The October 12 Crop Production report had a negative reaction in the grains market just after its release but the markets have rebounded since. Let’s take a deeper look at the numbers that what was covered in the initial news reports.
Planted corn acreage was updated in 10 objective yield states (IL, IA, KS, MN, NE, OH, SD, WI). The changes increased acreage by 0.3% from the previous report and +7.5% from last year. Corn yield was lowered by 1 bu/acre nationally or -0.6%. Total productions was lowered 0.2% from the previous report, however corn production is still projected at +10.7% from last year. total production is projected at 15.1 billion bushels which would be 900 million bushels higher than the largest corn crop in 2014. Seven new record yields are projected, including Iowa and Illinois where about half of the US corn crop is produced. The US yield, 173.4 bu/ acre would be a record as well Nebraska’s corn yield is projected to be 181 bu/acre which is 3 bu lower than the previous report.
Soybean acreage was updated as well in the October WASDE report but the change was less than +0.1% compared to September’s report. The expected soybean acreage is 1.6% higher than last year. The big change was in projected yield, 1.6% higher than the previous report and 7.1% more than last year. The 2016 US soybean yield is projected at 51.4bu/acre and would be a record. The higher yield comes from much better pod set than in other years.All of this yields to a record high total soybean production of 4.27 billion bu, 314 million bu more than the highest production.Eleven states are expected to have record yields including Nebraska, 61, bu/acre.
Red Willow Farm and Ranch Management 