Fundamentally Speaking

The September 2024 crop report is in the books and again USDA put this year's U.S. corn yield at a record 183.6 bushels per acre (bpa), up 0.3 bpa from their prior projection and above the year ago former all-time high of 177.3 bpa.

This time, as opposed to the August report, USDA in addition to the farmer survey and satellite imagery data, used actual field measurements and were able to furnish both plant and ear population data for 10 top corn producing states.

Based on the harvested acreage and yield figures, USDA was able to produce a 10-state weighted average for both ears per acre and yield.

The crop production report and accompanying briefing that contains a number of slides shows a 10-state ear count of 28,950 ears per acre and a weighed yield of 192.5 bpa.

In this chart we have gone a step further and plotted the 10-state objective corn ear population in ears per acre on the left-hand axis.

Then using the available ear population, harvested acreage and yields figures for the 10 states we report on the right-hand axis the implied 10-state corn ear weight in lbs/ear.

The figures in the yellow boxes are the 10-state objective yield which, as noted, is a record 192.5 bpa topping the prior record of 183.4 bpa in 2021.

Post-report there has been commentary that the USDA's 10-state ear count of 28,950 is below last year's 29,350, coming in actually 2.1% below the 2004-2024 trend.

Furthermore, since 2016, the final 10-state corn ear count has been lower than the September figure by an average of 144 ears per acre ranging from down 50 to as much as down 250 ears/acre in 2018.

This has some speculating about perhaps a lower U.S. corn yield down the road in subsequent crop reports.

Still, a record 10-state objective yield of 192.5 bpa and fewer ears must mean a heavier ear weight and that is the case.

Our calculations work out to an average 10-state ear weight of 0.372 lbs/ear topping the prior record of 0.359 lbs/ear seen in 2016.

With dry weather over the past 30 days some talk of reduced grain fill that could result in a lower ear weight in the Oct, Nov and Jan 2025 reports so we will have to wait and see.

It does appear however, that good rainfall for most of the summer and perhaps more importantly, cooler than normal temperatures in these 10 states responsible for the heavier ear weights in this season's U.S. corn crop.

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