The US soybean harvest is off to a quicker than expected start, while corn harvest progress fell slightly short of trade ideas.
Monday’s USDA crop progress report showed the national soybean harvest at 6% complete as of Sunday, 2 points ahead of last year and 3 points ahead of the five-year average. Going into today’s report, most traders and analysts were only expecting the soy harvest to be around 4% done.
Meanwhile, the corn harvest gained a modest 4 points from a week earlier to reach 9% complete as of Sunday. That is ahead of 8% last year and 6% on average but fell 1 point below the average pre-report trade estimate.
The Illinois and Indiana soybean harvests were both 6% complete as of Sunday, up from 1% a week earlier and 5 points ahead of the state average. Iowa was 1% done, versus 2% last year and 1% on average.
The Michigan soy harvest was 2% complete as of Sunday, ahead of 1% for both last year and the average, while Ohio was 4% done, versus 0% for last year and the average. An estimated 1% of the North Dakota soy crop was off, 2 points behind average.
As for corn, the harvest in Illinois gained 5 points from a week earlier to 7% done, 4 points ahead of average, while Indiana was 3 points ahead of the state average at 5% complete. The Iowa corn crop was 2% in the bin, matching the average but 2 points behind last year.
The Michigan harvest was 1 point ahead of the average at 2% complete, while 6% of the Ohio crop was already off, compared to 0% on average. No corn harvest progress was yet reported in North Dakota.
Across the country, 45% of the corn crop had reached maturity as of Sunday, up from 29% a week earlier and ahead of 38% on average but behind 48% last year.
Meanwhile, 44% of the American soybean crop was dropping leaves, versus 25% a week earlier, 47% last year and 37% on average.
The condition of the US corn crop was rated 65% good to excellent as of Sunday, up 1 point on the week and 14 points above a year earlier.
The soybean crop was down 1 point from the previous week to 64% good to excellent, still 12 points higher than a year ago.
