Crop Watch: Scores mostly hold after dry, cool week, though heat looms

NAPERVILLE, (Illinois): Crop Watch condition scores have somewhat steadied after rising for three straight weeks as the latest week’s dry weather was offset by cooler temperatures.

That dry trend is expected to hold through at least this week, but some of the US Corn Belt’s hottest temperatures of the season are forecast to move in mid-week and last through the weekend.

Many of the Crop Watch producers expect their crops to be showing more stress by next weekend, but this stretch of heat may be tolerable from a yield perspective so long as rains return in early August. The producers are nearly unanimously more concerned with potential dryness versus heat.

Weather models have been mixed on the temperature bias for the first week in August and there is not yet a clear indication on whether a wet pattern returns to the core Corn Belt, which has kept the grain market’s attention.

CONDITIONS AND YIELD

In the latest week, corn condition and yield contracted slightly while soybean condition edged upward, and soy yield stayed unchanged. The 11-field average corn condition slipped to 4.16 from 4.2 in the prior week on quarter-point cuts in Nebraska and western Iowa, the latter stemming from a seed issue rather than a weather issue.

This week’s average corn rating is very similar to those from the same weeks in 2022 and 2021.

The average corn yield score of 4.02 is slightly better than in the past two years, though it is down from 4.07 in the prior week based on the same cuts in the same states as above.

Soybean conditions rose by the smallest possible degree, to 4.2 from 4.18 a week earlier, on a quarter-point bump in Ohio. The Ohio producer also made the same adjustment to soy yield, which was offset by a quarter-point decline in North Dakota as flowers may be aborting in the dry weather.

That kept Crop Watch soybean yield unchanged at 4.16 for the week, distinctly better than at this same time in 2022 and 2021. Crop Watch producers have been rating crop conditions and yield potential on 1-to-5 scales. The condition scores are a primarily visual assessment similar to the US government’s where 1 is very poor, 3 is average and 5 is excellent.