USDA estimates the U.S. corn crop at just shy of 15 billion bushels

Today’s report features USDA’s first objective yield surveys for corn and soybeans. USDA added 1.7 bu. to its U.S. corn yield estimate and it raised its harvested acreage estimate by 590,000 acres from its June estimate to 85.085 million acres, pushing its production estimate near 15 billion bushels. This also resulted in a larger than expected increase to new-crop U.S. ending stocks.

USDA’s soybean yield projection climbed a bit more than anticipated to 50.6 bu. per acre, but the department also trimmed its harvested acreage estimate by 284,000 to 86.436 million acres, resulting in a production estimate near in line with analysts’ expectations. New-crop soybean carryover came in near expectations.

Analysts did a good job anticipating USDA’s cut to U.S. wheat carryover following some big misses in recent months. But global new-crop carryover for both wheat and corn came in much higher than anticipated. Global ending stocks of soybeans also topped expectations for 2021-22, though the miss was less extreme.

The department’s cotton production estimate jumped quite a bit more than analysts anticipated, with USDA hiking yields by 95 lbs. per acre, which more than made up for a 434,000-acre cut to harvested acres that now stand at 9.922 million.

The following expectations are based on survey work by Reuters (Bloomberg for cotton).