NAPERVILLE, Ill., Aug 1 (Reuters) - Monday morning showers lifted some of the Crop Watch producers’ hopes ahead of what may be a hotter, drier start to the month, even preventing a yield slide for the perpetually dry Indiana corn and soybeans.
However, Monday’s rain totals were not enough to get all the Crop Watch fields through the hotter, drier week ahead without another shot of rain, as the previous seven days marked Crop Watch’s driest week of July.
The southeastern Illinois fields picked up 2 inches (51 mm) of rain over the last week, Kansas tallied 1.5 inches and Minnesota 1.1 inches, but the remaining eight Crop Watch locations got between none and a couple tenths of an inch.
Crop Watch producers across the heart of the Corn Belt, including in Iowa, western Illinois and Indiana, reported several mornings of heavy dew last week which along with cooler temperatures helped crops combat the rain-free week.
Dew was also reported on Monday morning in South Dakota, where the same phenomenon cushioned yields last year during the Northwestern Corn Belt drought.
Monday morning rain totals in some Crop Watch locations included 0.75 inch in western Illinois, 0.4 inch each in Indiana and southeastern Illinois, 0.3 inch in Minnesota and a couple tenths in eastern Iowa. The producers in Indiana and eastern Iowa report that crops may be stressed again by late week if the rain predicted in some forecasts does not materialize.
That is especially the case with the hotter temperatures on tap this week, focused on western areas, which also may face below-average precipitation for the next two weeks. Crop Watch producers remain reasonably anxious about this forecast as corn and particularly soybeans are in their critical yield stages.
Weather models over the weekend added some scattered rain chances during the next week for dry Corn Belt locations including Iowa, which encouraged heavy pressure on Chicago futures on Monday morning after last week’s sharp, weather-driven rally.
YIELDS HOLDING ON
The 11 Crop Watch producers have been reporting weekly on their yield potential and crop conditions. Both are scored on a 1-to-5 scale, with 3 representing average conditions and yield expectations, and 5 excellent health or near-record yields expected.
Both yield scores edged up slightly this week, though they were not originally supposed to because of deterioration in Indiana. The 11-field, unweighted average corn yield rose to 3.98 from 3.93 last week and soybeans jumped to 3.68 from 3.64 last week.
That was caused by small soybean yield bumps in South Dakota and southeastern Illinois, along with the scrapping of the half-point cut in Indiana. The Indiana producer also bumped his corn yield up a half-point on Monday morning, and both his yield scores now sit at 3. No other corn yield changes were made.
Average condition scores fell slightly from last week due to dryness stress on the crops, and that was the case in South Dakota, western Iowa and North Dakota. Corn condition dropped to 4.07 from 4.11, and soybean condition decreased to 3.84 from 3.89 even with a bump in southeastern Illinois.
Both of those average condition scores are nearly identical to the Crop Watch averages from the same week a year ago.
The North Dakota fields have not received meaningful precipitation in nearly a month, very damaging to the prospects for the late-June replanted portions of the soybeans. Pod set on the original plant is behind schedule in the producer’s view, and the North Dakota beans hold the lowest yield rating of any Crop Watch field at 1.5.
The dry week in Ohio has also stressed fields there, despite ample rainfall in prior weeks. The Ohio crops, as in North Dakota, were planted into very wet soils and the roots are shallow, and the crops are now more sensitive to dry periods.
The following are the states and counties of the 2022 Crop Watch corn and soybean fields: Griggs, North Dakota; Kingsbury, South Dakota; Freeborn, Minnesota; Burt, Nebraska; Rice, Kansas; Audubon, Iowa; Cedar, Iowa; Warren, Illinois; Crawford, Illinois; Tippecanoe, Indiana; Fairfield, Ohio.
Photos of the Crop Watch fields can be tracked on my Twitter feed using handle @kannbwx. Karen Braun is a market analyst for Reuters. Views expressed above are her own.
(Editing by Matthew Lewis)
