Yesterday we hosted the second webinar in our Grain Market Update Series. For this webinar, our Head of Strategy, Keith Petersen was joined by Marlin Bohling, Market Editor for RFD-TV. The two previewed the upcoming June WASDE report, talked about the latest cmdty Yield Forecasts, and then hosted a live Q&A. If you missed it, we will fill you in now!

The webinar began by covering Marlin’s past and expertise within the grain market. After, the two jumped into the preview of the WASDE report.

Marlin began talking about the current corn condition, explaining that the conditions for the corn belt states are looking pretty good, especially Nebraska (85%), Iowa (83%), and Illinois, improving by 9 points this past week.

Marlin then went on to talk about the upcoming WASDE report. He first stated that he doesn’t think we will get a planted acreage update until the end of the month, and that this may be a minor report. He says everyone will be watching for what China demand will be, what the feed usage demand will be, and what the ethanol usage will be.

When it comes to wheat prices, Marlin is looking to see if the USDA will take a stand in factoring in drought damage or freeze damage. He says it sounds like in Oklahoma and Texas the yields were okay, but the question will be surrounding Kansas and if the numbers will be declining.

After Marlin filled us in on some great stats, Keith jumped in to go over Yield Forecasts in regards to the upcoming report. He began by comparing the USDA estimates for the upcoming WASDE report, to cmdty’s own initial estimates from our yield forecast. The USDA figures came out to be 178.5 bu/ac for corn and 49.8 bu/ac for soybeans, compared to cmdty’s numbers of 172.4 bu/ac for corn and 48.8 bu/ac for soybeans. Since June 2nd, when our initial estimate was announced, we’ve revised our corn estimate upwards towards the USDA’s based on field-level intelligence, but soybeans have been relatively flat. Keith explained that we expect USDA forecasts to be flat to slightly up. Our revised numbers are 175.1 bu/ac for corn and 48.8 bu/ac for soybeans.

After, Keith gave us some information regarding the cmdty Yield Forecast Indexes. Calculated using the latest geospatial and remote sensing technology, new model updates are pushed daily. These indexes include insights on over 3,000 individual growing areas in the U.S. and are calculated for both corn and soybeans. Use cases for these indexes include anticipating the USDA estimate revisions, improving crop marketing strategies, and building better loan and insurance underwriting practices.

Keith also wanted the audience to know of another way to access our indexes, which is through cmdty’s free U.S. Yield Forecast Report. This report is published on the first and third Tuesday of every month with initial estimates that were released on June 2nd, and new figures that will be available on June 16th. This report covers both the national and state levels with updates from major crop production areas.

These daily estimates are also available within our commodity trading platform, cmdtyView Pro. These can be viewed both geospatially in our maps or through our cash grain prices windows where you can filter and pull whatever data you want.

Are you wondering how you can use these forecasts? In the webinar, Keith mentioned our free whitepaper that is available to give you deeper information around how to use these. The whitepaper gives an overview of USDA forecast performance and market impact over several decades, exploration of how the USDA’s estimates have been shaped by changes in production technology, an overview of how new technology allows for in-season insights into yield, and shows users how to anticipate revisions from the USDA.

After an in-depth overview of how to access and use our forecasts, and before diving into a great Q&A revolving around Marlin’s extensive background, Keith pointed out that we are constantly working to add new datasets to our offerings, next being basis forecasts, so be on the lookout for those!

These two covered a lot of ground, too much to fit into one blog post, so be sure to check out the full webinar here. If you would like to access our yield forecast updates, you can sign up for cmdtyView Pro, or our free yield forecast report released the first and third Tuesday of each month. Lastly, be sure to register for our entire market update series so you can be prepared for each WASDE and Crop Production release, and also hear about the latest from cmdty by Barchart.