Unlike some past years, the October WASDE report didn’t provide much for the bulls or the bears. USDA made very few changes to the U.S. and world grain balance sheets.
The agency raised corn yield 0.2 bu. per acre to a record 183.8 bu., but that bucked the trend of early estimates, which indicated a 0.2 bu. drop.
USDA increased corn yield in Iowa by 2 bushels to 214, left Illinois yield unchanged at 222 bu., but lowered Indiana 8 bu. to 202 and Ohio 4 bu. at 183.
U.S. corn production was raised slightly to 15.2 billion bushels, but with lower carry-in, the 2024-25 ending stocks for corn were cut by 58 million bushels from last month to 1.999 billion.
“This number really wasn’t that much of a change. The carryout, just shy of 2 billion, is comfortable at this point in time,” says Jim McCormick with AgMarket.Net.
However, he notes USDA did lower Chinese corn imports by 2 million metric tons, which is still well above China’s 13 million metric ton import forecast.
“If the Chinese number is more accurate, and they’re only importing 13 million metric tons instead of 21, that will be bearish for the world balance sheet and be price negative,” McCormick says.
On soybeans, USDA lowered yield 0.1 bu. per acre to 53.1 bu., which was in line with trade estimates and is still a record.
USDA again raised yield in Iowa by 1 bu. and Illinois by 2 bu., while Ohio and Indiana were both down 3 bu.
At least the soybean yield didn’t increase, says Darren Frye with Water Street Solutions.
“A lot of people were expecting a higher yield. We still have a big crop, and I think it would have been a lot bigger with a better finish, but we’re still hearing these later beans that finished under dry conditions have taken a hit on yield. We’ll see what happens in subsequent reports,” he adds.
Frye says the market also got a reprieve with USDA leaving ending stocks at 550 million bushels, but the carryover is still 200 million above last year and burdensome to the market.
“The balance sheet is still way too large on ending stocks at 550, and I do think the export demand is still way too high from USDA,” Frye says. “We’re just not seeing enough Chinese business or export business in general to lower that number on the ending stocks down especially if Brazil starts receiving timely rain.”
In fact, he thinks USDA could be overstating soybean demand by as much as 100 million bushels, which would take ending stocks well over 600 million and mean sub-$10 prices.
