Crop Watch: Corn conditions below average, soybeans near normal -Braun
The opinions expressed here are those of the author, a market analyst for Reuters.
By Karen Braun
NAPERVILLE, Illinois, June 3 (Reuters) -Wet conditions during and after planting have caused U.S. Crop Watch producers to rate their corn health below that of recent years, though soybeans are doing relatively better.
Each week going forward, Crop Watch producers will assign condition scores to their corn and soybean fields using a scale of 1 to 5. The ratings are similar to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s system where 1 is very poor, 3 is average and 5 is excellent.
However, Crop Watch condition scores are more of a visual assessment and do not incorporate yield assumptions. Yield ratings will come later in the season.
The initial, unweighted average corn condition across 11 fields is 3.68, lower than the 11-field average of 4.02 last year and 4.07 this same week in 2021. Only nine corn fields were scored at this point in 2022 due to later planting, with an average of 4.58, and two weeks later, the initial, 11-field average was 4.25.
The east is looking strong, with Indiana and Ohio producers the only ones to assign a perfect 5 to their corn fields. The lowest rating is 2 in Nebraska, where recent rainfall has been many multiples of normal and emergence is a major issue for a lot of fields.
The other eight producers rated their corn between 3 and 4, with many citing the need for sunshine and more steady periods of rain to help offset some of the uneven emergence associated with excessive rainfall.
The final Crop Watch field, the North Dakota soybeans, was sown last Wednesday, putting the 22-field average planting date at May 3. That is two days later than the 2023 average, a week ahead of the 2022 average and five days later than in 2021.
No soybean condition score is available for North Dakota this week, but the 10-field, unweighted average soybean condition comes in at 3.98, close to the year-ago, 10-field average of 4.0 but below the 10-field average of 4.38 in 2021. Nine soy fields averaged 3.78 this week in 2022.
Perfect scores were given to the beans in Ohio, Indiana and western Illinois, and four other soybean fields had scores of at least 4, including the two in Iowa. Nebraska features the lowest score of 1.5 for similar reasons as the corn.
USDA’S CORN CONDITIONS
USDA is set to publish its first set of U.S. corn conditions on Monday at 3 p.m. CDT (2000 GMT). The agency’s initial corn ratings usually come between late May and mid-June depending on emergence, and the average initial score ranges from 69% to 72% good-to-excellent (GE).
A straight five-year average of initial U.S. corn conditions is 69% GE. The 10-year average is 71% and the 10-year Olympic average, discarding the high of 79% in 2018 and the 59% low from 2019, yields 72% GE.
Last year, USDA’s initial rating of the U.S. corn crop was 69% GE, issued one week earlier than this year, but it fell to 64% a week later and 50% four weeks later amid one of the Corn Belt’s driest Junes. However, last year’s corn yield was record-high.
USDA is not expected to release soybean conditions on Monday, though this may come next week.
Crop Watch follows 11 corn and 11 soybean fields across nine U.S. states, including two each in Iowa and Illinois, and this is the seventh year of the project.
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.
Editing by Rod Nickel
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