Evening Report | August 22, 2022

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Preliminary Route Report with Brian Grete, eastern Tour leader

What counties have you sampled from?

  • Ohio: Madison, Greene, Warren, Butler, Preble, Darke.

Corn yield range:

  • 122 bpa to 201 bpa

Corn yield average:

  • 166 BPA

Soybean pod count in 3’x3’ square:

  • 651 pods to 2,534 pods

Soybean pod count average in 3’x3’ square:

  • 1,359.7 pods

Please share a few comments from your route:

We saw quite a bit of variability with corn, not just field-to-field but also within individual fields. We saw issues related to late plantings. Kernel abortion was an issue on some of these fields and grain length was all over the place.

Soybeans had variability as well, just not as extreme as the corn. In terms of pod counts, we saw a wide range from 650 to 2,500, though most were or 1,000 or higher.

 

Preliminary Route Report with Brent Judisch, western Tour consultant

What counties have you sampled from?

  • South Dakota: Lincoln, Turner, Hutchison
  • Nebraska: Merrick, Platte, Boone, Pierce, Madison, Wayne, Cedar

Corn yield range:

  • South Dakota: 22 BPA to 158 BPD
  • Nebraska: 17 BPA to 196 BPA

Corn yield average:

  • South Dakota: 101 BPA, with a low sample of 22 BPA
  • Nebraska: 136.7 BPA

Soybean pod count range in 3’x3’ square:

  • South Dakota: 541 to 2,258
  • Nebraska: 540 to 1,815

Soybean pod count average in 3’x3’ square:

  • South Dakota: 1,330 pods
  • Nebraska: 1,144

Please share a few comments from your route:

We saw drought stress from the beginning, and it got worse as we went west. The corn had major pollination problems, some with “zipper” ear with no viable kernels. It was my 10th time through South Dakota on the Crop Tour, and it was the worst I’ve ever seen it, by far the lowest average I’ve seen in 10 years.

We had an average soybean pod count of 1,330, but the crop likely won’t finish that strong. There’s a lot of beans suffering, and many pods will be aborted. Many bean plants are basically white with leaves upside down and some aborting pods, and that’s going to keep happening unless they get rain help very soon. The soybeans we saw have potential (to finish strong) if they snag a timely rain, but they are running out of time.

 

Preliminary Route Report with Mark Bernard, eastern Tour consultant

What counties have you sampled from?

  • Ohio: Marion, Crawford, Sandusky, Wood, Henry, Paulding

Corn yield range:

  • 132 BPA to 266 BPA

Corn yield average:

  • 185 BPA

Soybean pod count range in 3’x3’ square:

  • Zero to 1,824

Soybean pod count average in 3’x3’ square:

  • 962 pods

Please share a few comments from your route:

It rained hard around Columbus over the weekend. There were a lot of wet fields and standing water. We saw some disease pressure in the corn and some in beans, but nothing too serious overall. Right out of the chute we started out with a 266 BPA estimate, in Marion County, and then things fell back into more normal Ohio yield trend, 150 to 170 BPA.

Soybean pod counts were variable. We had a high of 1,824 in Seneca County and then a zero in same county, probably a replanted field that was flowering but had no pods.

The overall health of the crops is decent. But it’s going to need to dry out and stay on warmer side. This crop will need all of September for (full development) to occur. We saw very little dented corn. In some bean fields, the pods were flat. Those crops will also need all of September to mature.

 

Preliminary Route Report with Chip Flory, western Tour consultant

What counties have you sampled from?

  • South Dakota: Turner, Bon Homme, Hutchinson, Yankton

Corn yield range:

  • 4.5 BPA to 180 BPA

Corn yield average:

  • 94 BPA

Please share a few comments from your route:

Our best stop of morning in South Dakota was in Turner County, just southwest of Sioux falls, where we found 180-BPA corn. Then, four stops later in Bon Homme County, we got a zero was a zero yield – it won’t be harvested. We found nine ears in 60 feet (sample length). It was pretty bad, and we weren’t the only ones (on the Tour) who saw fields like that. Others saw really tough dryland corn and that continued into Nebraska, around the Herman area, which had severe stress on that crop.

We should be looking at corn crop in mid- to late-dough stage, but this crop is very late dough, it’s just been pushed too fast.

South Dakota had kind of a reversal of its normal rainfall patterns. Normally, the southeast part of the state catches the rains and areas in the west and north tend to be drier during growing season. But the rains this year tracked north. South of I-90, the crop falls apart in a hurry.

The soybean crop shows tremendous stress from Norfolk, but south of there a little less stress. The difference between dryland corn and beans… it’s pretty shocking. The irrigated ground has the ear counts and grain length but may but may have had some stress as the size of the ears were being determined. Two of our routes reported 14 kernel row counts, not the usual 16.

 

Corn conditions decline unexpectedly... As of Sunday, USDA rated 55% of the corn crop “good” to “excellent,” down two percentage points from the previous week. Traders expected no change. The portion of crop rated “poor” to “very poor” rose to 18% from 16.

 

This week

Last week

Year-ago

Very poor

7

6

4

Poor

11

10

10

Fair

27

27

26

Good

43

45

46

Excellent

12

12

14


USDA reported 97% of the crop was silking and 75% was in dough, two and four percentage points, respectively, behind the five-year averages for that date. USDA said 31% of the crop was dented, four points behind average.

Soybean crop conditions also lower than expected... USDA rated 57% of the soybean crop “good” to “excellent,” down one point for the week. Analysts expected no change. The amount of crop rated “poor” to “very poor” increased one point to 13%.

 

This week

Last week

Year-ago

Very poor

4

3

5

Poor

9

9

11

Fair

30

30

28

Good

47

48

45

Excellent

10

10

11

USDA reported 98% of the soybean crop was blooming, in line with average. The amount of crop that was setting pods was 84%, two points behind the five-year average for the date.

 

Cotton crop conditions worsen... USDA rated 31% of the cotton crop “good” to “excellent,” down three percentage points from last week. The portion of crop rated in the bottom two categories increased five points to 40%.

 

This week

Last week

Year-ago

Very poor

18

16

1

Poor

22

19

5

Fair

29

31

23

Good

26

29

53

Excellent

5

5

18


USDA reported 88% of the cotton crop was setting bolls, three points ahead of the five-year average. The amount of crop with bolls open increased to 19%, one point ahead of average.

 

Spring wheat conditions hold steady... U.S. spring wheat crop condition ratings held at 64% “good” to “excellent,” though there was a two-point shift up in the top category. Traders expected no change. The portion of crop rated “poor” to “very poor” increase two points to 8%, with none in the bottom category.

 

This week

Last week

Year-ago

Very poor

1

0

28

Poor

7

6

35

Fair

28

30

26

Good

56

58

10

Excellent

8

6

1

Spring wheat harvest advanced 17 points to 33% complete, still behind the 54% five-year average. North Dakota had cut only 18% of its crop as of Sunday, compared to 49% for the state’s five-year average.

 

Winter wheat harvest near end... U.S. winter wheat harvest advanced five points to 95% complete as of Sunday, two points behind average. Harvest progress continues to run behind to well behind average in the Pacific Northwest, while the Plains and Midwest are mostly wrapped up.

 

USDA Cold Storage Report indicates strong meat demand… U.S. beef stockpiles totaled 510.8 million lbs. at the end of July, down 1.2% from the end of June but up 27%, from the same date a year earlier, according to USDA's monthly Cold Storage Report today. While beef supplies were up sharply year-over-year, the 6.0 million-lb. monthly drop contrasts with an average increase of 22.2 million lbs. the previous five years, suggesting consumer demand improved last month.

 

U.S. pork stocks at the end of July totaled 530.1 million lbs., down 8.6 million lbs. for the month and exceeding the five-year average of a 4.2 million-lb. reduction. End-July supplies were up 88.4 million lbs., or 20%, from a year earlier.

 

Major North American freight railroads face growing scrutiny from regulators as they implement their operating efficiency plans. The Surface Transportation Board is considering aggressive new rulemaking to force railroads to share tracks and expand competition for their customers, the Wall Street Journal reports. The steps are coming as complaints from rail customers about meltdowns in service are growing and delays in shipments of raw materials are infuriating politicians who are anxious about goods shortages and inflation. That has pressed STB Chairman Martin Oberman and the five-member board into a more combative stance. The railroads are pushing back, saying they face the same staff shortages plaguing other industries and are taking steps to hire more workers and upgrade equipment. The board now is requiring the railroads to submit weekly performance reports. But bigger rules changes in the works could shift the carriers’ business landscape for years to come.

The railroads and others in the industry will gather this week in Kansas City, Mo., for the National Grain Car Council meeting  and the STB is asking for updates from the rail carriers on how they are prepared for this fall's grain harvest.

Fauci will step down in December. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert who led the federal government’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic across two presidential administrations, will step down at the end of this year. The 81-year-Fauci, who heads the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said in a statement on Monday that he would leave his government post in December to “pursue the next chapter of my career.”

 

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