MarketsFarm — Ahead of the next supply and demand report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, several firms have issued estimates for U.S. corn and soybean yields.

USDA is scheduled to release its next world agriculture supply and demand estimates (WASDE) Thursday at 11 a.m. CT. The report will help set the tone for commodities trading going into the fall.

This year’s crops were hampered by wet conditions for the first part of 2019, which delayed planting. In turn, that has seen slower rates of maturity for corn and soybeans, which could increase the possibility of frost damage.

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In USDA’s August WASDE, the department estimated corn yields at 169.5 bushels per acre, an increase of 3.5 bu./ac. from its July estimate. In the August report, USDA forecast 82 million acres of corn would be harvested this year, which was down 1.6 million from the July report. Ending stocks were projected to be almost 2.2 billion bushels, up from July’s estimate of just over two billion.

MarketsFarm analyst Mike Jubinville said this month’s supply and demand report won’t be as accurate as hoped because of how late the crops have been in the U.S.

“The sense of it that I get is that one should not be expecting major yield cuts in this report because it’s too early,” said Jubinville, but noting the projections will be down a little with solid production numbers perhaps as late as USDA’s January report.

Overall, he expects U.S. corn production to hit 13.7 billion bushels this year, with soybeans reaching 353.6 billion bushels. And although corn production was forecast to be lower, Jubinville said he would not be surprised if the ending stocks increase because of lower domestic demand. He forecast corn ending stocks at two billion bushels.

Formerly Informa, IEG Vantage was the only projection to be above USDA’s most recent forecast.

Projections from MarketsFarm in the table below were provided by analyst Bruce Burnett. The Reuters poll was the results of a survey conducted by the media outlet. “Cordonnier” denotes estimates provided by Dr. Michael Cordonnier of Soybean and Corn Advisor Inc.

All of the estimates gathered for U.S. soybean yields were under USDA’s August forecast of 48.5 bu./ac. The department forecast 75.9 million acres to be harvested, which was a decrease of 3.4 million from its July report. In the August WASDE, the ending stocks were estimated at 755 million bushels, down 40 million from the previous report.

Jubinville forecast the soybean carryover to between 650 million to 700 million bushels.

— Glen Hallick writes for MarketsFarm, a Glacier FarmMedia division specializing in grain and commodity market analysis and reporting.

Table: U.S. corn and soybean yield projections, in bushels per acre.