USDA shocked the market this morning as it projected the national corn yield at 153 bu./acre. Leading up the report, Jerry Gulke, President of the Gulke Group, says the market was trading yield expectations in the 155 bu./acre range.
They’ve recognized there’s a problem out there. I think they wanted to get ahead of it a little bit for fear of being criticized,” Gulke says. “They left the acres the same, but lowered the harvested acres by 500,000. What was interesting in the corn was they didn’t lower any of the acres in those four states (North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana and Minnesota) they resurveyed.”
Interestingly, the majority of the prevent planting in those states was in the Durum and spring wheat markets. Corn carried the spring in the traditional wheat markets of the northern plains.
In the ongoing restructuring, Deputy Secretary Vaden explains how the agency will retain institutional knowledge while relocating operations to rural America.
Mark Schultz of Northstar Commodity says grain markets also saw some position squaring by traders heading into a three-day weekend as the markets are closed on Friday for Juneteenth.
