Final Thoughts –
This year’s takeaways from the tour are:
1) a lack of moisture was prevalent for almost the entire trip leading us to believe that we could be leaving potential corn and soybean production out in the field. The ‘big’ crops we were talking about at the beginning of August have indeed been pulled back. While crop maturity is what we would call generally ahead of normal, there is still time to help final corn filling and beans can do very well with better finishing weather in the first half of September.
2) The damage in Iowa is extensive. Downed fields in the hardest hit areas are total write offs. Without the results of the September survey from the USDA that will feature a new harvested acre number for Iowa, estimating the damage is an exercise in futility. In the coming weeks, we will start hearing how the insurance adjusters will handle this and I expect a wide variety of policies.
3) There is an even bigger number of acres in Iowa that have been ‘wind kissed’. The bulk of these fields should be harvestable (albeit probably a nightmare for the guy running the combine) and likely with some sort of production haircut…mostly 5%-10%.
4) The soybean crop is in fairly good shape including the fields that were affected by the derecho in Iowa. On average, pods were about half filled and the yield will depend on finishing weather in early September.
Obviously, as data folks we look at our sample size with disdain so how can we use the data we collected to our advantage? We looked at our previous samples against the USDA August and Final estimates and found an interesting pattern. Our samples do tend to show the direction of the change to the final yields. As for a final yield estimates, we have crunched our figures and have come up with the following:
Iowa – As I have noted below (read Day 2), I have very little confidence in a yield guess for Iowa. Our average Iowa corn field was estimated at 203 bushels per acre (bpa) which is down from last year’s sample and gives no significant direction from the USDA Aug figure. We are going to take about 10% off to account for wind damage to fields plus ongoing dry concerns (especially for some western parts of the state) and come in at 185 bpa. Keep in mind that fields that are total devastation will not be counted as harvested acres and will not factor into yield.
Illinois – Our average field in Illinois was 225 bpa which far outpaces the USDA Aug estimate of 207 bpa. With this in mind, we are going to leave the USDA estimate for Illinois at 207 bpa. This is a combination of an even better than expected crop but some taken off for the dry August and slight wind damage near The River.
Indiana – Our figures were relatively unchanged from the USDA, so we are going to leave the USDA estimate of 195 bpa alone.
Minnesota – Conditions in Minnesota continue to improve and even some of the moisture stressed areas have solid potential. It even rained there over the weekend which is exactly what it needs today. 200 bpa
 Plugging these figures into our yield calculator (you can find it on the app store here, iphone or ipad only), our final estimate comes in at 179 bpa. There is also the unharvested acreage in Iowa that has to be accounted for. We suspect as much as 900k to 1.5 million acres are not going to be harvested which equates to another 180 to 280 million bushels of loss. Best guess is about 200 million bushels. Combined with the loss in yield in Iowa, we suspect the total production loss from the storm could be close to 400 to 450 million bushels which is higher than we suspected before the trip. Taking this all into account, we are looking at a 2.5 billion bushel carry out today vs a 2.8 billion bushel figure in August from the USDA.
As for soybeans, we cannot stress how critical the weather in early September will be for this bean crop. If it rains across the heart of the Corn Belt, a national yield of 52+ bpa is possible. If not, a yield closer to 50 bpa or maybe even under would be more appropriate.
