Highlights
Pro Farmer Tour news was somewhat better corn on Tuesday than Monday, but not nearly average yields except one location. Soybean pod counts were actually less than we expected given the August rains in much of the Corn Belt. Reuter’s Karen Braun reported: Pod counts are way down from this same route last year through 5 stops (Hamilton, N Polk & York Counties, Nebraska). Averaging 1167 pods in a 3x3' plot vs 1795 last year.
The USDA announced yesterday morning that 110,000 mt of new crop soybeans were sold to China. Rumors are China is buying new crop US beans as far out as March. September soymeal made a new contract high yesterday of $472.20. China’s September soybean futures were 58 cents per bu higher Tuesday.
The EU’s Monitoring Agricultural Resources (MARS) unit said that corn yields were expected to be 16% below the five-year average. They were at 7.8% decline in July.
Paris milling wheat futures formed an island bottom on the charts yesterday. While it is not a textbook example, it is a bullish pattern.
About ten days ago, Egypt said they had something like 7½ months’ use of wheat on hand. We said at the time that means they will be buying a bunch of wheat soon. Yesterday, Egypt bought 240,000 mt of Russian wheat.
Abitrigo is Brazil’s wheat milling industry organization. They estimated the country’s wheat production at 10 million mt; USDA is currently 8.7 million mt. Keep in mind they want to buy wheat cheap. There was some frost yesterday morning on some of Brazil’s flowering wheat. Damage was probably minor if at all.
Poland’s nitrogen producer, Grupa Azota, will stop production at their largest production plant due to the high cost of natural gas. This news is not nearly as important as how many more nitrogen producers do the same? One thing for sure, nitrogen prices in Europe are going higher.
Ukraine’s Ministry of Agrarian Policy reports that in the 22 days since the start of the "Grain Corridor", 33 ships have left Ukrainian seaports with a total of 719,549 mts of agricultural products on board. Another 18 vessels are being loaded.
Freeport, Louisiana LNG (facility to load ships with liquified natural gas) has been off-line for several months while repairing damage from major explosions several months ago. It was expected to be back on line in September, but now it looks like not until October or maybe later.
To capture and transport carbon dioxide from ethanol plants to commercial processing and storage locations will take 6,000 miles of pipeline across the Corn Belt. An estimated 150,000+ field tile lines will be in need of repair.
The rainfall map for 24 hours ending yesterday morning:
Market Update
This morning:
Crude oil is at $94.40, up $0.66
The dollar index is at 108.63, up 0.01
December palm oil is at 4,208 MYR, down 39. The contract high was made April, 29th at 6,384 MYR. Palm oil owns 36% and soybean oil owns 28% world market share.
December cotton is at $112.41, up $0.18 per cwt. The contract high was made May, 17th at $133.79 per cwt. Cotton competes with soybeans and corn for acres.
December natural gas is at $9.541, up 0.191. The contract high was made yesterday at $10.119. Natural gas is the primary cost to manufacture nitrogen fertilizer.
December ULSD is at $3.6993 per gallon, up 0.0083. The contract high was made June, 17th at $4.0719. ULSD stands for Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel.
September Dow Futures is at 32,824, down 77. The lifetime high is 36,832 on January 5th, 2022.
Rain Days Update
The Western Corn Belt has 3 less rain days in the 10 day forecast than yesterday and the Eastern Corn Belt has 3 more rain daysthan yesterday.
The 6 to 10 day forecast updated every day at: https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/610day/
Explanation of Rain Days