Illinois yield penalty

[rickgthf]

Got to wondering what kind of yield penalty producers in the Eastern Corn Belt might be facing due to late planting.  Below is my attempt to put some numbers to it.  Granted there are number of serious assumptions, but here goes.  Below is a curve that show the % yield penalty for planting outside of the optimum date, April 20 for Illinois in this case.  You can see that planting too early carries a small yield penalty while planting latter carries a progressively increasing penalty.

  The question is, how do you relate that to the whole state of Illinois?  My approach is to consider how the typical planting pattern relates to the typical yield and then compare this to 2019.  For example, the 5-year average planting progress is available for the years 2013 thru 2017.  If you calculate  yield penalty for the average percent planted in the respective week and then accumulate that over the eleven weeks of the planting season, you'd expect about 1.9% yield penalty  as opposed to planting it all in the optimum week.  If the average yield in that five year period was 190 then you'd expect to see a penalty of about 3.7 bushel.

  If you then do a similar calculation using the planting progress numbers available for 2019 you can get an idea of the effect of late planting this year. For example, if Illinois didn't plant anymore corn after last week, the yield on what was planted would only lose about a bushel per acre.  If Illinois could have plant all 76% of the unplanted acres this past week, the yield penalty would only be about 10 bushel per acre. Likewise if Illinois could plant a third (25%) of the unplanted corn in each of the following three weeks, the yield penalty would supposedly be 15 bushel per acre.

  I think the lesson to take away is, any acres that remain unplanted by the end of the planting season carry far greater effect on total production than late planted acres.  With a little reflection you can see why, unplanted acres lose the whole remaining 175 bushel per acre potential while the late planted acres only lose 6 to 13% of the original potential.  

[rickgthf]

 table 

[rsbs]

the function of "the market" is to recognize that the acres need to get planted, and to make the reward ample enough that the farmers go ahead and plant the acres, whether it is past the optimal time for corn or not.

At $5 a bushel, I will plant corn on June 20th and hope for a warm September.

[BA Deere]

In the last month, my "reality" is Lewiston Minnesota down to Waterloo and Alexandria Minnesota down to Boone Iowa and the I-90 corridor to the SD border.  Lewiston`s corn is planted, the closer you get to Waterloo you see a few bean stubble untouched fields, I assume as you go south to Davenport it`s less progress.  Western Iowa is behind, planters parked with mud covered closing wheels.   NCIA we`re done or 95% done with corn, it`s up good color, beans half done.   

So with all those disclaimers, I`m only divining the condition of the rest of the corn growing areas on what I hear and see from people and the reports and news.  But I would expect 10 million acres of corn won`t get planted or a desperate attempt for insurance, so that`s 1.5 billion bushel of corn that will be Lost in Space...runway behind us that we can`t make a U-turn and gain back.  

In that oval shaped area I described in the 1st paragraph has the potential of trend and above trend yields, but that and maybe a few other "garden spots" won`t carry areas in the midwest that claim "we haven`t turned a wheel".   Okay corn that`s mudded in or was mudded in probably won`t make trend even with superb weather the rest of the season.  So let`s be generous to the bears and say 80 million harvested acres and 160 bushel national yield, that`s 12.8 billion production....Good bye corn carryover in 2019, we`ll be "pipeline".  

Beans?  too early to make prognostications.

[Clayseia]

FWIW, it's probably also a good idea to keep in mind how far behind the already planted corn is if we are going to discuss the unplanted corn being late.

[rickgthf]

So, even that little planted on time is behind.