Thanks mcfarm,

Does the logic below make sense to you?

Below is the USDA report for corn planting progress as of June 16th, about the time when it doesn't make sense to plant corn anymore. 

92% of the intended corn acres were planted as of that date and in fact, some acreage intended for corn had already switched to beans at that late point in time.

That left roughly 8% not planted to corn yet. Any corn planted after that date, has yield prospects of 50%. Producers knowing this, are very unlikely to plant corn as their main crop("main" as in not for silage or cover crop) after this date. They can plant beans for another few weeks or take the PP insurance.

The USDA, cut corn planted acres a bit more to 90 million. If we assume that this represents an 8% drop of the originally intended crop not getting planted, we are saying that farmers would have planted 98 million bushels of corn had weather not caused the big problems.

That one seems pretty far fetched. Considering that prices favored more corn than beans, one can make a case for something like 95 million maybe but going much higher is stretching it.

     https://downloads.usda.library.cornell.edu/usda-esmis/files/8336h188j/qb98mr27h/8910k4428/prog2519.txt

I have been trying to wrap my head around what is going on with corn reports so far this summer.  Clearly the USDA has confounded almost everyone with their estimates.  If you take what they say at face value, then corn genetics have improved off the chart as well as farmers ability to get seed in the ground even in the worst of conditions.  

The USDA says that 90 mil acres got planted, but that doesn't necessarily jibe with what we hear about PP acres, but that isn't factored in?  How can that even be?  They have to know exactly what that number is.  How does it even make sense to not factor that in?  

My take away from this summer so far has been...."if" the USDA is right.

1.  Crop switching is a story that has been made obsolete by modern farming methods.

2.  Corn genetics have been improved to the point that nothing outside of 4 months of drought will hurt corn yield.

3.  From here on out in future summers, if weather is anywhere near normal, you short corn in mid June....period.  No matter what you see out your backdoor.

If the USDA comes out in October and says only 80 million corn acres were planted, then heads should roll.  Their incompetence puts a strain on farmers and their finances.

Should be interesting.  

Thanks Jim, great comments.

"2.  Corn genetics have been improved to the point that nothing outside of 4 months of drought will hurt corn yield."

Everybody continues to be oblivious to the massive contribution that increasing CO2 is causing.

The plant world was CO2 starved before these increases.

Who would not acknowledge fertilizer in the soil as being part of why crops, especially corn has done so well?

CO2 is atmospheric fertilizer. There is a 100% chance, based on every  scientific study that its a big part of why yields have increased..........and the planet is greening up.

But its targeted as pollution and its role as a beneficial gas in all realms of science...........biology, agronomy, zoology.......etc) is hidden from the spotlight because the gate keepers don't want you to know this.

Year after year, we have yields that come in better than expectations

That's because nobody is dialing in the positive effects of CO2 on the crops.

We have been told that climate change will increase droughts and reduce yields.........those are the expectations based on speculative climate model projections.

They have been completely wrong based on the observations. Not just wrong but got the effect in the opposite direction. Instead of being bad, its been almost all good.

Sun + H20 + Minerals +CO2 = O2 + Food/Sugars

That scientific  law may have been repealed in the political world but the real science and real plants in this world don't follow human politics.

just keep in mind the indigo estimate. They have been more accurate than the USDA and are 1.9b bu under them...brings carry over to around 770m....split the difference and its still high, mother nature rules and this crop est by NASS is off on acres and yield.

MM and Jim are correct in their points or yield would of been far worse of course.

I saw a Tweet from one of "The Squad" the other day about how some countries are going hungry because of drought.  I couldn't help but comment on what a dichotomy that is based on the fact that world grain stocks are at or near record highs.  

This is true Jim.

http://www.fao.org/worldfoodsituation/csdb/en/

But this is what we hear:

    The Conversation  

      October 22, 2018 · 4:30 PM EDT  

World hunger is on the rise again, and climate change is a culprit

https://www.pri.org/stories/2018-10-22/world-hunger-rise-again-and-climate-change-culprit

"Climate change is also increasing the severity and frequency of extreme weather events, such as powerful storms and droughts. As a result, some regions of the world are getting wetter, including the northern US and Canada, while others are becoming drier, such as the southwestern US. In the US Midwest, heavy rainfalls events increased by over a third from 1958 to 2012.

Agriculture is one of the industries most exposed and vulnerable to climate change. Crops and livestock are extremely sensitive to temperature and precipitation. A late spring frost can be devastating, and a heat wave during the flowering stage can result in sharply reduced yields. In short, agriculture is the “Goldilocks industry"  — the weather should not be too hot or too cold, and rainfall must be “just right.”

Producing enough food for everyone in the world depends heavily on climate. This means that it will be impossible to curb hunger without preparing for and adapting to climate change."

This is a display of total ignorance on the subject. The last 40 years have featured the best weather for life and growing crops in recorded history as we are experiencing a climate optimum. 

The authentic data/observations show it. The planet greening up shows it. The record crop yields show it. The thousands of studies of plants with elevated CO2 show it. The weather records show it.

"The Squad" just makes stuff up:

https://www.nass.usda.gov/Charts_and_Maps/Field_Crops/soyyld.php

There obviously are other contributing factors with genetics and farming technology (+75%) but the +CO2 and weather(+25%) have been a big plus.

With Corn, it's a different picture because of the  introduction of nitrogen fertilizer causing corn yields to triple real fast and not as much to do with CO2 or weather during that initial tripling. However, recent decades have featured a steady increase, along with a steady increase in CO2 and beneficial weather.

http://crazyeddiethemotie.blogspot.com/2014/10/corn-questions-from-food-inc-worksheet.html

Here's how to access the empirical evidence/data from the site that has more of it than any other. Please go to this link:

http://www.co2science.org/data/data.php

Go to plant growth data base:

http://www.co2science.org/data/plant_growth/plantgrowth.php

Go to plant dry weight(biomass):

http://www.co2science.org/data/plant_growth/dry/dry_subject.php

Pick the name of a plant, any plant and go to it based on its starting letter. Let's pick soybeans. Go to the letter S,http://www.co2science.org/data/plant_growth/dry/dry_subject_s.php

Then scroll down and hit soybeans. This is what you get:

http://www.co2science.org/data/plant_growth/dry/g/glycinem.php

Glycine max (L.) Merr. [Soybean]

Statistics                                                                                                                                                  

This tells us that there were 238 studies with the CO2 elevated by 300 ppm. The mean increase in plant biomass was 48.3% from all those studies. 

The individual studies are listed below that. 

A very rough estimate for the increase in CO2 is something like +1% in plant growth for every 5ppm increase in CO2 but it varies a great deal from plant to plant. The increase in CO2 from 280 ppm to 411 ppm is +131 ppm which would equate to an increase of around 26%.

So plants and crops are experiencing an average bonus of 26% from the fertilization effect from the extra CO2 in the air.

Global drought has not increased.

So where does all this crapola come from that we hear about telling us about crops being hurt from climate change if we are in the midst of a climate optimum?

It comes from the only place where a climate crisis exists.............simulated (and busted) global climate models, programmed to project climate using a speculative theory and affects for the next 100 years using mathematical equations(that they pick) from biased scientists(80% of which are liberals and over 50% of which have a strong left political belief system) who refuse to adjust their political belief climate change system to the scientific one being observed that is not matching up.

The actual warming rate has been 50% of the model predictions and outside of the heavier rains, most of the predictions have been wrong.

According to the average results of computer climate models, we should have seen about 0.27˚ C of global warming per decade since the late 1970s:

 https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/07/27/why-climate-change-chicken-littles-demand-action-now/

But the best data we have show about half that much—0.13˚ C per decade according to the University of Alabama at Huntsville’s satellite data.

Don’t get me wrong. There has been warming. But the models simulate about twice what we’ve observed.

When a meteorologists weather forecast busts, everybody knows it because we can verify if it rained or not.

When a climate forecast busts for 20 years, they know that people don't have the data, so they manipulate the information..........even telling us its worse than what they thought to scare us even more, because people weren't scared enough before to respond the way they hoped......... which is the only reason the climate crisis exists.

Then, some sources use the most extreme(warmest) of all the too warm models to scare us the most. 

We must act now and do exactly as they say or the planet will be lost in 12 years.

All the polar bears will be dead(even though the population has increased 25% since 2005) after we were told this a decade ago.

What they failed to mention is this:

https://www.thegwpf.org/as-polar-bear-numbers-increase-gwpf-calls-for-re-assessment-of-endangered-species-status/

"In 2005, the official global polar bear estimate was about 22,500.

Since 2005, however, the estimated global polar bear population has risen by more than 30% to about 30,000 bears, far and away the highest estimate in more than 50 years.

A growing number of observational studies have documented that polar bears are thriving, despite shrinking summer sea ice. "

Get your real polar bear science here:

https://polarbearscience.com/2019/02/

State of the Polar Bear Report 2018: Polar bears continue to thrive

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Climate Policy Research

Polar Bear Numbers Could Have Quadrupled

https://www.thegwpf.org/polar-bear-numbers-could-have-quadrupled/

• Date: 19/03/19         
• Press Release, Global Warming Policy Foundation        

Researcher says attempts to silence her have failed

Polar bear numbers could easily exceed 40,000, up from a low point of 10,000 or fewer in the 1960s. 

Global temperatures are increasing at around 1.3 deg. C/century.

In 100 years, we will be closer to temperatures during the Holocene Climate Optimum in the higher latitudes that were warmer than this(where the warming is greatest).

This was between 9,000 to 5,000 years ago, with a max around 8,000 years ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_climatic_optimum

This will be beneficial warmth for most life(that hibernates or goes dormant in the Winter or migrates south to avoid being killed by the cold or to find food)

However, today's post on the affects of warm temperatures at night on corn yields tells us that this is NOT good news in every realm of agronomy and crop production.

Heat Fill on corn.

https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/36888/

The coldest places at the coldest times of year have warmed the most on this planet.

This is good. 

Temperatures at night have also warmed more than temperatures during the day.  This is not good for kernel filling of corn. 

Fortunately, so far, Summer temperatures have NOT increased in the Cornbelt over the last 40 years.  This is good.

Overall yields will still do better because of climate change and especially from the increase in CO2 even with some modest warming during the Summer which eventually should happen.

But for this particular crop, the slight increase in Summer temperatures that should take place in the future would be a negative effect on corn yields which will offset some of the benefits.