Your Pro Farmer newsletter (August 13, 2022) is now available

USDA released its first survey-based corn and soybean (cotton, too) crop estimates on Friday and updated its wheat crop forecast. The production estimates along with changes to use trickled down through USDA’s balance sheets. We break down all of USDA’s August crop report data on News pages 1 and 4. While the initial corn and soybean crop estimates provide a starting point, there’s still a good portion of growing season left, meaning weather and soil moisture will be critical to how crops finish. The root zone soil moisture map clearly defines areas that should have enough water to finish decently and those areas where rains will be needed to keep crops from going backwards into harvest. Inflation data eased in July, which has traders factoring in lower odds of another 75-basis-point rate increase in September, though Fed officials say they are far from done in their battle with high prices. We cover all of these items and much more in this week’s newsletter, which you can downlaod here.