Fundamentally Speaking

Labor Day Corn Crop Ratings

Joel Karlin
By  Joel Karlin , DTN Contributing Analyst

The latest weekly crop condition report showed the percent of corn in the good to excellent condition rising by 1% to 73%.

Furthermore, using our usual ratings system where we weight the crop based on the percent in each category and assign that category a factor of 2 for very poor, 4 for poor, 6 for fair, 8 for good, and 10 for excellent and then sum the results, U.S. crop conditions as of 8/24/2014 come in at 770.

P[L1] D[0x0] M[300x250] OOP[F] ADUNIT[] T[]

Assuming crop conditions stay at least steady the last week of August which seems reasonable given excellent rainfall and continued moderate temperatures, that rating would be the highest as of September 1st since 1994.

Particularly noteworthy is that not only are crop ratings hanging at these lofty levels very late in the growing season is the fact that ratings increased which is quite unusual since they almost always deteriorate starting in mid-July.

Since the USDA started tracking nationwide crop conditions in 1986, this is only the sixth time since then that crop conditions as of 9/1 are 770 or higher.

Expanding the criteria just a little bit, there have only been eight seasons (denoted by the darker blue bars) where crop ratings around Labor Day are 750 or higher and final yields for those years averaged 7.6% above trend.

If one assumes that trend yield this year is 160 bushels per acre (bpa), this works out to 172.2 bpa and if the USDA trend of 165.3 bpa is utilized then a 177.9 bpa could be seen.

It will be interesting not only to see what the USDA posts in subsequent crop reports but also to monitor actual harvest results given the initial field reports from the Delta off the charts.

(KA)

P[] D[728x170] M[320x75] OOP[F] ADUNIT[] T[]
P[L2] D[728x90] M[320x50] OOP[F] ADUNIT[] T[]

Comments

To comment, please Log In or Join our Community .

andrew mohlman
8/29/2014 | 3:38 PM CDT
rasing conditions this late is crazy if true lot of late corn that wont make it.