Drought Expanding South Of The Border

Crops in the U.S. are looking OK for now, however drought continues to expand.

Ben Buckner is a grains analyst with AgResource Company.

"Moisture demand is not very high and soil moisture, up until maybe the middle part of May, was OK. It's changing very quickly. We're hearing of some water use rates of half to 6/10ths of an inch per day, which you can't even offset with irrigation. Drought continues to expand, will expand further assuming two week forecasts verify. The real message is that moisture accumulation so far, since about late winter, has been on pace with 2012, which if you remember was a devastating drought in the U.S. I don't think widespread catastrophe is the most probable scenario, but crops will be going backwards over the next 2 weeks and the big question is whether July weather improves."

The USDA released its June WASDE report Thursday. Buckner says the report came across mostly as expected.