Crop Progress: "Not Much Corn Picking Going On, USDA Reports"
This is why the worries about frost are top of mind. This year's late planting means much of the major crop areas are running two weeks behind schedule so the focus of the crop progress reports shifts from plant conditions to harvest benchmarks.From Allendale via Inside Futures:
Will Harvest Progress Lag Expectations This Week?
Good Morning from Allendale, Inc. with the early morning commentary for October 7, 2019.Grain markets pushed higher ahead of this weeks USDA supply/demand report this Thursday. Weather maps look positive for prices as forecasts are calling for late week snowstorms across North and South Dakota and western Minnesota along with a hard freeze late next week across the northwestern quarter of the corn belt threatening roughly 10-15% of the crop areas.Last week, December corn futures were up 13.50 cents, November soybeans up 33 cents, December wheat up 3.5 cents, December soymeal was up $8.10, and December soyoil was up 103 points.USDA weekly crop progress report will be released today at 3 p.m. CST. Trade is looking for corn harvest rating at 17% complete (11% complete last week, 24% last year, 27% 5-year average). Soybean harvest rating at 13% (7% last week, 31% last year, 34% 5-year average).CFTC Commitments of Traders showed funds new net position short -126,174 corn contracts, short -8,730 soybean contracts, short -21,514 wheat contracts, long +5,887 live cattle contracts and long +19,465 lean hog contracts.The Trump Administration unveiled a plan to boost U.S. biofuels consumption starting next year to help struggling farmers, a move that cheered the agriculture industry but angered Big Oil firms. The plan would require an unspecified increase in the amount of ethanol that oil refiners must add to their fuel in 2020 and would also aim to remove further barriers to the sale of higher ethanol blends of gasoline like E15, the EPA said....MORE
