Dive Brief:
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Corn production is on track to increase 10% from last year after unseasonably cool temperatures alleviated acreage conditions last month, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s August Crop Production report.
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“We’re looking at the second-highest production on record,” Lance Honig, crops branch chief for USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service, said in a briefing on Friday. Production is expected to reach 15.1 billion bushels this year, while yields are estimated to grow 1.8% to an average of 175.1 bushels per harvested acre.
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The revised estimates come after a mix of scorching heat and unseasonably cool temperatures swept across the U.S. last month, restoring some crop conditions while worsening others. Soybean and cotton production is estimated to decline this year, while winter wheat is expected to increase, according to the report.
Dive Insight:
Corn production is on track to do better than expected following recent rains across the Corn Belt and the Great Plains that offset spring drought conditions. About 57% of the nation’s corn was rated in good to excellent condition as of Aug. 6, up from 50% in June.
“It hasn’t been fantastic this year, but where it really stands out to me is the big improvement since the end of June,” Honig said.
Soybean conditions also improved this summer but were still lower compared to recent years. USDA estimated soybean production to hit 4.21 billion bushels, down 1.7% due to lower acreage compared to last year. However, yields are expected to reach the fourth-highest on record at 50.9 bushels per acre.
“We’re looking at the seventh-highest production on record, but all the six years that were higher happened in the last seven years, so not a whole lot of variation,” Honig said in terms of soybeans.
Cotton conditions are not as bad as recent years but have been trickling down. USDA estimated cotton production to reach 14 million bales, down 3.3% as Texas recovers from drought conditions that decimated crops last year.
Honig said cotton production is “quite a bit low” from what was expected in the latest World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates report last month. Yields are expected to be 779 pounds per acre, “the lowest they’ve been since 2015,” he said.
Winter wheat, on the other hand, has rebounded after a slow start.
“Harvest was tough this year, really drug way behind. But we have kind of caught back up at the end,” Honig said, adding that “we’re hopefully gonna get things finished up here in the next couple of weeks.”
USDA estimated winter wheat production to reach 1.2 billion bushels, up 11.2% from last year, after Michigan, Indiana and Ohio recorded huge yield improvements in July. The agency revised average yield estimates up 2.6% from the previous month to 48.1 bushels per acre.
