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Soybean surprises in September WASDE report

Soybean numbers in USDA’s September supply and demand report caught some analysts off guard.

Randy Mittelstaedt, Head of Market Insights with R.J. O’Brien says it is usually October before USDA makes a planted acreage revision, but they dropped the soybean estimate by 570,000 acres to 87.5 million, based on farmer surveys.

“Quite frankly, we thought there was a possibility of a slight uptick if anything. So, that was clearly a surprise.”

USDA also dropped their soybean yield projection from 51.9 to 50.5 bushels per acre. Mittelstaedt says that was probably based on a 7% year over year decrease in pod counts.

“When we look at the weekly crop condition ratings and we see these numbers that are comparable to year-ago levels, we want to believe that similar crop conditions will be similar yields to a year ago.  But it really does come down heavily to the pod count numbers, and those were the lowest since 2019 and the second lowest of at least the last seven or eight years.”

He says while the 2022 crop size was revised down by 153 million bushels, that would still be the fourth largest US soybean crop on record.

Mittelstaedt made his comments during a WASDE review webinar hosted by the US Soybean Export Council.