Malaysian palm oil futures closed sharply higher again overnight, hitting new all-time record highs once more, following the Chinese markets’ re-opening after a week-long holiday, which saw substantial gains posted in soybeans, soybean oil and palm oil futures, while Dalian corn and soybean meal markets posted losses. USDA’s monthly Crop Production and WASDE reports will be out next Tuesday, October 12. Our pre-report commentary/analysis can be found on Market Insights at
https://portal.rjobrien.com/MarketInsights/Blog/Read/45402. A summary of the average trade estimates is on the last page.
 Continued high prices and favorable soil moisture conditions are expected to result in steady to slightly higher EU winter wheat planted area for the 2022/23 crop. French wheat planting is underway at 4% complete vs 5% at this time last year, with winter wheat area expected to be most unchanged year-over-year. Current expectations are for a solid increase in rapeseed area this year, though, which is expected to impact spring-planted crops more than winter wheat. Germany’s winter wheat area is expected to increase slightly. A minor increase in Poland’s winter wheat area is expected, as well.
 France’s corn harvest is still only 7% harvested vs 5% the previous week’s and last year’s 47% as a generally slow growing
season has now combined with a wet fall to result in harvest starting very slowly.
 Excessive rains across parts of China’s northern growing areas are severely limiting harvest activity and increasing quality
concerns for this year’s expected bumper crop. For the most part, it is currently being viewed more as a quality concern than a quantity concern with one analyst feeling the rains could result in several million tonnes being of poorer quality. USDA is
currently estimating their corn crop at a record 273.0 MMT vs 261.7 MMT last year.
ï‚· The Indonesian Palm Oil Association reported August palm oil exports were 4.27 MMT, up sharply from 2.74 MMT in July,
significant above last year’s 2.68 MMT and the highest monthly exports for any month we have available data for back to
January 2016, where the previous highest exports were 3.51 MMT in December 2020.
ï‚· There were no USDA sales announcements this morning. Traders will be watching on Monday for any announcements now that China is back from the week-long holiday.
