We are below last year in red and below the green line from two years ago.

With crop conditions falling, private analysts are going to be lowering their yield estimates slightly as U.S. corn crop has seen a couple steady weeks but generally has been declining the past two months.

Soybean conditions have dropped every week since USDA began their crop condition report a couple months ago.

We are still 1% ahead of last year’s rating at this time but we are way below the ratings from two years ago.

Crop conditions may be able to stabilize next week because of the rains and cooler temperatures this week.

But if next week’s forecast is correct with extreme heat and dryness then we will start to trend lower again.

Soybean crop ratings fell 1% from 62 to 61% good to excellent.

We are still 1% above last year which was rated at 60% good to excellent.

We are slightly below average for this time of year indicating that yields could be slightly below average as well.

We do anticipate that conditions will drop a couple percentages next week based on this week’s heat and dryness.  

Corn crop conditions are steady, 64 good to excellent or the third week in a row.

For mid-July we are at or slightly below average, so yield is at or below average.

At 64% good to excellent we are actually 1% below last year when we were 65%, you can see the red line last year just above this year’s yellow line.

If the forecast is correct, we believe conditions will likely drop a few percentages next week and this will start to send crop conditions below average and maybe signal below average yields.

Conditions dropped another 2% and rather than being rated in the upper end of the range like we were early in the growing season crop conditions now more in the middle of the typical trading range for this time of year.

Soybean conditions now 63% good to excellent compared to 59% a year ago.

You can see the steady decline that we’ve seen over the past 3-4 weeks with this week’s rating at 64% now below average for this time of year.

The good news for US farmers is that the recent rains and the rain the forecast over the next 2-3 days should allow conditions to improve slightly next week.

The winter wheat crop condition held steady at 30% good to excellent and the winter wheat condition will not be changing much.

The season will end with crop conditions extremely low, near record lows.

Our initial crop rating was very high and closer to the upper end of the range, but crop condition ratings have been falling.

This week’s rating at 65% good to excellent closer to the middle of the range for this time of the year.