The USDA released its September World Ag Supply and Demand Estimates and Crop Production Reports. Ben Kasch, account executive for Bower Trading, says the biggest surprise this month was in the corn numbers.

“Yeah, I’d say the one thing that jumped out was the corn balance sheet. We’re looking at an increase in acres that’s somewhat of a surprise here for the market that equals an 800,000 increase there on planted acres. That increases the harvested acres and brings more into production from an acreage standpoint, but they did lower the yield by 1.3 bushels per acre kind of as expected, for the most part within line with trade expectations. So, if you’re looking at keeping all things the same there on the usage, that still puts us at a 2.2-billion-bushel carryout, but the markets taking it reasonably well.”

A carryout that large typically means lower prices.

“That 2.2 billion carryout on some of these deferred months, you’re still at $5 corn roughly, and typically, in past years, that hasn’t been the case when you get that high of a carryout. But I think with the tightness in the bean market, corn is gonna piggyback that soybean market here for right now.”

He talks about the soybean numbers from USDA.

“There is nothing all that bearish on beans. They did go ahead and lower the yield. They did come up with 100,000 acres more soybeans, but they’re just kind of massaging these numbers to work for the soybean market. They lower total usage by 45 million bushels to offset that loss in production. So, we’re working with a very tight carryout going into the beginning of this year. So, 220 million bushels is the carryout, is what the USDA forecast, but once again, that number could come lower. That finish to August on soybeans was not what we wanted to see, really not seeing that precip here, especially on the later beans here as we start September. So, it’s going to be interesting what yields come off the combine here.”

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