The Farm Journal Crop Tour this week will take another look at corn and soybean conditions across the Midwest as market prices slid last week. Jerry Gulke of the Gulke Group says if tour participants find fewer bushels than recent government predictions, the markets may have already seen its highest production numbers of the season. Gulke tells Farm Journal’s Ag Web Dot Com he’s hoping for positive results. “If they come out of the fields saying that government estimates might have been right,” Gulke says, “that’s not going to look good.” Commodity prices had a tough go last week as prices continued to drop thanks to rain reports in growing regions around the country, including North Dakota, where the drought has been at its most intense. Gulke suspects crop conditions are quite as good as the government thinks. “Crop ratings show that things are pretty bad in some areas,” Gulke says. While the trade has been skeptical of farmer-oriented tours in the past, Gulke says they have a lot more credibility than in the past, adding, “Let’s hope crop condition numbers are bad enough that they come out and say we’ve seen the highest production numbers we’re going to see this year.”
