No doubt there is pressure between farmers/marketers and industry representatives who are looking at the 2023 wheat crop for the first time.

I met with a car yesterday.. Green Car led by an industry representative, a KSU representative, a Nebraska Wheat Growers rep and a rep from a milling company from South America.

”Wow it’s a pretty rough looking crop.. there’s going to be a lot of abandonment.. that’s what will make it tough.”  My own personal impression.. “after the first major widespread rains in the area.. this is THE BEST this crop has looked all year.  For the first time maybe we’re gonna see it improve.. but we need more rain.”

This car had a 2nd day tour average of just over 30 bushels..  “We just surveyed the field across the road.. came up right around 30 bushels..”  “I believe the insurance adjuster appraised it around 16 bushels..”. So maybe split the difference?

it’s hard to know what this crop will do.. in 1995.. Kansas had a late freeze.. ah can’t be too bad.. we harvested a half circle.. 60 acres which didn’t even fill a 300 bushel truck.

The next year.. 1996.. we experienced another wide spread freeze.  Some agronomist expressed their experienced views that this crop was going to be very bad.  In spite of split steams.. a period of cool and wet weather allowed the crop to recover which turned out to be a record crop.

so it’s very hard to know.

The wheat tours job is to bring industry buyers to the field to see first hand what the crop looks like.. this year.. welp that South American buyer might be reporting back.. “Golly we may need another source this year.”

So we need to consider the competing forces at work here.. farmer/marketers want to see higher prices and confirmation of damage.. whereas industry representatives are presenting this crop to buyers.. for sale.

I do believe that this crop.. in some lucky places.. is improving.. from a very low level.  Even though.. so far the tour has found yields about 10 bushels below last year.. the market appears to be receiving the tours findings as.. so.. there’s gonna be a crop afterall.

it’s a pretty low yielding.. but possibly good filling HRWW crop on the way.  During a downward flush of all commodities as the Fed continues to fight inflation.  The USDA just published a report which forecasts a record corn crop.

So there’s a lot of competing forces in play.