CNS Canada — The corn market dropped below a major support level during the week ended Wednesday and could be poised to hit further market lows, according to one analyst.

“I think we’re within a dime or something of it,” said Jack Scoville of Price Futures Group in Chicago.

The December contract fell 5.75 cents to $3.4825 a bushel (all figures US$).

Scoville expects harvest to pick up in the next few weeks once persistent rains have quit delaying operations in key areas.

“In the eastern Midwest, the corn looks pretty good this year,” he noted.

Moisture levels are quite high in some areas though and a lot of corn still has to be cut.

The soybean market is also hanging around in a fairly narrow range. The dominant November contract lost 7.25 cents to end at $9.5825 per bushel.

There are some ideas out there that the U.S. Department of Agriculture was correct, Scoville said, when it predicted a record 4.43 billion-bushel harvest this year. At the time there were many who doubted the estimate, but that may be starting to change.

At the same time, he said, not enough is known to fully endorse the idea.

For instance, he said, soybean yields have been coming in all over the map. “There’s been some good fields and some really atrocious fields.”

Heading forward, Scoville feels there is still room to the downside as harvest adds more supplies to the market.

— Dave Sims writes for Commodity News Service Canada, a Winnipeg company that specializes in grain and commodity market reporting.