It's day 11, July 5, 2016. My name is Moe Agostino, Chief Commodity Strategist with Farms.com Risk Management. We are starting our crop tour in the state of Minnesota. It's cloudy, not a bad day, it's a little cooler than what we have been used to on the tour.
Some quick facts about Minnesota agriculture: the corn yield was a record last year at 188. 81% of the corn crop is good to excellent, 2% very poor to poor, so that is very high. The national average is 75%. We've got about 8.1 million acres planted in 2016, that's down 4.71 vs last year. On soys, the record last year was 50. This state is known as the 'garden spot', so it is one of the better areas throughout the tour so far - that and the northern part of Iowa. We've got beans blooming. 73% of the crop is good to excellent, 3% very poor to poor. 7.6 million acres in 2016, that's down from 7.8 million or down 2.75%. For wheat, a lot of the wheat here in Minnesota is all spring wheat. We've got 1.532 million acres vs last year 1.435 million, that's up 6.7%. The yield averaging about 60 bushels per acre. That's up 5 vs 2014. There is no soft red winter wheat. Spring wheat crop conditions 65% good to excellent, very poor at 9%.
So this is a nice bean field. This is one of the very few bean fields where it is 10 inches. It looks like it was just sprayed, it's blooming, it's not quite knee high but it's looking good. You know, so far on the tour we are seeing a lot of variability not only from field to field but from county to county. Yes, we are getting rain but, is everybody getting enough rain? The markets are suggesting that everybody is looking quite good. We will continue with our tour to see if Minnesota is that 'garden spot' that everyone is talking about.
[Video clips of Minnesota field conditions]
We are now traveling south on Hwy 15, we are just south of Hutchinson, Minnesota. I wanted to show you this corn field. It's not typical of what you are seeing but a lot of farmers did complain about a lot of rain here in the spring. This is one of those drowned out conditions and all of a sudden it has gotten very dry and you are seeing crusted soil and cracks in this particular section. As you go further out the corn is looking better, it's about chest high. For every drowned out field, or sections of a field, there is some really good looking field. This is supposed to be the 'garden spot'. We are not seeing any tasseled corn yet but I think as we get further south we will start to see that.
[Video clips of Minnesota field conditions]
We are traveling south on 15, we are now near Lafayette, Minnesota. I wanted to show you this bean field. It's about knee high. Throughout the tour there has been a lot of variability from field to field, county to county, farmer to farmer. There was some rain over the weekend that was more than expected. We did get some rain over night here in Minnesota. This is a good looking field, it's about 15 inch rows. There has still been a lot of haves and have-nots. 20% of the U.S. Midwest is still quite dry but this is looking really good. We've got a corn field across the road that is head high and probably a week away from tasseling.
[Video clips of Minnesota field conditions]
We are traveling on 450th Avenue near Jeffers, Minnesota. We are going west on 30 towards Currie, Minnesota. We pretty well have done a circle, we kind of tried to avoid Minneapolis - have come down and now we are going towards Sioux City, Iowa for tonight. It's a very windy day. It has gone from a couple cool days, wet days to very windy days drying down - this is a very dry soybean field. They are looking good, but we have another storm tonight that is supposed to bring some moisture and hail. At the beginning of the video I mentioned that Minnesota is considered one of those 'garden spots' this year in the U.S. Midwest. Folks, I'm disappointed, I don't see the 'garden spot'. They had a good chunk of the counties here had record yields last year I doubt whether we are going be there. Some folks were hit with frost, others were delayed. The ones that got in early look good but the ones that were planted later have probably shaved the top end. Again, a lot of variability from county to county, field to field, farmer to farmer.
[Video clips of Minnesota field conditions]
It's day 11, it's July 5th and we are going to end our tour in the state of Minnesota, we're traveling west on 240th street just above I-90. We are approaching Laverne, Minnesota. You know we started the tour in northern part of the state near Fargo, North Dakota and we kind of did a circle, tried to avoid Minneapolis. I think 2 weeks ago everyone called it the 'garden spot' of the U.S. but since then it has gotten a little dry. We have had a lot of rain in the spring, kind of delayed crops a week or two depending on the farmer you talk to. A lot of variability from field to field. There is some drowned out areas like last year, not as much, depending on the area. The corn looks good. We haven't seen any tasseled corn although we did see 1 or 2 fields but that's not typical of Minnesota this time of year, if corn is tasseling right now it was planted early. Most of it probably won't tassel until mid-July to end of July. The beans look really good, they are blooming but a little dry. Some cracks depending on the field, so these crops will need some rain here soon. They have been missing the rains the last 2 weeks. I'm going to rate the crop above average for Minnesota. Not sure it is going to meet the record yields from last year but I'm going to rate both the corn and beans 8-8.5.
[Video clips of Minnesota field conditions]