11:30 PM CST June 27, 2019

Grain Markets Feel The Brunt of Drier Weather, As The European Model Is Winning-Out From The Latest Runs Tonight. I am seeing a drier bias for the wettest areas of the Great Lakes & Midwest/Central & Eastern Corn-Belt. In addition to this, the grain market is getting nervous about acreage, as technicals are letting the chartists down going into the report. As I have continued to suggest, play the “long game” but respect the technical trend-lines and oscillators after the report numbers tomorrow.

Crop Tour Highlights–Day 1: The major feature of this first leg from NE Kansas to Northern Indiana is that USDA is likely correct on their PLANTING PROGRESS NUMBER FROM MONDAY. In other words, there was a lot less Prevent Planted acres across MO, IL, and IN than I was expecting to see. (1) There is no doubt that the crop is very short: for the most part, all the corn I saw on this leg of the tour looked like May 27 corn, not June 27 corn. A notable exception is from Hull to Decatur, IL–this area, by and large, had much better growth…similar to what I saw north of my office in NE Kansas. (2) MO and IN look very similar overall: very short corn, beans just coming out of the ground, thinner, water-damaged stands are more prevalent, and a more pale color on the corn. We are a long way from making a crop, but I think the lack of rain and added fieldwork by farmers this next 5 days could really help the situation. NOTE HOW SIMILAR THE MO & IN CORN PICS BELOW ARE… (3) Please also keep in mind, the few pictures that I am showing you are supposed to reflect the majority of what I witnessed; they don’t reflect it all by any means.