Canada’s 2017/18 crop set for more corn, soy but dryness sees wheat fall

Canada is set for a bumper corn and soy harvest in the 2017/18 marketing year, estimates from the Canadian government reveal, although dry weather and lower yields is likely to see wheat volumes decline.

The data, published Friday, expects corn production to rise 8% to a new record of 14.3 million mt for corn with soybeans coming in at 8.3 million mt, up 27% on last year.

For wheat, however, hefty falls are expected on durum wheat production, down 45% to 4.3 million mt as a lack of rain has slammed the anticipated yield, while wheat in general is set to fall 5% to 22.8 million mt on lower yields and a broadly unchanged seeded area.

Export volumes are likely to increase across corn, wheat and soy, with soy seeing the biggest increase from 4.4 million mt to 6.1 million, wheat exports climbing marginally from 20.1 million to 20.9 million mt and corn exports rising to 1.5 million from 1.3 million.

For 2016/17, final harvest production values were set at 31.7 million mt for wheat on yields of 3.57 mt per hectare (ha), 13.1 million mt for corn on yields of 9.96 mt/ha and 6.5 million mt on yields of 2.97 mt/ha.

Currently, 2017/18 is expected to bring in 27.1 million mt with yields of 3.03 mt/ha for wheat, 14.3 million mt on yields of 10.10 mt/ha for corn and soybeans are expected to reach 8.3 million mt on yields of 2.84 mt/ha.