Widespread drought had left analysts expecting a tally below 300Mt, with individual estimates from IGC (300Mt), Informa Economics (262Mt), and FC Stone (279Mt) giving an idea of what the market had priced in.
Average yield forecasts fell 15.5% from the July estimate to 123.4bu/ac (7.73t/ha).
An 80-year high of 39Mha of US maize was planted this year, and a recovery in global feed grain stocks has been predicted.
Elsewhere, US soybean production estimates were cut to 73.27mt from 83Mt.
The yield was reduced from 40.5bu/ac (2.72t/ha) to 36.1bu/ac (2.42t/ha). This would represent the lowest production figure since 2007/08. Year-ending stocks are forecast down to 3.13Mt, (4.2% of demand) the lowest since 1964/65.
In other world markets, Russian wheat production was forecast down by 6m tonnes, to 43 million tonnes, with Ukrainian production up by two million tonnes to 15 million tonnes.
Early Australian wheat forecasts were left unchanged at 26 million tonnes, despite dry weather concerns in the country.
Source: NFU
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