Cash Strategist 10 16 2024

Checking in on the 20204 U.S. harvest

Dry weather across the Midwest has helped rapidly advance harvest progress over the past two weeks, with the pace on both corn and soybeans ahead of their respective five-year averages. While the dryness has aided progress overall, it has also caused some issues in places where crops dried down too quickly, leading to grain and soybean splits.

In the case of soybeans, field reports of moisture levels below 8% and 9% were seen regularly early in this harvest season, which led producers in many cases to opt for soybean cutting over corn shelling early on. This is reflected in last week's harvest progress numbers from the USDA, which showed soybean harvest at 47% complete across the U.S. , while corn harvest was at just 30%.