Drought May Impact Pasture Growth, Herd Rebuilding

We start looking at an update on the drought situation in cow-calf country, and how it's the worst since at least 2000. We then look at planting updates, which is ahead of 2025 and five year averages. The wrap up is in financial markets, as stock indexes have another stellar day. 

Transcript

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Hey everybody, welcome to ChatBDC. We've got your three news items ready for today. Today is Wednesday, May 6, 2026. Today we're gonna focus on drought status, update on planting status, and a look at record days on Wall Street. So let's get to it. Drought conditions have been widespread throughout the major cow calf producing states this spring and have affected much of the pasture and range as producers get closer to turning cows out to grass. So says Jennifer Carico in an article on DTM Progressive Farmer. Pasture and range conditions in Nebraska continue to be the worst across the country, with only 4% of pastures in good to excellent condition. Widespread wildfires have left much of the Nebraska sand hills without grass for several thousand cows. Less than ideal pasture and range conditions are present in the other beef states, including Texas, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Kansas, and Montana. The other states with the least number of pastures in good to excellent condition are Florida, Colorado, and Arizona. Missouri and North Dakota are the two beef cow states showing better pasture conditions, with 76% and 61% in good to excellent condition, respectively. He referenced the drought severity coverage index, which is calculated from drought monitor categories to provide a summary measure of drought. The current index for the continental U.S. is a value of 202, which is the largest value for the end of April in the history of the index back to 2000. Average for the index is 108. His further analysis of the index shows that 79% of the beef cow herd in the 26 states that account for 88% of the 2026 beef cow herd are currently impacted by drought. Peel added that continued or accelerated drought in 2026 could interrupt early heifer retention and further delay herd rebuilding. Moving over to grain markets in a farm futures report by Ben Potter, grain prices moved uniformly higher on Monday, only to shift uniformly lower on Tuesday as traders locked in some profits and assessed the latest weather forecasts and governmental crop progress data. Corn and soybean plantings continue to move ahead of schedule despite some rainouts in some areas this past week. Rains also brought some much needed relief to parts of the southern plains. All told, corn and soybean prices each eroded about about 1% lower today, with some winter wheat contracts incurring double-digit losses. Swift plantings, coupled with sharply lower crude oil prices, led to a round of technical selling on Tuesday that left some corn contracts more than 1% lower. July futures fell $5.75 to $4.80, with September futures down a nickel to $4.85 and a half. December futures hung on just above the $5 per bushel mark, settling at $5.5. Corn plantings moved from 25% completion a week ago up to 38% through Sunday. That matched the average analyst estimate with individual trade guesses ranging between 33 and 45%. Tennessee, Texas, and Kentucky are leading the way so far. This year's pace matches 2025's efforts so far and is moderately ahead of the five-year, prior five-year average of 34%. Emergence moved from 7% a week ago up to 13% through May 3rd. That's ahead of last year's pace of 10% and the prior five-year average of 9%. Finishing up in financial markets, SP 500 and NASDAQ notched record high closes on Tuesday, lifted by Intel and other AI-related stocks, as a U.S. Iran ceasefire held firm, and investors focused on strong quarterly earnings. Washington said on Tuesday a ceasefire with Iran was intact, allaying worries that attempts by both sides to assert control over the Strait of Hormuz would escalate hostilities. Investors focused on AI-related companies and chip designer AMD rallied 4% ahead of its quarterly report after the bell, with analysts expecting a 33% surge in revenue. Intel surged 13% after Bloomberg News reported that Apple was considering enlisting the company's chipmaking services to produce the main processors for its devices. Earnings are coming in strong, and the expectation is that we'll carry forward into the rest of the year. Well, that's all for now. As always, thanks for tuning in to ChatBBC. If you found this useful, subscribe and share and tell all your friends. I'll be back tomorrow with more business news across the egg and financial markets until then like I'm in.