Written by Sig Silber
Tonight we present the September 30, 2020, NASS Crop Executive Briefing on Small Grains and Stocks (inventory) as well as the current Weekly Crop Progress and Condition Report. At this point in the crop season, NASS also includes corn and soybeans reporting in this report. The Weekly Crop Progress and Condition Report often adds additional recent information to the Executive Briefing. This crop season still looks very good except for rice and recent tropical events may have had a little negative impact on the cotton crop which still looks pretty good.
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I think any impacts will show up in our crop progress report tonight.
There seems to be some slight connection between these two storms which are very far apart. You can see that Teddy looks more typical and Beta has gone aground and is falling apart.
Here is the NASS Executive Briefing.
The Special Note is self-explanatory.
Self-explanatory
This shows the sample size of the survey
We start with Winter Wheat. We did not report Winter Wheat in the most recent Executive Briefing that covered Winter Wheat.
It is down from last year and down from the prior report. Both acres planted and yield are down.
The acreage devoted to Winter Wheat has been declining. It appears that some other crops are more attractive to farmers. This article provides some explanation but climate change may also be a factor for Winter Wheat.
The yield has been on an upwards trend.
This shows the yield per acre by state and the change in yield from last year. Lots of variability.
Production has been declining.
Notice the bars (heads per acre) and red dots (bushels per acre) and you can see how the estimates have varied through each crop year. In 2019 it started low and rose and in 2020 it started ok but has declined each month.
Here the NASS forecasts are compared to other industry forecasts. Right now NASS is way low compared to the others. Since July all the forecasts have declined. I would like to say that there is potential for the final harvest to be higher than the NASS projection but I have no basis for saying that other than they have the lowest forecast.
How we have switched to Spring Wheat. It is a lot more positive. Some of the states that had a hard time last year are doing much better this year.
You can see that in 2019 a lot of planted acres were not harvested. It is looking better for this year.
The yield trend here is very good.
Here is the state by state analysis showing the change from last year. It looks good and I have no idea why Minnesota is down.
No declining trend here.
Very different from the Winter Wheat situation.
This is about Durum Wheat. The yield is down but the number of acres planted this year was way up.
Up and down re the number of acres planted.
There has been a slow improvement in yield. 2017 was a bad year.
This shows the one-year change in yield by state. Other than Idaho, it was down everywhere.
Production fluctuates but there is no pronounced trend.
Again a comparison of NASS forecasts and industry forecasts. NASS seems optimistic.
Three other grains. Barley is off a bit but Oats is way up and Rye looks good also.
Acres remaining to be harvested. 2019 was a terrible year. 2020 looks about average on this criteria.
Now we look at inventory not production. Inventory is down and more so off-farm.
This shows how inventory declines throughout the year. That makes sense. There does not seem to be much year to year carryover.
Here they lump all varieties of wheat together. The NASS forecast is close to the lowest.
`Now we have switched to corn but only with respect to inventory. The inventory in Illinois is way down. I have no idea why.
Here are corn stocks (inventory). I am assuming that for corn, the inventory is from last year’s crop. There does not seem to be hoarding or an inability to sell the inventory.
Industry estimates are a bit higher than NASS but if you look at the scale on the Y-axis it is not a big difference although in the graphic it looks like a lot.
Total Supply is beginning stocks + production + imports. Then they subtract two logical reductions in the total supply. They subtract the forecasted ending inventory and what is left is called the residual. I researched some articles on this subject. Some of it was eaten by animals that the farmer raised. It seems they estimate it by the number and weight of the animals being fed. I am not very confident in this number. It is pretty shocking that the residual which can also be called the error term is so high. It does not make me feel very confident in the other numbers especially the forecasts of the ending inventory. At the end of the crop season, the ending inventory can be measured. Since I am a mathematician, I find the approach less than acceptable.
Shifting to Soybeans. The inventories are way down.
Here we see the inventories each year at four different times and the Sep 1 value is probably the last formal estimate made by NASS.
The differences among these forecasts are small. One has to be alert when looking at graphics.
Notice that with soybeans, the “residual” is very small.
Forecasted inventory/stocks of some other crops.
Another link that will get you to the reports and some contact information if one has questions.
Here is the Crop Progress Report.
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| The above is a very good summary of the situation. Below it is broken down in more detail state by state. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Generally speaking, the weather cooperated with respect to fieldwork.
Only a small number of states had weather that negatively impacted fieldwork. It is where tropical weather had an impact.
International
I am just providing the map this week but it shows that a number of areas are drier than they would prefer. But it has improved since last week. FSU stands for the Former Soviet Union,
Major Sources of Information
In the box are shown the major resources we use. We will not be using them all each week but the reader is welcome to refer to these resources.
Major Sources of Information Used in this Weekly Report
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