(Wall Street Journal) – The corn crop in Ohio, the nation’s seventh largest producer of the grain, will fall short of the most recent federal projections, according to an average of survey results collected by scouts on a closely watched crop tour.
Corn yields across five regions of Ohio were estimated Monday at 148.37 bushels per acre, below the state’s three-year average of 154.75, and less than the U. S. Department of Agriculture’s Aug. 1 forecast for the state, which pegged yields at 168.0 bushels per acre.
The new estimate is nearly 16% lower than the 176.0 bushels per acre produced last year, reported by the USDA.
The data was collected by participants on the Pro Farmer Midwest Crop Tour, which includes analysts, investors and farmers, who fan out across fields in the Midwest each year to size up the nation’s crops.
At this time last year, crop tour participants had projected Ohio’s corn crop at 182.11 bushels per acre.
South Dakota’s three averaged regions are expected to yield an average 165.94 bushels per acre, 3.7% higher than the USDA’s prediction of 160.0 bushels made earlier this month.
Meanwhile, survey results indicate Ohio’s soybean crop will come in at 1125.26 pods per 3-foot square, below the state’s three-year average of 1219.192 pods and 16% lower than the crop tour’s 2014 average of 1342.42 pods.
In South Dakota, soybeans averaged 1054.98 pods, well above the state’s three-year average of 886.47, but below than the crop tour’s 2014 average of 1057.80 pods.
Pro Farmer doesn’t estimate soybean yields for the 2015-2016 crop year beginning Sept. 1, since numerous factors can affect the health and quality of the plants before the end of the growing season, including weather. August is a critical month for setting soybean pods and filling them with beans.
Soybean futures for September delivery edged higher Monday, supported by better-than-expected domestic demand for the crop. Meanwhile, a weekly report released by the USDA showed crop ratings through Sunday remained steady compared with last week despite dry weather in the eastern Corn Belt. Roughly 63% of U.S. soybeans were in good or excellent condition, unchanged from a week ago, the USDA said. About 79% of the crop were setting pods, the same as last week.
Crop scouts said the health of corn and soybean crops varied widely in Western Ohio, with many fields showing signs of excess moisture in the early part of the growing season. Heavy rains in June drenched fields in much of the eastern Midwest, draining nutrients from the soil in corn fields and delaying the planting of some soybean crops.
“Crops are all over the place,” said Brian Grete, director of the eastern leg of the crop tour. “There’s lots of yellowing corn, which means nitrogen deficiencies…and the beans have mostly been average or below average on height, meaning they sat in saturated soils and didn’t grow.”
The USDA last week projected U.S. corn production this year will total 13.7 billion bushels, surprising analysts who had bet that adverse weather in parts of the Midwest would lead to smaller crops. The projected corn crop would be the third largest in U.S. history after the record harvests of the past two years.
Federal forecasters pegged this year’s soybean crop at a record 3.9 billion bushels, also below last year’s record crop, but well above what analysts had anticipated.
Market participants are closely following results of the crop tour to see whether new estimates confirm USDA’s unexpectedly large projections for this year’s crops.
