Is mt in the house

[sw363535]

But VR    & home runs

Isn't that what usda does in projecting record crops on an annual basis to maintain a trendline that was concieved of questionable data that included factors like irrigation expansion.

It seems to me if you use a bb analogy, government regulation and funding has expanded crop demand and needs to see a home run every year to support committments and the producer needs record crop home runs to pay for the input inflation without higher prices.

Isn't this just the normal stress of a massive change through demand stimulus and response. 

[vrbuck]

And yet we are producing a. Drop far above their trend line and producing a historic all time large corn crop this year. Seems to work doesn't it. Are they doing their job or trying to screw the farmer.

[roarintiger1]

It's too bad all that extra weight on the ear is gonna be water!   

[sw363535]

That is a narrow view.

It appears their trend line has reached a point of needing record crops every year to maintain the assumption.  

One obvious issue this year is acres will be trimed.  If that is the case trend line yield will be maintained, at the expense of record crops.

That is the only explanation I can see for maintaining trend line yield increases.

-----------------------

Related point -------- If price is a reflection of more corn being offered for sale than buyers wanting to buy. then how does the market come down 30% in 6 months if those foolish producers have not been willing to sell??  You loose me in your logic sometimes.  Doesn't there have to be a trade to establish a lower price daily just like a trade must be make to establish a higher price??   At what point does these assumptions about the coming corn crop get oversold???  

Wouldn't $2 corn fix a lot of this problem??

I would think $2 corn would get us a 200 bpa trend line yield pretty quick.

[vrbuck]

IMO it doesn't. They have used trend line since 1900 and it still works. We have a once in a lifetime four year streak where we don't hit trend and you want to throw it out the window. It just meens we hit trend three or four years in a row to average it out. Trend is trend and average is average. You got lucky four years straight.

[sw363535]

So,

For 20 years the trend line has stayed on a diagonal line. The last 4 there have been rare circumstances that did not live up to the trend. Although those rare circumstances can be shown to be predictable as a trend through the last 150 years of history.

I wonder how many trends in history were able to maintain a 20+ year life of steady growth without deviation.

Actuallly I wonder what is the average life expectancy of a trend..

The trend of higher cubic inch displacement in automobiles did not last 20 yrs for example.  Population growth trends have been a wandering line and have actually changed directions in some countries.  

Trends tell us much more about the past than the future, but do point to a direction of potential.  But at some point they change, flatten, downward, or take a steeper rise.  Change is more likely over time than absolute constant  predictable growth.  Ask a typewriter manufacturer or a Photographer.

Only government would keep making changes in policy, in an ever changing society and world and be shocked if the outcome is not predictable.

At what point are we better off to be prepared for the deviation rather than the trend??  I am not sure yields are even trendable there are just too many deviation possibilities.   So much of that trend was built on water use, and much of that water use is trending in a new direction.  Along with the economic circumstances needed to maintain yield and production trend lines  which are somewhat unrelated.

[c-x-1]

...or said another way, not unlike in the futures and stock markets -- trends in one direction last for a FINITE amount of time on the X - axis.

perhaps MT's reference to peak corn is related to this concept of yeild and/or production potential/capacity............. 

[vrbuck]

Unlike peak oil which we reached all time production in 1965, there is no time where you can pinpoint the biggest total crop production in history. We have the potential to hit new all time highs every few years ( like every ten years). Peak corn is a fairy tale even my stopped using as his tag line.