Soybean Futures Fall as Crops Get Rain

Soybean futures fell again Thursday after more than 10 inches of rain drenched parts of the Midwest, boosting prospects for the soybean harvest after plants were damaged by months of drought.

The third storm in a week dumped rain on parched fields from Iowa to Michigan, the National Weather Service said. Soybean prices have fallen almost 9% since Aug. 14 because the rains arrived as plants were entering the crucial stage in which they produce oilseeds.

“Rains like this can turn a damaged bean crop around pretty quick,” said Joe Victor, a grain analyst at Allendale Inc., a McHenry, Ill.-based farm research company. “We may be hauling a lot more bushels of beans out of those fields than we were expecting.”

Soybeans for delivery in November, after the harvest, fell 3.5 cents, or 0.6%, to $5.378 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade, the fourth decline in five sessions. Soybean futures have declined 4.6% so far this week and are on track for their biggest weekly decline since June 21. Still, prices are up 27% this year.

Daily rainfall records were broken in Dubuque, Iowa, and Rockford, Ill., and more rain is expected through tonight, the Weather Service said.

The rain will help soybean plants fill pods with oilseeds, which are crushed to make vegetable oil and animal feed, analysts said. Dry, hot weather slowed plant growth in June and July and threatened to reduce the number of pods produced by each plant in August.

Last week, the U.S. Department of Agriculture lowered its estimate for this year’s soybean harvest by 8.1% from the month-ago estimate to 2.63 billion bushels, which would be the smallest crop since 1996. Drought conditions persist in Nebraska, South Dakota, Ohio and Kansas, the National Drought Mitigation Center said before trading opened.