Corn, soybeans, and wheat were down; cotton was mixed for the week.
Is the harvest low in for corn and soybeans?
December corn futures established a six-month low on July 22nd at $5.61 ¾. Since then, prices have increased nearly 50 cents closing the week at $6.10. Similarly, November soybeans had a six-month low, of $12.88 ½ before subsequently increasing to $14.08 ¾ on August 5th. Recent moves in futures markets and the drier/hot forecast for August in many production regions would tend to support higher prices moving forward. However, this year has been filled with volatility and abrupt changes in direction, so a challenge to current harvest lows cannot be ruled out. To give examples of the volatility, one only needs to look at the last 20 trading days. In 11 of the last 20 trading days the November soybean contract has seen daily moves of greater than 25 cents, including moves of 62 and 62.5 cents down and 37.75 and 38 cents up. For December corn, 9 of the last 20 trading days have had daily changes of greater than 10 cents, including a 42.5 cent decrease and a 19.5 cent increase). Simply stated, markets still have a tremendous amount of uncertainty and daily price swings are reflecting that uncertainty. Continue reading at Tennessee Market Highlights.
Rainfall was welcomed during the Milan No-till event last week and has continued since, with decent chances in the forecast over the weeks to come. Questions this week have mainly concerned our first major fruit shed event, the ‘switch’, what to do about it. In this blog, I attempt to tackle plant growth management decisions as we quickly approach our last effective bloom date.
