Tariff war issues front stage again:

https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/8725/

USDA crop condition report from Monday afternoon:

https://release.nass.usda.gov/reports/prog3018.txt

Crop rating for corn stayed the same 72% gd/ex. I though it might drop a tad.

Bean rating got better by 1% to 70%.

Spring wheat dropped 1% but is incredibly high at 79%.

Cotton rating plunged again with a 5% increase in the poor/very poor.......now rated 33% in those categories. Half of the TX/OK crop is p/vp. Of course TX is #1 in cotton by a wide margin. NC also has 27% p/vp.

Corn historical perspective:

Who remembers $8 corn not so long(5 years) ago   

Lows are in? 28c off the lows and 50c below the late May highs. 

3 month below

1 year below

5 year below                                      10 year below

VOLATILE!!!!!!

Soybeans: Wider perspective:

Almost 50c off the lows......which were 10 year lows.

Almost $1.80 off the highs from late May.

Soybeans 3 months below

Soybeans 1 year chart below   

Soybeans 5 years below

Soybeans10years-Wow, look at that high from the drought of 2012...and demand, currently at 10 year lows!

It's no surprise the wheat market is improving and taking other grains along as well...

I went to see our agronomist this morn. who had some stalks of wheat on his desk that were starting to ripen. The wheat heads were short and kernals poorly filled due to all the wet weather we've had in Mn. causing disease problems. He estimated the yield to be 25-30 bpa and some were simply going to chop the wheat for forage and use it for feed.

I've also seen some of the local custom cutters head home early due to less wheat acres to be harvested along the harvest trail.

Thanks cliff,

Crop ratings are at record highs for the Spring Wheat but crop ratings can be deceptive.......the plants can look great but have other problems that effect yields. 

I think the poor crop in Europe/Ukraine and drought in Australia are responsible for the wheat rally, not conditions in the US. 

Wheat has  definitely been pulling corn up like you said. 

Beans on the lows below 882..................bearish weather ahead with huge rains coming up, may be taking a toll but I've found the grains almost impossible to trade purely on weather this growing season. 

I'm thinking the agronomy lesson that you shared with us Mike is going to be the story of the fall.  In my part of Ohio, we have had not much rain in 3-4 weeks.  Corn is tall, but most of what I can see, the leaves are rolled.  It matured fast and early.  It's been one of the hotter summers that I can remember and also from a recreational perspectives, also one of the better ones because of the dryness and heat.  

Time will tell.  

You are exactly right about temperatures this Summer. Below are the temperatures for the last 30 days, then below that, temperatures for the last 90 days. 

This is a big deal for corn, which matures and develops based on heat units or growing degree days. Like you noticed Jim, the corn crop is much ahead of where it would normally be at this time of year because the heat has accelerated development.

Solid evidence of this can be seen in the USDA crop rating report from Monday. 81% of the corn crop had pollinated vs 62% average.  18% was in the dough stage(filling) compared with just 8% average. 

https://release.nass.usda.gov/reports/prog3018.txt

In June, during the vegetative state the heat was good as long as there was plenty of rains. Heat is bad for ideal pollination in July  and REAL bad afterwards, while the plants are filling kernels.

The current cooler spell is just what the doctor ordered to help slow down maturation and increase the time for kernels to fill but there has already been some modest heat fill in some locations. Also, the warmth this Summer has greatly increased evaporation and dried out soils at a much greater rate than usual.  So average rains, are more like below average rains in many areas(if temps had not been so warm) with regards to the actual soil/plant moisture.

Here is my post on heat fill again:

https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/5754/

Temperatures the last 30- days

Temperatures the last 90 days:

Export sales this morning:

Wheat and beans up from last week, corn down.

https://apps.fas.usda.gov/export-sales/highlite.htm

Beans especially put in a very ugly/bearish gap and crap formation.

Huge gap higher on last nights open that was added to overnight..............then we filled the gap and closed lower. 

The very bearish weather coming up the next 2 weeks must have taken a toll.

See the weather posts for details.

The weather forecast did not get any more bearish today..............the market just decided to trade the weather. 

In the past, I probably would have sold, especially the beans yesterday near resistance ahead of the big rains coming, maybe even tempted to sell them earlier in the week, under the right conditions, especially with the crop rating increasing for beans. 

However, beans did a small gap lower on Monday Night, then filled that gap and shot higher on Tuesday, which was a pretty  strong bullish technical indicator. 

So we are having these gaps lower, then higher and reversals which make trading the beans like walkiing thru a mine field...........hoping to avoid having a position at the wrong time when news about the tarrif wars hits. 

Corn also gapped higher last night but did not quite fill its gap today, coming within 1 tick in the December contract. Closing a bit higher, despite wheat being down today. 

Corn has now filled the gap from yesterday evenings gap higher by trading lower than todays low and down below Wednesdays high. 

Usually thats a technically bearish sign on the price charts.

I will take a guess that if we get tons of rain coming up, similar to what the models show the next 2 weeks, that the price will be under pressure at times. 

One thing for certain, you wouldn't want to be short when the market was closed if Trump works out a deal with China.

Beans might be limit up on the following open. 

MX. is in town and will be talking to US about trade. Trump said if deals need to be made with MX. and Can. separately it will be done.

Agree weather doesn't look bullish at all. 

Thanks bcb,

Corn has made it to higher by a tick. Beans have come back.

11pm update.......beans now +4c and corn +1.5c

Usually in the Summer we leave some risk premium in the price that comes out as the crop is made or when rains show up in the forecast and or fall. 

Prices fell so far in June and early July.............almost 80c in the corn and $2.25 in the beans that ALL the risk premium came out, plus prices dropped below fair value and the crop was only half made. 

All the huge speculators piled on top of it and just kept selling more, week after week. With crop ratings high and no dome of death, there was no reason for aggresive buying to step in and momentum players kept adding to the selling frenzy. 

We actually went thru a 2 week period with every 6-10/8-14 day being hot and dry, that in some years might have provided some support..............but it got ignored. Part of that was also because it had been extremely wet............too wet in parts of IA/MN so hot would have to last much longer than usual to turn things around. 

However, corn is now +25c from the lows and beans +40c from the lows. Still probably undervalued but in a place for considering a risky short ahead of or early during a widespread heavy rain event. 

It seems unlikely that, if IA/IL got 2 inches from a rain event, that we would not see a spike down...........as long as bullish tariff news did not hit during the event. 

New lows would be a big surprise. 

Thank you for all of everybodys' agronomy feedback (especially cliff-e's wheat)...

... tonight I am accumulating Z - wheat at anything under 5-55 ... am using a very 

simplistic technique of old resistance is new support ... please note where Thursday's 

low AND where overnight trading for Friday's lows are so far this evening...

I also heavily agree with JimM and metmike and others that we really may not know  

anything about corn until the combines roll; unless, of course, that it starts snowing in a 

few weeks