Crop Tour Slashes Corn Yield Estimate
27/08/11 -- The results of the ProFarmer crop tour doing the rounds in the Midwest this week, released after the close of CBOT on Friday night, pegged US corn yields this year at 147.9 bu/acre with production estimated at 12.484 billion bushels.
That yield figure is 5.1 bu/acre, or 3.3%, lower than the USDA's current estimate. The production number meanwhile is 430 million bushels (11 MMT) under what our chums in Washington are saying.
Scary thought...this time last year the ProFarmer corn yield estimate was 164.1 bu/acre, which subsequently proved to be 11.3 bu/acre too high!
For soybeans the tour estimated yields at 41.8 bu/acre and production at 3.083 billion bushels. That's a 0.4 bu/acre higher yield than the USDA, giving us 27 million bushels more worth of production. They also noted that this was "the most disease free crop we've ever seen" on a tour.
Current forecasts for the week ahead don't offer much in the way of encouragement for a dramatic late turnaround in corn's fortunes.
