Fundamentally Speaking

Winter Wheat Conditions vs. Yield & Harvested/Planted Ratio

Joel Karlin
By  Joel Karlin , DTN Contributing Analyst

Despite very good rains over the past month in much of the Central and Southern Plains, U.S. winter wheat crop conditions as measured by the USDA weekly crop progress report have shown little improvement.

Conditions are however significantly above year ago levels as of May 1 relative to last year where the upcoming first USDA estimate of 2015 U.S. winter wheat yields are seen quite a bit higher than the 43.1 bushel per acre (bpa) figure given in the May 2014 crop production report, the second lowest figure in eleven seasons.

The relatively poor conditions also led to a low harvested to planted ratio of 76.2% which with the exception of the prior year is the lowest since 2002.

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

The accompanying chart tracks U.S. winter wheat conditions as of May 1 on the left hand axis vs. the final harvested to planted ratio and the May winter wheat yield estimate as a percent of the 30 year trend on the right hand axis.

To calculate crop conditions we incorporate 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.

This year's May 1 crop rating is 649 which is better than the past two seasons though down from the 728 in 2012.

The higher rating should argue for a higher yield than seen in 2013 and 2014 and a higher harvested to planted ratio.

For what it is worth, a simple regression puts this year's yield at 99.6% of trend or 46.3 bpa and an 80.5% harvested to planted ratio.

Using the March 31 planting intentions report planted figure of 40.751 million acres implies a crop of 1.518 billion bushels.

(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 .