crop futures today

If you haven"t noticed yet, the USDA acreage report came out, with supposed record acres planted.. and upcoming record harvest, futures fell to new lows not seen in years for fall delivery. Now, I am not believing all of it, with all the weather problems, late planting, replanting, floods, I can only doubt this record acreage report. I call BS on it. I know some think the USDA is no friend to farmers and are seeing this report as a way to crush prices to make cheaper food or more corporate profits. So, what are your thoughts on what you see in your area? Speculation on prices this fall? Have you contracted for fall delivery yet?

Eastern and NE ND Crops vary from nice to just emerged to PP to drowned/hailed out. I don't think there will be any record crops here. Heck, we still have time to get a drought in!

A majority of those planted acres won't be high yielding. In my neck of the woods there's prevented planting in a few fields. One 400 acre farm is completely prevented planting.

30 Miles south of where I live in NWIA the corn and beans look great and should show top yields this fall but as a whole that area isn't all that big. All of my corn was planted by May 16th but only 3/4 of it is what I'd call good but far from excellent. Today I sidedressed a 60 acre corn field I rent that has 10 acres drowned out and 40 more that's sicker'n a dog from being in wet soil too long. Fields like that are plentiful in my neighborhood. Jim

historically , the usda report always lowers prices for fARMERS...consider half the nations crop was planted in 10 days around may 15th we could bin trouble at ear settin time if the 100 plus temps come back

usda is in bed with the cbot and the grain companies, monsanto controlls the fda and the land grant universities research departments, need I say more?

Said MN was down 50,000. Guess I saw every one of those acres when I went through Waseca and Owatonna this week. Lot of black or weed fields, lot of water sitting around, not going to get planted.

I'm in a better part of MN, looked good, but last week got us, drowned out corn, yellow corn, bad looking beans. Barely making knee high next week on the corn, we would look good if this were early June, but small crops.....

I don't see any records, and we are in the best part of the state as far as I can figure?

Paul

I got 150 acres in corn this year. I finished planting on June 9th. We had a hard frost on May 24th. A lot of guys got planted before the frost, but didn't have emergence, or didn't have it quite as bad as I did. Right now, their corn is chest high and dark green.

I started planting on May 25th. I finished on June 9th. My best corn is about knee high, and nice and green, but, there are yellow spots in the fields where water is laying. Deer and Turkey did a number on my corn as it started coming up. I should have used Avipel, but had a hard time with my seed and fert dealer this year. They are extremely busy with gas well and pipeline crews coming in and buying 15-20 ton of fertilizer daily, each. It's a mad house.

My last corn planted, I switched to a 90 day smart stacks variety and it is all emerged and barely V5 stage right now. Everything is a bit yellow. I have 4 tons of urea sitting in the tender right now. I was going to go out to spread it 3 days ago, but it started raining. In the past 3 days, we have gotten 5.25 inches of rain. It is really bad out there. I have hay getting ruined.

In my neck of the woods, there are not that many acres of corn, but, there are slightly more this year than the previous year. The corn is barely better than it was this time last year.

As for the report, I am shocked. I believe it is nonsense. The only thing I have heard is that planting for everyone is delayed, too much rain, too cold, and acres being switched to soybeans. I can understand that some other states out of the corn belt added acres, but, it won't take much for those places to end up in a drought condition, or with too much heat. I don't think that the USDA report is very accurate, and I am skeptical. It pained me to see corn bounce that low when all other reports were pretty dismal.

Got to drive around Eastern Iowa and South western Wisconsin yesterday. 90% of the corn looks GREAT!!! It is a little behind normal but the stands are better than normal. The heat this last week really made the roots go. Most of it is Green and growing. I think my yields will be much better than last year.

There are a lot of real good acres of corn and soybeans in the good producing areas of the country. A lot of the bad crops are in areas that are not top producing areas.

Also crops that are in wet conditions will usually make something later on. Dry weather crops may not make anything.

I can't tell you what is happening other than around me here.

Around here there are no more idle acres. A few years ago there was alot of land that has sat for years without being worked. The last few years even hedgerows have been pushed out and overgrowth pushed back. Wood lots are being reclaimed as much as possible. Crops around here look great and little to no replanting so I can believe record acreage and yield. Last year we had a pretty good crop yet prices went sky high. Drought in the corn belt was the reason given. I wouldn't mind seeing prices come back down.

In central and north central Ia and southern Minn.the fields vary with many acres not planted.This the worst I have seen in many years and timing was everything in corn.Very few beans were planted in May.The corn that received a foot of snow looks excellent.Never have I seen so many fields take preventive planting and the next farm can have a nice crop.We have been spoiled in our area of having good crops every year back to 1993.Hope people saved up some from last year as I think breakeven would be welcome in many cases.

Hmm. Looks like you've got it all figured out. So go long on commodities futures: Buy all the options you can on margin and in a few months you can retire. Or not.

Just read in the local newspaper that in the last 4 years there has been 30,000 acres come out of grass and farmed in my county. Crops look good, but are needing a rain.

In the last few years, fields that haven't been farmed in years have been reclaimed and put into crops. One is a former golf course!

It seems anymore that "contracted" prices here in the East do not mean that much, anyways. If the cash market at delivery time is substantially below the contract price the merchants pull out the dockage charges that would not be seen otherwise to bring the price down to what they want to pay. I suspect that it is wide spread but is one of those things that nobody wants to admit to because we all want our peers to think we squeezed the best out of the merchants.

Pa's corn crop is a drop in the bucket, but this years corn is the best I have seen. We are a long way from harvest, but potential is there for an excellent harvest. And There has been pastures cleared and planted to corn also. I don't agree about your low prices. I am not sure that $7+ corn is normal. Farming is cyclical and $5+ still offers a respectable profit.
Josh

Central Ohio seeing dark green corn higher than the fences as I drive around
all went in late looks fantastic now
lot of heat lately really bringing the corn on

Yield is very vital to profit and there are areas that 150 bushel per acre yield of corn is still very good. Not everyplace has the potential for 225 bushels of corn per acre. So corn dropping to 5 dollars per bushel or lower locally could jeopardize profits especially if record high prices are paid on rent. We could still have a 1980's type financial squeeze in a few years though the circumstances may be different. Yes, the debt is not there like back in the 1970's but profits could be squeezed to the point where property taxes would extremely difficult to keep paid and selling equipment off may be needed to meet household expenses. What went up in terms of equity due to the land boom could come back down affecting ability to borrow operating money.

USDA=Pure Government Manipulation.

You can get a feel for what's going to be planted where acreage-wise, but guessing a yield average before most of it's in the ground every year is pure foolishness. Their "in-season" guesses aren't much more reliable.

Throw your USDA surveys and censuses in the circular file. Stop telling them what you're paying for cash rents. Don't let them bully you into filling their BS out. You don't have to give anyone proprietary information pertaining to your business or your business practices, and you can choose to demand reasonable compensation before handing this information over.

All in all, corn locally looks good, beans too, but the beans don't seem to be growing much at all. Most low spots are drowned out and aren't coming back. Corn took a real beating in this week's storms' high winds, but luckily no hail here. There is a snapped off stalk here and there, and some fields have a bit of a lean to the crop that should straighten out if not tortured any further for a while. The wheat is going to be far from bin-busting, and most in the neighborhood looks to be too late in maturing for anything more than a crapshoot at double-cropping beans after the wheat harvest.

Too bad the grain traders don't get in their cars on the weekend and burn half a tank of gasoline. They'd see what some crops look like. Unfortunately for farmers, USDA's virtual reality governs the markets these days. True reality only kicks in when the trucks and wagons start unloading at the elevators in the fall. We saw what true reality did to prices last fall.

AG

A lot of those "acres coming out of grass" are expiring CRP contracts......land that was previously farmed.......and not all was erodible land that went in. Many acres were put in when farmers got pushed into enrolling, turning payments over to lenders, to keep from losing the farm. Critics like to say "grass and wetlands" are being converted. I don"t see wetlands being converted- just doesn"t happen much since 1983.

If you don't buy the highly subsidized crop insurance or use any of the USDA/government services, can't argue with the decision to withhold production information. However if you are taking advantage of the system; be willing to cooperate.

With all the satellites, they already know what is planted and the population. They probably haven't got it quite figured out how to count the kernels yet.

The money changers have to have the yoyo go up and down to make money off of us. Who else buys retail and sells wholesale. After our short stretch of high prices, we now go back to normal. Can everyone get their budget under control after these good times?

The problem with such a fall in prices in one year is that the input costs are still out of sight, from the profit takers selling seed and fertilizer at inflated rates, let alone an inability to control fuel prices.

It's all supply and demand. Unless we see a huge spike in demand, the supply is going to keep the prices low. If they announce the reopening of a few of those ethanol plants, and we start a serious exporting campaign, then the price has a chance to rebound. The moral of the story... We did it to ourselves. I mean, I don't do many acres, but the ones I do, I could have put into soybeans, or oats and then winter wheat.

However, it is not just corn that is taking a dive. It is all commodities and some for really dumb reasons. Well, what I call really dumb.

My example? Wheat...

Wheat took a huge plunge because a farmer found round-up ready wheat in his field. That one field just cost all wheat farmers a lot of money. As if things were not bad enough...


So, no matter what I plant, it is not going to be worth much. Last July, people were talking about $10 corn and $20 beans because of the severe drought. This year, people are talking about $3 corn and $9 beans. I never saw $10 corn and I am really hoping the $3 corn is also an exaggeration.