crop forecast

The USDA estimated a 21 percent drop in Florida orange production this season following damage from Hurricane Irma a month ago. State officials said losses were far worse and a farm group, Florida Citrus Mutual, said its survey of growers indicated losses exceeding 50 percent.

The one-two punch of Hurricane Harvey on Gulf coast and Hurricane Irma in the Southeast reduced the U.S. cotton crop by more than 600,000 bales, or 3 percent, said the USDA in its monthly crop report. The USDA lowered its estimate of the harvest in Texas, the No. 1 cotton state, and in No. 2 Georgia, down by 300,000 bales apiece.

Cotton growers are headed for the largest cotton harvest in 12 years, said USDA's monthly crop report, although officials acknowledged they don't have a full picture of damage from Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, which struck much of the Cotton Belt. The USDA said it would conduct special surveys in Texas, Louisiana, Florida, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina to assess how much of the cotton, rice, peanut and soybean crops were harvested.

A University of Missouri think tank says the season-average price for this year's soybean crop, forecast at a record 4.381 billion bushels, will fall to $9.07 a bushel. The 43-cent a bushel drop from the average price paid for the 2016 crop will encourage growers to plant somewhat fewer acres of soybeans and more acres of corn in 2018, says the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute.

With avocado production in California down nearly 50 percent from a year ago, prices are climbing, says the LA Times. Extreme heat and drought last summer affected the fruit that’s maturing this season. “When the heavy rains finally arrived in the winter, it was too late,” the report said.

In its first estimate of the fall harvest, the USDA said farmers will harvest a record soybean crop for the fourth consecutive year, fattening a large global stockpile. The government forecast of the corn crop also was larger than expected, with USDA saying this year's crop would sell for the lowest price per bushel in 11 years because of ample supplies.

Russian farmers are headed for a record-setting wheat harvest, forecast the USDA, up 7 percent from 2016 thanks to high yields in the winter wheat crop and a bountiful outlook for spring-planted wheat. With the large crop, Russia is forecast to displace the United States as the world's largest wheat exporter.

Dry weather in Iowa, the No. 1 corn state, will contribute to a smaller-than-expected U.S. corn crop this year, say analysts ahead of USDA's closely watched August crop report, to be released on Thursday. Even so, this year's harvest would be the third-largest on record for the grain, fundamental to food, feed and biofuel production. The August crop report is USDA's first estimate of the fall harvest and is based on spot checks of thousands of fields and a survey of growers as the crop nears maturity. In a Reuters survey, analysts said they expect a USDA estimate of 13.855 billion bushels based on conditions in early August, down 8.5 percent from the record 15.148 billion bushels of 2016.

A three-day lightning tour of the spring wheat crop in the northern Plains points to the lowest average yield in nine years, “a sign of the intense drought conditions plaguing much of the western Dakotas this year,” said DTN. Crop scouts checked 496 fields and saw a “high number of abandoned fields in the western counties, many of which had been cut and baled for hay” because the wheat was not worth harvesting.

Extremely dry weather in Australia, southern Europe and the U.S. northern Plains could mark the end of record-large wheat crops worldwide, says Reuters. Analysts expect the Australian wheat crop will be markedly smaller than the government forecasts while grain production in Italy and parts of Spain could be the smallest in at least 20 years.

In August 2015, U.S. district judge Ralph Erickson blocked the Obama administration's Waters of the United States rule from taking effect, the first injunction against the clean water rule. Now the North Dakota judge would be elevated to the U.S. appellate court under a nomination announced by the White House.

Just 65 percent of the U.S. corn crop was rated in good or excellent condition in the USDA’s first assessment of the year. That figure came in well below the 72 percent rating at the end of May 2016, when farmers were headed for a record-setting harvest.

Record-low planting of winter wheat and recent reports on harvests and yields “indicate a sharp decline in winter wheat production” in 2017/18, according to the USDA’s Economic Research Service. The May Wheat Report projected a 25 percent fall in yields of U.S. winter wheat.

A surge in corn production in Brazil and Argentina will power the world to a record harvest in 2017/18, said the UN Food and Agriculture Organization in forecasting bin-busting output of cereal crops in the upcoming season. "Combined with prospects of relatively weak growth in utilization, another large output is set to keep world cereal stocks at near-record level."

U.S. farmers are projected to plant 88 million acres of soybeans, up 5 percent from the record set last year, while cutting back on corn and wheat, said USDA chief economist Robert Johansson. Futures prices indicate soybeans will be more profitable than corn and wheat this year.

Prospects for the winter wheat crop are broadly favorable world wide, said the International Grains Council, which forecasts an all-wheat harvest this year of 735 million metric tons, a 2 percent decline from 2016/17 that will do little to cut into stockpiles that have swelled by nearly 25 percent in three years. "Only a small contraction in end-season stocks is expected," said the council's monthly Grain Markets Report.

Nearly half of the U.S. winter wheat crop is in drought but its condition improved slightly in the past week, said the USDA on Tuesday. The weekly Crop Progress report also showed growers in the upper Midwest were rushing through corn and soybean planting after a slow start due to cold and wet weather.