Crop Watch: Better-than-expected rains offset blazing heat, holding yields -Braun
Repeats column first published on Tuesday. The opinions expressed here are those of the author, a market analyst for Reuters.
By Karen Braun
NAPERVILLE, Illinois, Sept 3 (Reuters) -Last week featured some of the hottest temperatures yet observed this growing season across the U.S. Corn Belt, but the impact was largely offset by rains toward the end of the period, many of which were more abundant than expected.
Six of the 11 Crop Watch producers reported that their crops received more rainfall than expected last week, and seven of them believe their crops have close to enough moisture to finish out the season.
None of the Crop Watch producers mentioned last week’s heat blast necessarily harming their crops, but soybean pods are aborting seeds in Ohio and Kansas, where little to no rain fell last week. Precipitation was also too light in Nebraska, which has not received a good soaking rain since early July.
The next two weeks are forecast to be mostly dry across the entire Corn Belt, which is fine for Crop Watch fields in the Dakotas and Minnesota, but those areas still need heat for corn to mature. Next week may offer better opportunities for that versus this week.
The next seven days are likely to stay cooler than normal from Iowa eastward, which should be mostly favorable for the later stages of grain fill. Most of the Crop Watch producers in the heart of the Corn Belt are expecting a normal harvest schedule for now, with beans starting toward the end of the month.
Crop Watch producers have been rating yield potential on a 1-to-5 scale. Yield potential incorporates both visible and nonvisible elements where 3 is around farm average yield, 4 is solidly above average and 5 is record or close to it.
The 11-field, unweighted average corn yield was unchanged on the week at 3.3 with no individual adjustments. Soybean yield rose slightly to 3.57 from 3.55 last week as trims in Kansas and Ohio were outweighed by boosts in eastern Iowa and North Dakota.
Crop Watch had its first harvest last Wednesday with the Kansas corn, and final yield landed at the expected 2.5, not as good as last year (4.25) but much better than in 2022 (1). The highest yield rating the field carried this season was 3.5 in early July, though subsequent dry weather was limiting.
This was also Crop Watch’s first-ever August harvest. The Kansas corn is usually the first of 22 fields to be completed, but this year’s field had a life span about nine days shorter than in the past two years, possibly highlighting the effect of late-season dryness.
The following are the states and counties of the 2024 Crop Watch corn and soybean fields: Kingsbury, South Dakota; Freeborn, Minnesota; Burt, Nebraska; Rice, Kansas; Audubon, Iowa; Cedar, Iowa; Warren, Illinois; Crawford, Illinois; Tippecanoe, Indiana; Fairfield, Ohio. The North Dakota soybeans are in Griggs County and the corn is in Stutsman County.
Karen Braun is a market analyst for Reuters. Views expressed above are her own.
Graphic- Crop Watch Producers 2024 https://tmsnrt.rs/44kerF2
Writing by Karen Braun
Editing by Matthew Lewis
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