Crop Conditions Slip

Alert: First Notice for August Soybeans is on Thursday, July 31st

Grains are trading lower in Chicago, with corn down 3 cents, soybeans off 10 and wheat unchanged to lower. This morning there were reportable sales of 135,000 metric tons of new crop Soymeal to unknown destinations and another 147,000 metric tons of corn to columbia for new crop delivery.

Crop conditions were released yesterday after the market close, with good-to-excellent ratings falling for both corn and soybeans. Corn is now rated 75% G/E, down a percent from the previous week. Soybean conditions fell 2% and is now rated 71% G/E. Soybeans have found some strength on weather concerns in recent sessions as the western corn belt has been dry as we enter pod fill. Looking at progress - 38% of soybeans are now filling pods and corn is 78% silking. 83% of winter wheat is now harvested.

Weather outlook seems to be supportive of a substantial rain event starting around the middle of next week and peaking during the weekend. The weather outlook favors the southwestern part of the grain belt which would eliminate any concerns for soybean yield in that area. Areas which could continue seeing dryness are parts of ND, SD, MN, WI, southern MI and northern OH.

This morning Ukragroconsult raised its 2014 corn and wheat harvest forecasts for Ukraine. The wheat forecast was raised to 21 million tons from 20.5 million tons and the corn forecast was lifted to 27 million tons from 25.5 million tons, both of which are now in line with the estimates released in the July WASDE report. As of July 28th, Ukrainian farmers have harvested over 17.04 million acres and gathered a total of 23.6 million metric tons of grain. Of the grain harvested, the agricultural ministry said 16.3 million metric tons of it was wheat and 6.8 million metric tons of it was barley.

—Cody Bills