-Good rains should help stabilize late conditions, but freezing temps seen in far north
-Corn/soybean crop condition declines mostly as expected
-Biofuel waiver requests reportedly to be denied
-USDA reports soybean sales to China/unknown again
Due to Monday’s holiday, this week’s regular USDA and EIA reports will be delayed one day from their usual release day. Accordingly, The EIA’s ethanol data will be out on Thursday and Export Sales on Friday. The CFTC’s COT data will still be released on Friday, though. The USDA’s monthly Crop Production and WASDE reports will be out Friday at 11:00 AM CT. Our pre-report commentary/analysis can be found on Market Insights at https://portal.rjobrien.com/MarketInsights/Blog/Read/41334. A summary of the average trade estimates is on the following page.
ï‚· Rainfall totals across much of the belt have been impressive over the last several days, with much of Iowa and the northern halves of IL, IN and OH seeing widespread 2â€+ amounts (see map on page 3). The potential benefit for corn is debatable, though, with IA, IL and IN already reporting maturity at 28%, 23% and 20%, respectively, while those states’ denting progress is already at 84%, 86% and 68%, respectively, as
well. There is likely to be more benefit to soybeans, but IA and IN are already reporting 19% dropping leaves, while IL is only 2%. On the other hand, sub-freezing temps were seen in ND overnight and will impact late-planted crops.
 Yesterday afternoon’s U.S. crop condition ratings showed corn and soybean conditions only declining 1% in good/excellent nationwide, with corn in line with wire service-reported expectations, while soybeans were expected to decline 2%. However, a look at the individual state condition changes certainly felt as though the overall condition decline could have been larger. For example, for soybeans of the 18 states included in the national summary, 11 declined, 3 were unchanged and 4 improved. Of the declining states, IL was down 4%, IA down 3%, SD down 6%, NE down 3%, KS down 5% and MO down 2%, while the only increases were OH by 1%, MI by 1%, KY by 2% and MS 3%. Similarly, corn saw 10 of 18 states’ conditions decline, 4 unchanged and 4 improve. SD declined 6% g/e, with KS and MO down 3%, NE, WI and IN down 2% and MN and ND down 1%. Improvements were seen only in OH by 4%, MI 3%, KY 1% and CO 5%. Overall corn crop conditions remain modestly better than last year, but are still tied for the 2nd lowest of the last 7 years, while soybean conditions are exactly in
line with the 5-year average for early September, being worse than 2018, 2016 and 2014, but better than 2019, 2017 and 2015.
ï‚· Spring wheat harvest is nearing completion at 82%, up from 69% last week and compares to 87% average.
ï‚· Winter wheat planting is underway at 5% complete vs 3% average.
 For more details on yesterday’s Crop Progress report, please see our post at https://portal.rjobrien.com/MarketInsights/Blog/Read/41355.
ï‚· USDA reported soybean sales of 238k tonnes to China and 132k tonnes to unknown for 2020/21 delivery this morning.
ï‚· President Trump has reportedly decided to deny the multiple retroactive refinery biofuels waiver requests which were applied for after the January court ruling that waivers could only be granted as extensions of pre-existing waivers and not as one-time waivers, which many were. This has prompted strength in RIN values on the likely need of them to fulfill past obligations.
 Significant concerns continue about the ability to effectively harvest this year’s Malaysian oil palm crop of which the peak production period is Sept-Nov as the flow of migrant workers has been dramatically reduced due to COVID. Roughly 85% of the plantation workforce is migrant workers, many of which are from Bangladesh and Indonesia. It is estimated there is a roughly 37k worker shortfall at the moment, accounting for 10% of the typical full workforce. The inability to harvest in a timely and efficient manner is likely to reduce both the quantity and quality of harvest bunches this year, potentially resulting in palm oil production declining considerably from last year’s 19.9 MMT. Plantations have been reaching out prisons and rehab centers in an attempt to find workers.
Weather
Over the last 24 hours, rains of .50-1.5â€+ fell across the southern 1/3 of MN, most of IA, the northern ½ of MO, into areas east of the MS River and north of I-80. A frontal boundary will continue to bring rains to the NW Midwest into tomorrow, with an area of low pressure to bring some more rains to the NW Midwest by Saturday. Combined totals between these two systems going forward look to be in the .30-1â€+ range to the NE of a line from St Louis to Cleveland. Totals to the SE of that STL-CLE line look to be generally less than .50â€. The 6-10 day period looks mostly quiet with some rains of generally less than .45†in MN, IA, IN and OH. Temps will run below average in the NW ½ of the Midwest and above average in the SE for the rest of this week. The cold air threats for tomorrow morning looks to be across ND and the northern 2/3rd of MN. The rest of MN and northern IA will see readings of 36-40.