Yields have a wide range

Consistent rain from June 1 through mid-July resulted in flooding in downtown Portland, the cancellation of Fort Recovery’s Harvest Jubilee and a variety of schedule changes for the Jay County Fair. It was also a scourge for local farmers, with experts in July projected at least a 30-percent crop loss for Jay County.
With the harvest season underway, farmers are now learning the extent of the damage caused by the soggy early summer months.
United States Department of Agriculture estimates released last week show an average of 148 bushels per acre for corn for the East Central Indiana crop reporting district, about a 10 percent loss from the “normal” yield of 164. Soybeans came in at 50 bushels per acre, about 6 percent below the “normal” average of 53.
Statewide averages are 51 bushels per acre for soybeans and 156 bushels per acre for corn.
But Chris Hurt, an agricultural economist and professor at Purdue University, emphasized that those are just averages, noting that the East Central Indiana district stretches south to Union and Fayette counties. In general, the southern half of the East Central Indiana region was not hit nearly as hard as Jay County.
"We saw some horrible fields in Jay County,” said Hurt. “There's obviously farms with much bigger losses than that."
That theory was confirmed by local buyers at POET Biorefining and IOM Grain, who said Jay County’s yields are far more spotty and inconsistent than the averages indicate.
Aaron Kuhn of POET, a Portland-based ethanol plant, said he has had producers report corn yields ranging from as low as 40 to 50 bushels per acre for corn to as high as 160 to 180. Soybean numbers are similarly all over the map.
Erik Loucks of IOM, which provides food grade grain to customers worldwide, shared similar numbers, saying his reports have ranged from as low as 60 bushels per acre to as high as 80. Soybean yields, he said, have been quoted as low as 25 bushels per acre to 55 bushels per acre on the high end.
The yields are a sharp decline from record numbers the last two years, which averaged 56 bushels per acre for soybeans and 180 bushels per acre for corn in East Central Indiana in 2014.
A variety of factors have played a role, they both added, noting location, soil type and drainage system.
“The biggest thing is the water, where the tile was laid and how much water could get away,” said Kuhn. “If water could get away, stuff was fairly decent. The places where the water was sitting, laying, it was catastrophic. It was gone completely.”
“If somebody’s telling you they had a good year, they were an isolated incident,” noted Loucks of the local picture. “Corn is horrible. Beans are OK.”
Hurt explained that the biology of the two crops was key to the different ways in which they handled the weather this year, which was extremely wet in June and early July, and mostly dry since.
He said because soybeans don’t bloom until between late July and early September, they had time to bounce back from the early wet weather. He also noted that they were able to use some of that excess moisture when the rain disappeared during the second half of the growing season.
"If they're stressed part of that time and then get more favorable weather, they can compensate,” Hurt said. “And so that appears to be what happened statewide. We're actually ending up with soybean yields (statewide) a little higher than what we would have expected with normal yields."
Corn, on the other hand, goes through the pollination process around the third week of July. At that time, Jay County was still reeling from the third, and most severe, bout of flooding it endured this summer.
"There was still a lot of stress ... and that's when corn is pollinating,” said Hurt. “If there's failure to get a kernel started, it can't recover. So corn just doesn't have the ability to recover in August like soybeans."
The good news, Hurt noted, is that about 80 percent of farmers in Indiana carry some level of crop insurance and/or will be eligible for reimbursement from the government farm program to help cover some of their losses.
While the yields were down in Indiana, the dip in supply has not resulted in an significant increase in grain prices. That’s because the western Corn Belt — Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska and South Dakota — saw record yields this year.
Corn prices are expected to bump up just slightly to about $3.80 per bushel, up from $3.70 last year, while soybeans have dipped to $9.15 per bushel, nearly a dollar lower than a year ago.
"It'll be a negative market year for most farm families ... because they have the low yields,” Hurt said. “And cost of production is still very high."
Both numbers remain down significantly from the averages of $4.50 for corn and $13 for soybeans in 2013.
“That’s a $4 a bushel difference (for soybeans), which is a lot,” said Loucks. “You have guys getting $12,000 a load, where a couple years ago it was $16,000.
“At $4 a bushel corn, guys need to have 200 bushels an acre yield to make it work. Guys have less than $4 corn right now and less than 150 (bushels) average on corn yield.”
Both Hurt and Loucks noted that grain prices are impacted well beyond even the western Corn Belt.
South America, led by Brazil and Argentina, now produces more soybeans annually than the United States. So the state of the crops in those countries this winter will play a role in the local grain market prices.
The value of the U.S. dollar in comparison to struggling foreign currency is also key.
China is the leading importer of American soybeans, but with the Chinese yuan struggling, the country can not afford to buy as much product.
And with the Brazilian real having crashed, soybeans grown there are now cheaper than those grown in the United States.
While the wet weather early in the season hurt the overall crop, the dry weather of late has sped the harvest process along.
As of Tuesday, about 62 percent of the state’s soybeans had been harvested. The five-year average for this time of year is 54 percent.
The corn harvest is slightly ahead of schedule at 45 percent compared to the average of 43 percent.
Both corn and soybeans were at just 25 percent at this point last year because of wet weather in early October.
Another effect of the dry weather over the last few months is a relatively low moisture percentage in both corn and beans. Soybeans can be sold with a moisture level of up to 13 percent, and the average at harvest this year is 12 percent.
"This is causing them to really aggressively try to rapidly harvest the soybeans,” said Hurt. “I think we'll be finishing harvest in quite a few areas in the next week."
The average moisture level for corn is also down, which Hurt said will be a good thing for farmers. They’ll have less cost in drying corn artificially.
As for the animal industry, Hurt doesn’t expect significant changes to feed prices, which have dipped in the last few years because of the record corn and soybean yields in 2013 and 2014. He said he believes there will continue to be some expansion in beef, pork and chicken, and also said the goal for producers is to rebuild the laying hen population that suffered significant losses this year because of the avian flu.
Hurt, Loucks and Kuhn also said with the grain price still low, they expect farmers will store much of their yield with hopes of getting a better deal down the road.
"The predominant strategy of farmers is to store the crop ... and then hope, and I think it's a reasonable hope, that we'll see some strength in those prices on into 2016."
Farmers are likely also looking toward next year, hoping for more cooperative weather.
“I’ll be glad when this one is behind us,” said Kuhn, “and I think everyone else will be too.”