Corn spot basis bids dropped 10 cents per bushel in southern Ohio on Friday as the harvest advanced and the grain piled up at some processors, elevators and ethanol plants, dealers said. Corn bids were firm at a terminal along the Illinois River and largely steady elsewhere, supported by slow farmer sales with the harvest nearly complete in most of the US Midwest.
Ohio was furthest behind in the harvest among major states in the US Corn Belt, with the harvest only 74 percent complete as of Sunday, compared with the total US harvest progress of 95 percent done. But farmers in Ohio actively gathered the grain in recent days and, due to high moisture content, many truckloads of the grain needed to be dried in commercial dryers. There was also elevated levels of aflatoxin in many loads, leading to discounts at delivery, merchants said. The seasonally building supplies pressured the basis, with corn piling up outside of elevators and ethanol plants in Ohio and Michigan.
Soyabean spot basis bids weakened at river terminals around the region due to a slower pace of export sales and concerns that a likely closure of a key shipping channel could disrupt shipments of the oilseed next month, dealers said.