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Combines roll, basis tanks

Jeff Caldwell 09/19/2011 @ 4:00pm Multimedia Editor for Agriculture.com and Successful Farming magazine.

Corn harvest is, as far as USDA's concerned, officially underway.

In the 18 states comprising the vast majority of the nation's crop, farmers have 10% of their corn harvested as of Sunday. Southern states like Texas, Tennessee and North Carolina (63%, 59% and 78%, respectively) have the highest totals harvested, while Illinois farmers lead the Corn Belt with 11% of the crop out of the field, according to Monday's USDA-NASS Crop Progress report. Just over half of the nation's corn and soybean crops are in good-to-excellent condition, both down slightly from a week ago.

See more from Monday's report

The corn harvest kickoff announced Monday got a lot of attention from the cash grain trade, too, with basis levels in the Corn Belt continuing to ebb away as buyers shy away from deals with the idea prices will fall further.

Read more: Basis erodes as harvest picks up

Look for that basis trend to continue until a "pretty big snap" in November, says Cargill senior grain merchandiser Ray Jenkins, who adds his Eddyville, Iowa, facility has taken in more than 100,000 bushels each day for the last few days.

"In fact, some of the best early/mid-winter basis selling opportunities may develop by mid-November. Get ready to do that bin-coring a bit sooner than you might have expected!" Jenkins adds.