The government will raise its estimates of the U.S. corn and soybean crops modestly when it issues its new forecasts for the record-setting fall harvest, say traders in two surveys. In straw polls by Reuters and Bloomberg, traders said they expect a corn crop of 14.56 billion bushels and a soybean crop of 3.97 billion bushels. Corn would be up by one-half of 1 percent and soybeans up by 1 percent from USDA’s estimates in early October. USDA is to release the monthly Crop Production and companion WASDE reports on Monday.
Along with a slightly larger crop, traders say the U.S. corn stockpile at the end of this marketing year will be a bit larger than USDA estimated in October. They say the soybean carry-over will be marginally smaller. In both instances, the inventories would be the largest in years and would not alter prospects of lower commodity prices for at least a year.