Corn Crop Size estimate

[saturated]

Year:	Yield:	5 yr. Avg.	10 yr. Avg.	Upper Band	Lower Band
1980	91	96.06	91.5	101.16	81.84
1981	108.9	100.24	93.58	103.09	84.07
1982	113.2	104.72	95.2	105.02	85.38
1983	81.1	100.74	94.18	103.76	84.60
1984	106.7	100.18	97.66	107.43	87.89
1985	118	105.58	100.82	111.13	90.51
1986	119.4	107.68	103.96	115.09	92.83
1987	119.8	109	106.86	118.76	94.96
1988	84.6	109.7	105.22	116.68	93.76
1989	116.3	111.62	105.9	116.83	94.97
1990	118.5	111.72	108.65	119.41	97.89
1991	108.6	109.56	108.62	118.89	98.35
1992	131.5	111.9	110.45	120.33	100.57
1993	100.7	115.12	112.41	120.82	104.00
1994	138.6	119.58	115.6	123.73	107.47
1995	113.5	118.58	115.15	122.86	107.44
1996	127.1	122.28	115.92	123.66	108.18
1997	127	121.38	116.64	124.77	108.51
1998	132	127.64	121.38	130.30	112.46
1999	133.8	126.68	123.13	132.48	113.78
2000	136.9	131.36	124.97	135.13	114.81
2001	138.2	133.58	127.93	138.74	117.12
2002	129.3	134.04	127.71	138.43	116.99
2003	142.2	136.08	131.86	143.33	120.39
2004	160.3	141.38	134.03	146.64	121.42
2005	147.9	143.58	137.47	150.99	123.95
2006	149.1	145.76	139.67	153.54	125.80
2007	150.7	150.04	142.04	155.60	128.48
2008	153.9	152.38	144.23	158.22	130.24
2009	164.7	153.26	147.32	161.79	132.85
2010	152.8	154.24	148.91	163.40	134.42
2011	148.1	154.04	149.9	164.20	135.60

[saturated]

Using a table of yields reported by the USDA for crop years 1980 to present, built a table of 5/yr and 10/yr averages along with Bollinger Bands based on the 10/yr average. Bollinger Bands are 2 standard deviations from a base(10/yr avg.).
  Looking at this year's crop a number of factors will affect the overall size to the downside. Excessive rain, substantial flooding, historic drought, record heat, punishing winds, frost and fire have all occurred this past growing season.
  There are 86 declared disasters in the US this year according to FEMA. The most on record for one year.  
In the last report, the government is using 92.3 million planted acres with 84.4 million harvested acres and a yield component of 148.1 bpa. Giving a crop of about 12.497 billion bushels.
  In regard to the bpa part of the crop equation I believe this crop is at or near the lower Bollinger Band. The reason for this assumption is based on a number of observations: reading ag-related blogs, second hand numbers(I believe to be reliable) from a limited number of farmers spread across WC Illinois and NE Missouri, and compiling a table from the data contained in the Corn Harvest map on the AGWEB.com site(To get a complete sample yield from the Corn Harvest map I multiplied the yield and acres of each state then added all those numbers. Using a a total acres number from the entire map, I then divided the bushels by acres to get an average yield of 125 for the entire map. This was completed by 11:03 am on 10/4/2011). What I encountered reading and listening was at least 10% less then normal(I take this to be a 5 year average). In many instances lower was more then 10 %. If one reduces the national 5 year average, it is139 bpa. Rounded the lower Bollinger band is 136. Because of the many problems this crop encountered I believe that 135 bpa is a reasonable number to work with.
  To figure harvested acres I constructed a table of planted and harvested acres from problem years(corn crop).  

 
Year    1983    1988    1993    1995    Average       
Planted    60.2    67.8    73.2    71.5           
Harvested    51.5    58.3    63    65.2           
Percent    86%    86%    86%    91%    87%    

Using 87% times planted acres of 92.3(2011) million gives one harvested acres of 80.3.
80.3 harvested acres times 135 bpa gives a crop of  10,841,000,000 bushels.
I believe the corn crop may be under 11 billion bushels. However this number is a tough one for the USDA to reconcile.
What if the Southwest drought moves into the Midwest?

[justinbarnes710]

Your area of WC Illinois and NE Missouri had a particularly tough year... did it not?  Is it possible that those samples artificially brought the national average down?

I was on the Agweb site yesterday and I can't remember if I saw many states under 140.  At least I believe that IA, MN, NE, WS, IL, OH, and MI were all over 140.  Maybe Indiana, Missouri, and Kansas were below 140, right?

[saturated]

As for the AGWAEB sample, I will be glad to send you the table I compiled. My email is langepa@adams.net, let me know what your email is. I believe this crop for what happened this year weather wise is good. To me a 10 - 11 billion bushel crop is outstanding. It is like the St. Louis Cardinals being in the playoffs without their best pitcher.

[roarintiger1]

Interesting conclusion there for sure.  Not sure where the corn market would be if USDA had come up with those numbers. I'm still in the sub 12.5 camp....yields may be a little better than first thought, but I also think the acres are lower than we've been trading all summer.

[Nebrfarmr]

Over 20,000 acres in Central Nebraska will have lowered production here in Nebraska, but maybe only 2/3 or so of it was actual corn & bean ground.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/giant-fire-burns-40-square-miles-in-central-nebraska-injuring...

Not the best link, but my search engine is having problems right now.

Anyway, I actually kow a guy who had fire sweep through his cornfield, and he estimates that immediately after the fire 10-20% of his ears were on the ground.  With 45+MPH wind gusts predicted today, only more will fall from the weakened stalks.  In addition, the husks are burned off, and the ends of the kernel are charred, and the corn has a 'smoke' smell to it.

His was among the better off fields.  It was under irrigation, and not in a bottom where it froze hard, just had a frost, so the stalks still had a lot of green in them.  Dryland fields, and some irrigated fields in areas with a harder freeze are 50-90% flat. 
Fire was started by a late-model JD combine.  Seems to be the theme around here.  Of the 4 combine fires I know of this week, all were started by a late-model JD combine.  One was shooting sparks out the back, they think something went through the straw chopper, and the others are suspected of having 'electrical problems'.

[Pupdaddy]

For some reason, there were a lot of fires in the JD 9000 series combines around here for a while. It seems there is a shaft up top in the combine..somewhere above and behind the cylinder that crosses the middle of the combine. Apparently there is a plastic shield over said shaft...and it will eventually fill up with dust. Once it fills with dust, the friction from the shaft turning inside of it ignites the dust..and it starts to smolder. I've personally seen 2 fires like that..and heard of a couple more.

[GoredHusker]

A friend of mine lives around Stapleton.  According to him, they are pegging the damage to be around 4 million.  With this low of a number, I highly doubt many of the 26,000 acres was unharvested corn or soybeans.  Most of it was pasture ground where they really wouldn't put a dollar loss on. 

[Nebrfarmr]

That could be, I have a brother-in-law in North Platte, and have been around the Stapleton area, and I don't know where from Stapleton, the fire was, depending on direction, it seems like it is from 1/4 cropland to 3/4 cropland.

I DO know, that people were scrambling to get their pivots going, to wet the crops down before the fire hit (and to save the pivot).  Talk is that helped the firemen a lot, being able to wet things down some, as well as having wells pumping, to refill firetrucks.  The average 1/4 section pivot runs 750-900 GPM through it.

My friend that had his corn burned (In Custer County, a ways East of the Stapleton fire) says that he picked a load, and no one knows what to do with it.  Feedlots won't take it, as it has a smoky smell, and cattle won't eat it, and the elevator is afraid of contaminating good corn with the burned stuff.

[Blacksandfarmer]

We had a few combine/field fires last year to my south and from what I heard most were late model JD combines. I heard from my father in law that one of them was even a brand new JD combine up in smoke.