The most recent crop progress report released by the National Agriculture Statistics Service (NASS) indicates that many crops are in good condition as of late July.  For the week ending on July 29th, NASS indicates that all surveyed crops had higher percentages of good and excellent ratings as compared to conditions for the same week in the 2006 growing season.  In addition, all crops had lower percentages of poor or very poor ratings vs. last year.  The most notable news in this survey comes from the favorable surveys in the corn and soybean states.  Many forecasters have been discussing poor outlooks and widespread crop problems in both the eastern and western corn/soy belts this year, and this has been reflected in the market by the volatility in corn and soy futures.  Despite the market uncertainty, Weather Trends International has been optimistic about the growing conditions for both corn and soybeans all season.  Further, our view is that favorable crop conditions will remain through harvest, and the 2007 crops will finish with very strong corn and soy yields.  It is important to note that these surveys are considered to be a representative sample of the general growing conditions for each crop.  As such, with any sample population, there will obviously be conditions that do not fit into this distribution.  However, the overall outlook at this stage in the growing season supports the favorable view that Weather Trends has been discussing.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 2nd, 2007 at 10:08 am and is filed under Agriculture, Grains. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.