NAPERVILLE, Illinois, Aug 17 (Reuters) - Extreme dryness from planting through June has been the biggest hiccup of the current U.S. corn and soybean growing season, but the degree to which that has limited crop potential is unclear since there has not yet been widespread data collection from the fields.
That information will begin rolling in on Monday with the start of the four-day, widely followed Pro Farmer Crop Tour, which will have about 100 scouts blanketing seven major production states across the U.S. Corn Belt.
I will be on the western half of the tour for the tenth time, eighth consecutive, and getting to know that route has helped me identify the anomalies. For example, I did not realize how big a toll last year’s drought had taken on Nebraska’s crop until I got there, and it gave me flashbacks to 2012.
This year I am going to keep my eye on the data from Illinois, where May and most of June were so dry that crop conditions plunged 2012-style to some of the lowest-ever readings. July and early August brought ample rains to much of the state, but corn’s ear size is determined before pollination.
I want to see if the number of kernel rows around the ear is lower than normal. For example, kernel rows in Illinois averaged 16.32 out of 239 samples on the 2021 tour. The U.S. Department of Agriculture predicts 2023 corn yield in Illinois will be similar to that of 2021.
The dryness could have also affected the length of grain fill along the ear or the number of viable ears, which are other metrics collected by scouts. I will of course be monitoring this data for all states, but Illinois should be a prime example given this year’s fast planting and drop in crop conditions, which was not as severe in other states.
Despite ample rains in much of the Corn Belt across the last several weeks, top corn grower Iowa and southern Minnesota have stayed on the drier side, and 74% of Iowa is currently caught in drought conditions.
The tour gets excellent coverage of Iowa, hitting all 99 counties, so the scouts’ data should be able to give a comfortable picture of whether recently below-average rainfall has been timely enough to keep Iowa’s crop potential high. USDA pegs Iowa’s corn yield just below 2021’s record, which also came amid dry conditions with well-timed showers.
UNDERSTANDING THE TOUR
Between Monday and Thursday, scouts will take measurements in well over 1,000 corn and soybean fields across Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota, Indiana, Ohio and South Dakota. Many of them will post crop photos on social media platform X throughout the week using hashtag “#pftour23.”
The photos of junky-looking corn ears will certainly get the most engagement, and those are found without fail on every single tour, so stick with the overall data. State-level results will be published nightly throughout the week, and I will be posting them on my X feed as they are released.
The Pro Farmer Crop Tour, now in its 31st year, follows the same routes each year, but they do not cover all production areas in each state, so it is critical to compare the tour findings with past tour data instead of USDA forecasts, particularly for corn. I will be showing those comparisons in my posts.
The tour uses a rough corn yield calculation, though it does not estimate soybean yield. Instead, scouts approximate the number of pods in a three-by-three-foot plot of soybean plants, which is meant to gauge yield potential.
For example, last year’s average pod count in Nebraska was 1,064 pods, some 15% below the three-year tour average and the lowest since 2012. Final soybean yield across the whole of Nebraska last year was the lowest since 2012 and 18% below the 2019-2021 average.
Advisory service and tour host Pro Farmer, a division of Farm Journal Media, usually publishes a national yield estimate and select state forecasts the Friday after tour wraps. Those numbers incorporate tour findings along with other yield-influencing factors. Karen Braun is a market analyst for Reuters. Views expressed above are her own. (Reporting by Karen Braun Editing by Matthew Lewis)
