Hello to All. Exist the following News: http://www.dtnprogressivefarmer.com...&blogEntryId=8a82c0bc3865298c01389571249a01f5 . ---------- Tuesday 07/17/2012 Weather comments Since we last issued our weather comments we have seen a little shift in the drought pattern in the Midwest. The core of the dry pattern has shifted further to the west with the subtropical ridge now tending to be located across the Rockies, Plains and Midwest. This has allowed for a little more shower activity in the eastern Midwest along with a little less heat at times. We expect this pattern to continue during the next 7 days with the next shower event for the Midwest during midweek producing a little more rain in the eastern Midwest than in the west and temperatures behind the front turning a little cooler in the east than in the west. Unfortunately the net result of this minor shift in the pattern is of little help to corn and soybeans which continue to deteriorate rapidly with corn ratings likely becoming worse than the similair ratings for 1988 by next week. The reason for this is that conditions are so dry in the eastern Midwest that even with a little more rain it is not enough to put any significant moisture into the soils except in localized areas that receive a heavy thunderstorm. And most importantly the shift to hotter and drier in the northwest cornbelt and northern Plains is now causing rapid deterioration of crop ratings in these areas where crop conditions up until recently have been pretty good. Corn pollination is moving along at a rapid pace in the Midwest with all of the major producing states reporting pollination at 75 percent complete or better with Illinois nearly complete. The Dakotas are now entering the main pollination period as conditions turn hotter and drier. If drought conditions continue during the next few weeks will will see increasing stress and crop losses to soybeans as they enter the critical pod filling stage of developement. Most of the Midwest is already seeing pod fill at 10-20 percent at this time which is ahead of normal. We see no signs of any major change in this drought pattern for the Midwest at this time at least through the end of this mornth. I cannot speculate on what will break this pattern other than seasonal changes as the computer guidance is not giving us any other options to look at at this time. Mike Posted at 9:56AM CDT 07/17/12 by Mike Palmerino ---------- Kind Regards, George Kanellopoulos.