Futures called marginally higher, but opened VERY strong, with wheats up 15. Its an odd market; John Deere reported profits would be down 38% for the last ¼, and down 29% on the year, yet stock prices were up over $3/ share in early trade. Crop progress for the week had something for everyone….the crop estimates showed corn plantings nationwide at 62% vs. 85% on 5 yr ave. Illinois is 20% vs. 73% (5 yr), Indiana is 24% vs. 67%, Ohio is 39 vs. 52%. Then there are places like Nebraska that is 93% planted vs. 88% on the 5 yr ave.What is interesting though is that emergence is 30% vs. 49% on 5 yr ave. Spring wheat is 50% planted vs. 90% on 5 yr ave…emergence is 21% vs. 59%. Inspection report showed that corn shipment were ok at 36.9 myn bu. Wheat shipments were 3. 8 myn bu, only .3 SWW. Kansas wheat crop is rated 54% G-Ex, while Okie is rated 63% P-VP and Texas is even worse at 73% P-VP. By the way harvest has started in Texas. CBOT will allow trades further out in the future starting next month corn futures will go out to 2012. US will donate $100 myn immediately to Pakistan to help with humanitarian aid as they continue to battle the Taliban. Cargill sold 13 myn bu of corn to South Korea, ½ of it should lift the US.

Pacific Ethanol filed yesterday. They have 420 myn gallon capacity (would use 150 myn bu of corn/ year if they were running) on 4 plants; Boardman, Burley, Stockton and Madera. They list assets at $50-100 myn and debt at $100-500 myn. Judge allowed another $7 myn extension loan, but most bankers holding the notes would prefer liquidation vs. adding more debt (they have about $274 myn in bank notes).

Argie has been the world’s # 2 corn exporter and is expected to see their annual shipments decrease by 2/3 due to drought and government interference. Longer term, gov’t interference will be a bigger problem than weather…where will we be in a few years? Growers look to plant much more beans this year, in spite of the gov’t interference. This year Russia has exported 18.8 myn mt, Ukraine about 23 myn mt…both are expected to exceed those levels this year. On back to back bumper crops of rice and wheat, and with higher prices, India reports that procurement of wheat and rice is already ahead of last years totals.