WASHINGTON, May 10 (Reuters) – Record-large U.S. corn and soybean crops will end three years of punishingly tight supplies but the winter wheat crop is smaller than expected, the government said on Friday.
Grain traders have been bracing for an onslaught of supply in the coming year, but ending stocks for the new crop of corn and soybeans would still be slightly larger than expected.
In its first projection of the fall harvest, the Agriculture Department said the corn crop would be a record 14.14 billion bushels despite a late start to the planting season that will lower yields.
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All the same, U.S. corn ending stocks for 2013/14 would hit 2.004 billion bushels, said USDA, nearly triple the 759 milion forecast for the Aug. 31 end of this marketing year and marginally above the trade estimate.
“The slow start to this year’s planting and the likelihood that progress by mid-May will remain well behind the 10-year average reduce prospects for yields,” said USDA. It projected yields of 158 bushels an acre, down 8 bushels or 5 percent, from a forecast made at its February outlook conference.
With the mammoth crop, 4.85 billion bushels of corn will be used to make ethanol, up from 4.6 billion bushels from the 2012 crop. Ethanol output could top 13.4 billion gallons from this year’s crop.
U.S. soybean production was projected at a record 3.390 billion bushels with 2013/14 end stocks more than doubling to 265 million bushels from the 125 million bushels estimated for this Aug 31. Traders on average had expected stocks of 236 million bushels.
CORN PLANTING SLOWED BY COLD SPRING
A cold, rainy, snowy spring has slowed fieldwork dramatically. At the start of this week, only 12 percent of the corn crop was planted, the smallest tally for early May in three decades. Yields are lower on late-planted fields and the risk rises of frost damage to late-maturing plants.
The U.S. Winter wheat crop was forecast for 1.49 billion bushels, down 10 percent from last year, mostly due to freeze and drought damage in the central and southern Plains, the heart of the crop.
Winter wheat is the lion’s share of U.S. output, projected for 2.057 billion bushels this year.
Cotton growers saw a record yield of 887 lbs per acre on the 2012 crop that totaled 17.3 million bales, USDA said in a final estimate of the crop.
World grain and soybean stocks are also on the rise for 2013/14, and Friday’s estimates were above trade expectations.
USDA said there was a 12 percent margin of error for its winter wheat estimate, which was based on spot checks of fields and a survey of 13,000 growers. USDA says its May projection for corn production has a 28 percent margin of error and soybeans have a 16 percent margin of error.
