Ag Weather Forum

El Nino And Above-Trend Yields

Bryce Anderson
By  Bryce Anderson , Ag Meteorologist Emeritus
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Earlier this week, I posted a blog item on the growing seasons going back to 1951 that featured El Nino conditions, and highlighted the years when corn yields were below trend line. The purpose of that blog item was to counter a notion that has been mentioned several times in the ag world during the past few weeks that "El Nino years NEVER have below-trend line corn yields."

That statement is incorrect. But, let's take another look at those El Nino seasons, and look at the other side of the coin--years with ABOVE-trend line corn yields. Not only are about half of the 15 seasons going back to 1951 years with above-trend line yields, but they are all in the MUCH-above-trend line yield territory.

That's right. If you set the threshold for much-above-trend line yields at 5 percent or more, every one of the above-trend line years going back to 1951 were MUCH above trend line.

Here is the entire rundown of El Nino years. I have highlighted the years with ABOVE trend line yields. (Note--thanks to DTN contributing analyst Joel Karlin of Western Milling in Goshen, California for the yield percentage departure from trend line information.)

-0.11358 1951

-0.10459 1953

-0.0905 1957

-0.04033 1958

0.051344 1963

0.083175 1965

0.129342 1969

0.185805 1972

0.121558 1982

0.084202 1987

-0.08081 1991

-0.02257 1997

-0.07106 2002

0.120846 2004

0.07942 2009

Again--look at those numbers closely on the above-trend line years, and note some of the huge gains compared to trend line--1969's 13 percent above trend; 1972, close to 19 percent above trend; 1982, 12 percent above trend; and 2004, 12 percent above trend.

That's the other message of a growing season with El Nino around; it can hit big on a corn yield increase relative to trend line.

Bryce

Twitter @BAndersonDTN

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Donald Olsen
4/18/2015 | 6:27 AM CDT
average all the years and thats only a 3% yield increase in ElNino years