Tonight will be a brief report as I am travelling and we are seeing a market which is lacklustre in advance of Thursday’s report. There is a huge divergence of opinion over the size of the US corn crop despite the fact that it is well harvested right now. Informa’s figure of 11.2 billion bu is countered by Cordonnier at 1.234 billion bu lower (31.3 million mt lower). This illustrates the lack of consensus and possibility of a surprise on Thursday.

Market estimates are as follows:
Yield – average, 122.884 bushels per acre; highest, 127.0 bushels per acre; lowest, 120.0 bushels per acre
Harvested area – average, 86.136m acres; highest, 87.5m acres; lowest, 83.0m acres
Harvest – average, 10.601bn bushels; highest, 11.194bn bushels; lowest, 9.960bn bushels
Current USDA figures – yield, 122.8 bushels per acre; harvested area, 87.4m acres; harvest, 10.727bn bushels

Harvested area alone has a massive variation of 4.5 million acres – little surprise at market reaction in advance of official USDA numbers, the big question being, “will the market believe them?”

UK wheat imports continue to look as if they will reach over 2 million mt as quality grains are being sourced from overseas to replace the lower quality domestic supplies. France, germany and Baltic States all feature as potential sources, and the US does not look outrageously priced today. It will not take much to put the US in the right price bracket and enable supplies to reach our shores at some time this season.

We anticipate choppy price action this week in advance of the crop report; direction will be dictated after publication and jockeying for position will be the order of the day until then.