08/21/2023 Hot Finish to August and Crop Tour Cautions Start the Week

On the Grains:
Corn and beans are firm again in overnight trade, with beans up double digits. Wheat is soft. We’ll get another set of crop condition ratings this afternoon and a repeat of last week’s improvement is unlikely. The key driver is the return of blistering hot temps to finish the growing season and the reality that news this week is likely to be dominated by the Pro Farmer Crop Tour that begins today. Scouts will be feeling the heat and observing the afternoon wilt as they select the fields they’ll scout in the seven states covered today through Thursday.
 
Three of the top ten states aren’t included (MO, KS and ND) and our own Eric Relph has been stopping in fields on a tour of his own through four of them (IA, MO, KS and NE) and found a lot of variation from surprisingly good to surprisingly bad. In central NE the contrast between irrigated and dryland corn and beans was especially stark.