Export inspection data for the week ending October 5 revealed another lackluster performance in corn, a sluggish week for wheat and stronger-than-expected results in soybeans.

Corn tallied another 20.6 million bushels in export inspections. That’s down from last week’s totals of 33.6 million bushels, and it came in under the average trade guess of 25 million to 33 million bushels. So far for the 2017/18 marketing year (which began Sept. 1), total export inspections are 139 million bushels – well behind 2016/17’s year-to-date tally of 273 million bushels.

The top destination for corn was Mexico, with more than half (10.67 million bushels) of the week’s total volume. Other top destinations included Colombia (3.45 million bushels), Japan (2.48 million bushels) and Guatemala (2.28 million bushels).

For the week ending Sept. 28, soybean export inspections underperformed against the average trade guess, with 32.9 million bushels. For the week ending Oct. 5, soybean export inspections managed to bounce back and overshoot trade expectations (33 million to 44 million bushels), landing at 54.6 million bushels. That kept 2017/18 total volume slightly ahead of the pace of 2016/17 and the five-year average, with 201 million total bushels.

China captured around two-thirds of the latest volume, with 35.84 million bushels. Other top destinations included Mexico (4.21 million bushels), the Netherlands (3.82 million bushels), Indonesia (2.60 million bushels), Pakistan (2.56 million bushels) and Japan (2.39 million bushels).

Wheat remains slightly behind 2016/17 year-to-date export inspections, tallying another 12.9 million bushels for the week ending Oct. 5. That was less than half the volume of the week prior, and it also fell below the average trade guess of 14 million to 22 million bushels. Year-to-date volume for the 2017/18 marketing year (which began June 1) is up to 379 million bushels, down from 2016/17’s pace of 389 million bushels. With a few exceptions, week-to-week results have been below 2016/17 as well as the five-year average.

Top destinations were varied for wheat last week, with Japan (3.03 million bushels) leading the way, followed by South Korea (1.83 million bushels), the Philippines (1.73 million bushels), Mexico (1.34 million bushels) and Nigeria (1.32 million bushels).