the overall improvement was rather clear; improved conditions in the Southern Plains boosted the Texas crop reading 4% to 22% good-excellent and the Oklahoma result 9% to 29% good-excellent. The huge Texas acreage then more than offset the respective 14%, 11% and 5% declines suffered by the North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia crops. The fact that the Louisiana reading rose 5% probably helped the overall reading rise, despite the fact that state condition losses outnumbered gains 8 to 6. The California reading remained at 100% good-excellent.

Cotton Harvesting Progress 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% 9/9 9/16 9/23 9/30 10/7 10/14 10/21 10/28 11/4 11/11 11/18 11/25 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% The U.S. cotton harvest advanced just 3% over the last week, with the September 16 reading reaching 13% complete. That s actually abnormally fast, as indicated by last year s mid-september reading at 11% and the 10-year average at just 7%. The strong progress largely reflects speedy advances in Texas (+4% to 22% complete), Louisiana (+6% to 14%), and Arizona (+6% to 14%). Given the rains that fell over Texas and Louisiana over the past 7 days, their progress was rather remarkable. Unfortunately for farmers in the Carolinas and Virginia, it s apparent that their cotton simply wasn t ready for harvest, since they all ended last week with 2% or less of their crops harvested. They may also suffer from the improved condition and harvest progress made in the Southern Plains, since those results may weigh upon ICE cotton futures.

Rice Crop Condition Percent of Acreage Rated Good or Excellent 80 75 70 65 60 55 50 45 The rice crop condition this week is 74% good/excellent, down one point from the prior three weeks. However, the rice crop finished strong, 5 points above the year-ago condition and 9 points above the 10-year average. Since harvest is almost 50% complete (came in at 49% this week), this is the last week we will run the rice crop condition. There weren t a lot of changes in the individual states from last week. As a matter of fact, only one state had any change, and that was Missouri. Missouri s rice crop condition decreased to 71% good/excellent (down 4 points) and 10% in the poor condition category. Missouri has the most rice in poor condition, which translates to 4% poor condition for the national average. This is up one point from last week. Missouri has suffered from hot and dry weather again this growing season. Texas continues to have the lowest good/excellent category at 49%; however, most of its crop has been harvested.

Rice Harvesting Progress 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% 8/5 8/12 8/19 8/26 9/2 9/9 9/16 9/23 9/30 10/7 10/14 This week, the rice crop harvest is 49% complete, up 9% from last week. This is 4 points behind where harvest was last year at this time; however, it is 2 points above the 10-year average. So, things seem to be moving ahead just fine. All six major rice-growing states have now started their harvest with Texas being almost complete at 94% and Louisiana at 93%, which is typical for this time in September. Mississippi is further along this year at 70% complete, compared to 60% last year. Missouri made good progress, up 12 points to 21% complete, but this is 5 points behind last year. Arkansas is also behind last year at 47% complete as opposed to 56% in 2017. Finally, California is 6% complete, which is 3 points ahead of 2017 s harvest.

Soybean Crop Condition Percent of Acreage Rated Good or Excellent 80 75 70 65 60 55 50 45 40 6/3 6/17 7/1 7/15 7/29 8/12 8/26 9/9 9/23 10/7 This week s soybean crop condition rating is 67% good/excellent, which is 8 points above the year-ago and 10-year average, and down one point from last week. Soybean harvest has now begun, but there are still a few weeks left of condition ratings. When looking at individual states and their ratings, 9 states decreased while 5 states increased and 4 remained the same from the week before. The largest drop came in North Carolina at a decrease of 8 points to 55% good/excellent, which is no surprise due to Hurricane Florence. However, it doesn t affect the national rating too much since this state does not produce a majority of the U.S. soybeans. Other significant drops were Mississippi, down 4 points to 66%, and Wisconsin, down 3 points, to 74%. The other decreases were between 1 and 2 points, which is typical for this time of year. States with increases were: Missouri, up 3 points to 46% good/excellent; Kentucky, up 2 points to 79%; Michigan, up 2 points to 65%; Nebraska, up 2 points to 84% and South Dakota, up 1 point to 60%. Nebraska has the highest rating of all states, followed closely by Ohio (79% again this week) and Illinois (77%, down 2 from last week). Missouri continues to be the only state that does not have at least a 50% rating in the good/excellent categories, even though the state s crop did improve this week, and currently has 24% of the crop in poor and very poor conditions. Overall, poor and very poor conditions are at 10% this week.

Soybean Harvesting Progress 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% 9/17 9/24 10/1 10/8 10/15 10/22 10/29 11/5 11/12 11/19 This is the first week for soybean harvest reporting, and it comes in at 6% complete, which is 2 points above the yearago and 10-year average. Many states began harvesting this week, and those include: Iowa (2% complete), Indiana (2%), Missouri (2%), Nebraska (3%), North Carolina (3%), Wisconsin (1%) and Ohio (1%). Arkansas only has 9% complete, compared to 23% last year during this same week; and Louisiana is up 9 points to 51% complete. Mississippi also has a good start at 33% complete. However, all 3 of these states are behind where they were yearago. Kansas and Michigan haven t begun their harvests yet. States that are ahead of year-ago harvest and explain the slight overall progress this year are: Illinois (4%, up 3 points), Kentucky (8%, up 4), Minnesota (7%, up 5), North Dakota (10%, up 8), Tennessee (8%, up 5 points) and South Dakota (6%, up 6).

Winter Wheat Planting Progress 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% 9/9 9/16 9/23 9/30 10/7 10/14 10/21 10/28 11/4 11/11 11/18 USDA crop scouts stated winter wheat planting progress across the 18 main growing states at 13% complete, which fell between the year-ago figure at 12% and the 10-year average at 14%. Washington farmers followed up on their strong start, getting another 18% of their ground seeded and boosting total progress to 47% complete as of September 16. Actually, that s not terribly unusual, since the five-year average for Washington is 44% complete at this point. South Dakota plantings surged 22% to 29% complete, which is 6% ahead of the 5-year mean. Other states with plantings over 20% done are Colorado (24%), Idaho (24%) and Nebraska (22%). The Kansas crop is 7% complete, which matched the five-year average, while Oklahoma plantings surged 10% to 12% done; that s 1% ahead of the norm.

Weather The map summarizes rainfall over the past week to Monday. The major headline news was the landfall of Hurricane Florence near Wilmington, North Carolina, on Friday morning. The remnants of the storm moved slowly and thus dumped prodigious rainfall totals in southeastern N Carolina and northeastern S Carolina. As of 4 am on Monday, Swansboro, NC, reported total rains of 33.89 inches. An additional 14 NC stations totaled over 20 inches. The largest total for SC was 18.13 inches at Marion. Amounts were subject for additional increase as rains continued. A tropical event in the Gulf brought heavy downpours to the southern half of Texas. Otherwise, the week found little or no rainfall across broadly the central U.S.

Weather The map displays Monday s seven-day rainfall forecast to next Monday. It is an about face from the results of the past week revealed above and apparently a return to the pattern observed for many previous weeks. National Weather Service forecast models predict rains for the western Corn Belt over the next 2-3 days. After that, the front is projected to drift south and eastward. According to NWS, this will produce much above average rains from the Texas Panhandle up to Iowa on Friday-Saturday. The system would then continue to the east with moderate to heavy rains from the mid- Mississippi River Valley into the eastern Midwest on Saturday to Monday. The rains would be expected to disrupt the harvest and could produce some moderate yield and quality losses to mature but not harvested fields.

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