Foreign media August 25 news: South American crop expert Dr. Michael Cordogne this week maintained his 2022 U.S. soybean yield forecast unchanged at 50.5 bushels per acre and remained neutral on future forecasts.

August will make or break the soybean crop, which has benefited from recent rains in the eastern corn belt and less favorable weather in the western corn belt, especially in Kansas, Nebraska and South Dakota.

The good-to-good rate for the U.S. soybean crop fell 1 percent last week to 57 percent. The soybean bloom rate is 97%, 93% last week, 97% last year, and the five-year average is 97%. Soybean pods were 84%, 74% last week, 87% a year earlier, and the five-year average of 86%.

Pod counts in 3-by-3-foot fields will be closely watched Monday through Thursday by ProFarmer’s annual field trip to the Midwest.