Fundamentally Speaking
First Winter Wheat Crop Rating vs. May Yield Est.
With good precipitation seen over much of the Central and Southern Plains over the past few months, it was somewhat of a surprise to see that the initial winter wheat ratings for the 2015 crop were a little lower than last year. The combined good or excellent category was put at 59% vs. the year ago 61%.
Incorporating our usual ratings system where we weight the crop based on the percent in each category and assign that category a factor (2 for very poor, 4 for poor, 6 for fair, 8 for good, and 10 for excellent) and then sum the results, the first U.S. winter wheat condition report this fall came in at 720 vs. the year ago 728, though still above the ten year average of 709.
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This graphic shows the first fall crop rating for the U.S. winter wheat crop that is usually released the last third of October and plots that against the percent that the USDA's May winter wheat yield estimate deviates from the 25 year trend of these May estimates.
There actually is very little relation between the first fall crop rating and the yield projection in the first winter wheat production report and in fact the correlation between the last fall rating and the May yield is also tenuous.
It is not until the first spring rating where there is some sort of direct relation, after the crop emerges from dormancy.
For instance, last year's first fall rating of 728 was the fourth highest since 1999 but a drying trend throughout the fall and winter that continued into spring resulted in the May 2013 yield estimate of 43.1 bushels per acre (bpa), 6.7% below trend.
Conversely the first fall rating in 2012 was 662 which at that time was the 3nd lowest rating since the UDA started nationwide crop conditions in 1986 yet good rains through the fall, a mild winter, and excellent growing conditions once the crop emerged form dormancy resulted in a May 2012 yield of 47.6 bpa, 4.5% above trend.
(KA)