Soybeans Drop as Cool, Wet Weather May Help U.S. Crops Develop

July 13 (Bloomberg) -- Soybeans dropped for the first time in three sessions on speculation that cool, wet weather in the U.S. Midwest will help plant development and increase yield potential of the crop.

About 66 percent of U.S. soybeans were in good or excellent condition by yesterday, compared with 59 percent a year earlier, the Department of Agriculture said today. Average rainfall and below-normal temperatures in the next 10 days will help crop development and ease heat stress on plants in the Mississippi River Valley, DTN Meteorlogix LLC said today in a report.

“Weather does not seem to offer any lasting or widespread threat” to the crops, Roy Huckabay, a Linn Group executive vice president in Chicago, said today in an e-mail. “We are getting dry in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Ohio, but I do not think the market will bite off on that” because rain is forecast for those states, he said.

Soybean futures for November delivery dropped 5.5 cents, or 0.6 percent, to $9.115 a bushel in Chicago, after rising 2.8 percent in the previous two sessions. The most-active contract fell 8.8 percent last week, the fourth drop in five weeks.

The soybean crop is the nation’s second-largest, valued at $27.4 billion last year, government figures show. Corn is the biggest, at $47.4 billion. The U.S. is the world’s leading producer and exporter of both crops.