Harvest 2013: Another Set of Extremes

This sounds like a broken record, but we are looking at yet another harvest driven by weather extremes and combinations that are hard to predict. The major events were the extremely late planting in very wet soils, followed by an almost complete turnaround in many places to a steadily growing drought condition. In July, the market believed that our major harvest risk would be very wet and late crops vulnerable to even an average frost. By Sept. 1, protracted heat changed the picture completely to the point where corn harvesting has begun in several markets. The quality and management forecast now differs sharply between corn and soybeans