Soybeans Rally, Head To Strong Finish W


LITTLE ROCK, ARK.


hat a difference a week makes. Or a half hour. Even


before the U.S. Depart- ment of Agriculture’s Na- tional


Statistics Service pub- lished its weekly Crop Progress and Condition report, Jeremy Ross, ex-


Agricultural A Surprising turn for


a troublesome year The 2020 harvest has


been difficult for some Arkansas crops, most notably cotton. Soy- beans, however, have emerged mostly un- scathed, despite several damaging weather sys- tems pushing heavy


bushel range during the first week of November. “It’s a little unusual,”


Ross said. “It’s during harvest that we typically see the lowest commod- ity prices in a year.” Ross said that con-


tributing factors to the price gain include an in- crease in purchases from


said. “Yield reductions in the largest soybean pro- ducing states like Iowa and Illinois played a key role. Since August, USDA has lowered Illinois' yield by six bushels per acre and Iowa by four bushels. Yields in Indi- ana, Kansas and Mis- souri have all been


USDA lowered its esti- mate of the Argentine soybean crop by 2.5 mil- lion metric tons. “How the South Ameri-


can crop turns out will have a direct bearing on whether


the United


States will play a larger role in world soybean trade in 2021,” Stiles


sion is the most recent twist in more than five years’ worth of


challenges, rulings and reversals. Ross said he and his


fellow researchers were also gearing up for the months following the completion of harvest, when agronomists typi-


legal


tension soybean agrono- mist for the University of Arkansas System Divi- sion of Agriculture was feeling positive about the turn the 2020 harvest had taken over the past two weeks. “These have been about


the best conditions for harvest that we’ve seen the last couple of years,” Ross said Monday. “If this weather pattern keeps up, we should be done by the end of the month.” When the NASS report


dropped 30 minutes later at 3 p.m., it showed har- vested acres rising from 67 percent to 82 percent over seven days. Ross only had to change his tune for the better. “That’s a 15 percent


jump in one week,” he said.


“Over 400,000


acres. Another two weeks and we’ll be close to fin- ished.”


winds and rain into the Southern Plains during the spring and summer. “Most


everyone


is


pleased about how their beans turned out,” Ross said. “It seems like the difference between suc- cess and struggle hinged on the tropical depres- sion from Hurricane Laura


that came


through. Statewide, it didn’t appear that we had a lot of damage, but there was lodging in some fields that


I


walked, and those farm- ers were disappointed in the yields.” On top of what appears


to be a generally suc- cessful harvest effort, re- cent reports on the soybean cash market have been unusually up- beat. After years of de- pressed


commodity


prices, soybean bookings and cash market prices surged into the $11


12• MidAmerica Farmer Grower www.mafg.net / November 20, 2020


China and reduced U.S. soybean supply, result- ing from the powerful derecho event in August, in which straight-line winds caused more than $7.5 billion in damages from Iowa to Indiana, de- stroying millions of acres of corn and soybeans in the process. A tougher year in the


Midwest Scott Stiles, agricul-


tural economist for the Division of Agriculture, said the derecho storm profoundly


impacted


overall U.S. production. “Prior to that event,


USDA was projecting the United States would har- vest its second largest soybean crop in history of 4.425 billion,” Stiles said. “The record was 4.428 in 2018. “Since August, the U.S.


average yield has slipped from 53.3 to 50.7 bushels per acre,” he


lowered thee to four bushels since August. The combination of all that has removed almost 255 million bushels.” Stiles said that since


August, the USDA’s pro- jection of year-end soy- bean stocks has fallen from 610 million bushels to 190 million bushels, the lowest


inventory


since 2014. Stiles added that while


prices for soybeans and other commodities have improved dramatically in recent months, the best may be yet to come. “The current pace of


export sales could lead to further increases in USDA's already record export projection,” he said, noting that eastern Argentina and southern Brazil, two major soy- bean producing competi- tors, continue to suffer unusually dry condi- tions. On Tuesday, the


said. Key questions for


2021 Ross said his office


was already fielding calls from growers and con- sultants regarding the availability of soybean seed varieties for the 2021 planting season. He said that while many growers had initially sought advice in selec- tion of various Enlist technologies, which rely on the use of the 2, 4-D class of herbicides, in- terest has


recently


grown in XtendFlex technology, which toler- ates use of dicamba her- bicides.


In late October, the


U.S. Environmental Pro- tection Agency issued a five-year registration for dicamba formulations for use with various soy- bean and cotton seed technologies. The deci-


cally work with the agri- cultural community to update them on the lat- est research findings and help growers make decisions about the up- coming year. “It’s been an odd year,


and it’s going to be an odd winter,” he said, “with few face-to-face meetings and more vir- tual meetings and not being able to have those one-on-one


contacts


with producers. It looks like I’ll be on the phone a lot more with produc- ers and consultants, try- ing to help them with their decisions.” In lieu of face-to-face


winter production meet- ings, extension special- ists will be hosting commodity-based virtual meetings in January and February. Find the schedule


http://bit.ly/Winter- Meetings2021.


at ∆


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