US corn, soybean ratings improve, bigger crops forecast | Food and Environment Reporting Network

Heading into the final weeks of the growing season, U.S. corn and soybeans were in extraordinary condition, said USDA. Its weekly Crop Progress report said 74 percent of corn was in good or excellent condition, up 1 point from the previous week, and 72 percent of soybeans were good or excellent, up 2 points. Eight percent of corn was mature, half the usual figure for the final days of August. U.S. corn and soybean harvests are forecast to set records this fall.

The brokerage INTL FCStone boosted its estimate of the corn crop by 1 percent, to 14.595 billion bushels, and soybeans by 3 percent, to 4 billion bushels, said Reuters. USDA will update its estimates on Sept 11. In early August, it pegged corn at 14.032 billion bushels and soybeans at 3.815 billion bushels.

Some private analysts expect the corn yield to be as high as 175 bushels an acre, well above the 167.4 bushels estimate by USDA in its August crop report. A blog at farmdoc daily says “an unusually large August forecast error this year (5 percent or more) would definitely be counter to the trend towards increasingly accurate USDA corn forecasts over time.”