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US corn firm on yield losses, soy falls for 3rd day

SINGAPORE/AMSTERDAM - Chicago corn rose nearly 2 percent on Thursday, recouping some of the previous session’s losses after the U.S. government cut its yield estimate more sharply than expected, but forecasts for rain in parts of the grain belt capped gains.

Soybeans slid for a third consecutive session after climbing to a record high on Monday, while wheat ticked up, tracking gains in the corn market.

The worst Midwest drought in a quarter century is doing more damage to U.S. crops than previously expected, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) slashed its estimate for what was originally supposed to be a record harvest.

It said the corn crop would average just 146 bushels an acre, down 20 bushels from its June estimate and a much more dramatic drop than analysts had projected.

“The extent to which the U.S. Department of Agriculture revised its previous crop estimate downwards came as quite a surprise,” Germany’s Commerzbank said in its daily note.

“Despite a significant expansion of acreage, there will be no record harvest, contrary to previous expectations. The sharp reduction in average per-acre yields by 20 to 146 bushels per acre has put paid to that,” it said.

Chicago Board of Trade new-crop December corn rose 1.88 percent to $7.17 a bushel by 1030 GMT, while the spot-month rose around 1 percent to $7.59-1/4 a bushel.

The front-month soy contract slid 0.31 percent to $16.18 a bushel after climbing to a record top of $16.79-1/2 a bushel on Monday. September wheat was up 0.82 percent at $8.33 a bushel.

Benchmark November milling wheat on the Paris futures market was up 2.75 euros or 1.11 percent at 249.50 euros ($310) a tonne on higher prices in Chicago.

New-crop corn prices have risen more than 40 percent in the past three weeks as the worst drought in a quarter century has wilted crops.

Production may decline further as dry weather continues in vast areas of the corn belt, where the majority of U.S. corn is pollinating - a key growth phase when cobs sprout grain and when adequate moisture is essential.

Although forecasts suggested wetter weather in parts of the U.S. Midwest this week, about half of the region was still in a significant moisture deficit.

“Some rains are expected in the next days in the USA, but their intensity and their location remain unclear,” French analyst Agritel said in a daily note.

“Many operators consider that the damage to corn is now irreversible in most cases.”

With corn prices rising to near 13-month highs, demand is also expected to take a hit. The USDA cut estimates for corn use by ethanol makers, livestock producers and exporters by nearly as much as it cut the figure for supplies.

“The decline in production of both U.S. corn and soybean production means that consumers both in the U.S. and the world must curb purchases over the next 12 months,” said Luke Mathews, a commodities strategist at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday ethanol output fell for a fourth straight week last week to the lowest in nearly two years.

The USDA’s estimates of wheat and soybean stocks were also below expectations. Soybean yields were cut nearly 8 percent to 40.5 bushels per acre, the second-lowest since 2003, due to the drought.

The USDA also reduced its estimated carryover stocks of wheat to 664 million bushels and soybeans to 130 million bushels soybeans, compared with trade expectations of 718 million bushels of wheat and 141 million bushels of soybeans.