CHICAGO, Oct 8 (Reuters) - The U.S. soybean crop is bigger than previously forecast due to some timely rains in September that rescued it from the drought and extreme heat it suffered through the summer, analysts said.
Farmers have been harvesting the U.S. soy crop at a record fast pace and traders expect the harvest to be from 50 to 55 percent complete as of Sunday. Harvest progress has been rapid due to early plantings and dry weather dress on the crop that pushed it to maturity.
Last week the USDA said soy harvest was 41 percent complete, up from 22 percent a week ago and well above the 19 percent five-year average.
An upcoming U.S. Department of Agriculture report was expected to show that the crop weathered the adverse conditions better than the government had initially expected.
"The key to higher yields was the late season rainfall," said Anne Frick, oilseed analyst for Jefferies Bache. "We did have improvements in condition ratings for soybeans between the time of the September survey and October survey also."
The USDA's monthly report was expected to forecast the U.S. soybean crop at 2.764 billion bushels, based on the average of estimates in a Reuters survey of 26 analysts. The average yield was seen at 37.006 bushels per acre, up 4.8 percent from a month ago.
"We have been looking at it from a worst case scenario and things may not be quite as abysmal as originally believed to be," said Nicole Thomas, analyst with McKeany-Flavell.
A month ago, USDA pegged the soybean crop at 2.634 billion bushels, based on an average yield of 35.3 bushels per acre.
Harvested acreage was seen falling to 74.579 million from the September forecast of 74.6 million.
Based on the harvested acreage estimates, farmers were expected to abandon 1.501 million acres that they seeded in the spring, the largest amount since 2000.
The USDA will release its October crop production and supply/demand reports at 7:30 a.m. CDT (1230 GMT) on Thursday.
Improved harvest forecasts boosted the outlook for ending stocks. Analysts predicted the report would show 2012/13 U.S. soybean ending stocks at 134 million bushels, a 19 million bushel gain from September's outlook.
World ending stocks were seen at 53.301 million tonnes, up from 53.100 million in September. Good weather for seeding in South American helped raise the estimate for world ending stocks.
Despite the improvement, the U.S. soybean crop was still expected to be the smallest since five years ago, when farmers harvested 2.677 billion bushels of the oilseed. Domestic ending stocks were still on track to be the lowest since 2004.
Since 1969, USDA has raised its soybean yield forecast in its October report nine times after cutting it in its September outlook, as is expected this year. In eight of those nine years, the government's October yield view has topped the initial August estimate. This year, USDA's August estimate of soybean yield was 36.1 bushels per acre.
Some analysts were wary of the call for improved yields as many growers missed the late season rains, or found that their crop was too mature to benefit from the extra moisture.
"For every producer I found to have better than expected yields, I found another to have worse than expected yields," Mike Zuzolo, president of Global Commodity Analytics & Consulting in Lafayette, Indiana.
