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 Corn condition this week is the same as last week in the good/excellent category, which is 68%. Usually, at the end of the growing season, there s a historical trend for the good/excellent rating to increase. However, 68% is still above last year s rating and the 10-year average at 65% and 62%, respectively. This week s 68% came in one point above industry expectations. As for the individual states, seven states had the same good/excellent rating two weeks in a row, and those include states that grow a large portion of the corn in the U.S., including Illinois (80% good-excellent), Kansas (47%), Missouri (28%) and South Dakota (64%). Several more states had very little change, up or down 1 point from the week before, and those crucial corn states are Iowa (down 1% to 69% good-excellent), Indiana (up 1% to 73%), Michigan (up 1% to 55%), Nebraska (up 1% to 80%) and Ohio (down 1% to 82%). The biggest changes came in Colorado, down 5% to 68% good-excellent, and Tennessee, down 4% to 76% good-excellent; however these didn t have much bearing on the overall rating because of the smaller amounts of corn grown in these states.

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 Corn harvest this week is coming in at 39% complete, which is one point below the 10-year average, but 12 points above last year s slow progress. The rainfall in several states may have held up harvest this week for corn producers. States that are considerably behind their 5-year average for harvest completion at this point in October are: Colorado and Iowa, each 7 points behind; Pennsylvania 9 points behind and South Dakota 4 points behind. On the flip side, there are states where corn producers are ahead of their 5-year average in completing harvest, and those are Illinois ahead 17 points, Missouri ahead 14 points, Indiana ahead 12 points, Kentucky ahead 5 points and finally Michigan ahead 4 points. Analysts expectations for this week were at 41% complete, so actual corn harvest is slightly behind expectations.

Cotton Crop Condition Percent of Acreage Rated Good or Excellent 70 65 60 55 50 45 40 35 30. The condition of the U.S. cotton crop has clearly run below historical norms through 2018, as exemplified by the 42% good-excellent reading as of October 7. But the damage done by Hurricane Michael cut the national ratings rather dramatically, with the 15-state average for the week ended October 14 diving to 34% good-excellent. Moreover, sustained rainfall over the southern Plains hurt the ratings for Texas and Kansas. As one would expect, the damage done to Georgia cotton was severe, as the good-excellent rating dove 43% to just 16%. The Alabama rating fell 17% to 63%, the South Carolina crop reading was down 10% to 48% and the Virginia crop was rated 9% lower at 68% good-excellent. Given recent talk of over a million bales of Southeastern cotton being gone with the wind, it will be interesting to see if cotton futures rally in response to this data. Surprisingly, the North Carolina rating improved 2% to 35% good excellent. Southern Plains rainfall cut the top Texas readings 1% to 27% good-excellent, and the Kansas ratings fell 8% to 66%.

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% As usual, the pace of the cotton harvest sped up again last week, as indicated by the 15-state average completion rate at 32%, which was up 7% from the week prior. That compares well to the year-ago pace at 32% and is significantly ahead of the 10-year average harvest pace at 27% complete. As one would expect, producers in the Southeast apparently accelerated their activity ahead of Hurricane Michael. With the Georgia harvest surging 8% to 20% done, Alabama picking rising 9% to 28%, South Carolina harvesting climbing 8% to 18% and the North Carolina completion rate more than doubling (up 9%) to 17% done. The Texas harvest advanced just 2% to 30% complete, while picking in the Delta states plus Missouri all surged to 60% complete or above.

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 88% complete, up 9 points from last week. This is 2 points below last year s harvest. The 10-year average for this time of year is 84% complete, so rice producers are 5 points ahead of the average this year. When looking at each of the six major rice-growing states individually, as reported last week, Texas has finished harvesting, and now Louisiana has also. Arkansas is ahead of the fiveyear average by 2 points at 90% complete, and Mississippi is ahead also, by 4 points, at 94% complete. Missouri and California producers made large gains in harvesting this week. Missouri is now 85% complete, up 14 points from last week. After a slow start, California is now 60% complete, up 30 points from last week, but still 8% behind the 5-year average. This will most likely be our last week to report rice harvesting.

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 The latest Crop Progress Report saw soybean condition ratings slip 2% in the good/excellent (G/E) category to settle at 66% in the week ending October 14th. This compared to average trade guesses of 67% and 61% last year. Heavy rains across much of the country in recent weeks are beginning to show signs of affecting the mature crops that remain unharvested in fields. Of the 18 states tracked by USDA, 13 showed declining ratings, 4 were unchanged and just 1 state reflected improving conditions. Largest declines were seen in North Dakota (-7%); Iowa, Kansas and Ohio (-5%) and Missouri and Tennessee (-4%). Steady crop ratings were found primarily in the Delta and central Corn Belt, while North Carolina s soybean ratings improved by 4%. Despite the declining conditions, this year s soybean ratings remain well-ahead of both last year and the previous 10-year average. We would not be surprised to see some additional declines should current issues persist, but would also be quick to note that the US soybean market could absorb some production losses given expectations for ballooning ending stocks in the 2018/19 marketing year.

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 The week-ending October 14 th proved to be a slow one in terms of the national soybean harvest progress. This afternoon s update showed that combining advanced just 6% to reach 38%-harvested as of Sunday. This falls 2% below the average trade guess, and has slipped to 9% below last year s pace. Largest advances occurred in Tennessee (16%), Ohio (13%), Missouri and Arkansas (12%) and Indiana (11%). Progress was the slowest across South Dakota, Iowa and Minnesota at just 1%. The national corn harvest pace was slow as well this week, and we continue to hear farmers suggest that corn cutting will take priority over soybeans in the weeks to come. A continued slow pace would likely see more acres of soybeans go unharvested this year.

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 The 2018 US winter wheat seeding campaign posted a solid week despite wetter conditions and reached 65%-complete. This was spot-on with the average published trade guess, and marked an 8% increase weekover-week. The states posting the largest advances this week included Indiana (19%), Ohio (18%), Idaho (17%) and Illinois and Montana (14%). Kansas (4%), Nebraska (2%) as well as California and North Carolina (1%) saw the slowest progress. Comparing this year s progress with 2017, we see that the key HRWproducing states of Kansas and Oklahoma are both well-ahead of last year s pace, while some SRWproducing areas are falling behind last year s seeding pace. The market will keep an eye out for further progress, as slow row-crop harvests could delay winter wheat seedings before key hard freeze dates.

Weather Last week we noted the potential threat of Hurricane Michael that was projected with its heaviest rains at the Florida Panhandle and from there was expected to deliver drenching rains from Georgia to the Carolinas. Even though risks to crops were likely, the severity was underestimated as Michael picked up energy instead of diminishing as it neared landfall. As we know, its wind speeds were just a couple miles per hour short of the highest category 5 and it laid down a path of tremendous destruction. Among the most visibly impacted was cotton damage in Georgia. Georgia cotton rated poor to very poor totaled 25% and 29% respectively versus 1% and 8% last week. N Carolina is now 31% P-VP versus 27%. Meanwhile, it was another week of much above average precip west of the Mississippi River, including areas of snow from the central Plains up into the western Corn Belt. The rains were a significant impediment to corn and soybean harvesting and winter wheat seedings. Bean condition lost 2 points, very unusual for so late.

Weather The map displays Monday s seven-day rainfall forecast to next Monday. The forecast map projects heavy rains over central Texas and from there south to the Gulf and east to the Delta. The rains are associated with the front that has finally moved southward from its recent persistence over the central and northern Midwest and Plains. There is good news on the precipitation front for most of the Midwest, central and northern Plains over the next week. Largely, the moisture is moving out of the region and in a few days, harvesting may resume. We also find most of this region projected with below average rains in both the 6-10 and 8-14 day forecast maps.

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