It’s Time to Get to Work!

Steve BruceGrains

It’s time to get to work and get the corn and bean crops out of the field and into the bin, and/or other storage unit like ghost malls and parking lots! This is meant as humor yet emphasizes the creative ways that producers and warehousemen adapt!……….. I sense that we will have that “good” problem of having to put corn on the ground, once again, this Fall and this should keep pressure on the basis and the spreads until every bushel finds a home………….The September 12 USDA reports are extremely important and the actual results from early harvesting will be evaluated to verify the validity of the USDA yield estimates……………Tours continue to report that the potential for record yields is very good!………The National Weather Service in its 6 to 10 day forecast and its 8 to 14 day forecast calls for the Heartland to be slightly warmer and wetter than normal which can slow harvest but add bushels to any portion of the crop which was on schedule or slightly behind…………..I sense that the prevailing attitude from end users is to stand back and wait and not chase any rally until the last bushel is out of the field………………A pre harvest/ pre report bounce seems probable as the market has taken out the gains made in July yet, I believe that the upside is limited until we get through harvest…………..

A little bit of the bloom is off of the wheat market given the slippage this past month and the corn/wheat spread comfortably under $2……………We are seeding in the northern hemisphere and the incentive is there yet we are having problems performing in Europe as dryness is still a concern…..Yet, there’s time as, traditionally, we have to mid October to plant………Conditions are great in the US soft red winter wheat sweet spot of the hillier areas of the southern Midwest as there’s enough topsoil moisture to develop a good stand ahead of dormancy……….The weather is never unimportant and circumstances change quickly!

Old crop wheat is still tight and appears to be at the mercy of “export license yes/export license no” whims of the Black Sea origination…………..These decisions are difficult to predict but, WZ sub 535 is leaning more to a “no license” and WZ at 575+ is more of a “yes license”………. I believe that the USDA will keep the world stocks/use ratio very tight in the September 12 report and the only way to cure the fever is with more seeding more acres and more cow bell!