USDA world supply/demand and US crop production reports will be released on Wednesday night and there’s a trade meeting scheduled to take place between Chinese and US officials on Saturday 15 August.

Headline yield

This upcoming report will be all about yield, and those yield estimates will be what drives market participants to extrapolate the USDA figures back towards their own demand estimates to see where that ends up.

Market survey report estimates published late last week pegged corn yields at 180.4 bushels per acre (bu/ac) corn / 51.3 bu/ac beans, both reflecting large increases relative to the July report.  New season ending stocks were in the high two-million-tonnes range on corn and 500,000t beans.

The ProFarmer crop tour will commence next week, following other private forecasters which  surveyed crops in recent weeks, and will form the basis of the next yield discussion after the USDA. If USDA does come out at a 180-type figure, markets will be looking for confirmation in the form of some very solid estimates from ProFarmer.

Rain makes grain

Rain forecasts remain very solid for the central corn belt this week with 1-2″ (25-50mm) predicted to fall across Iowa/Missouri and further east.  That’s addition to the early storms, though they were less widespread, but arrived over the weekend.  On the down side, there’s still no real relief in sight for most of Argentina with central areas there still looking towards two weeks of dry weather.

Australia

Great moisture across most of southern NSW over the weekend saw falls of 20-30+ mm and significantly improved sentiment.  Some further north missed out though, and most of SA only ran 10-15 mm at best.  The next storm system is currently moving across WA with 20+ mm already reported across coastal areas of the central/northern wheat belt, but the current weather runs are now showing it drifting down more into the Bight and most of the moisture missing inland SA.  Grain markets Friday were almost all offer side. Rain  had the bids pull down another $5/t or so.