The U.S. corn crop could dwindle to an average 135 bushels an acre, “a yield loss similar to the drought of 2012,” because of rain-delayed planting this spring, said economist Chad Hart of Iowa State University. In ISU’s monthly “Iowa Farm Outlook,” Hart said the corn yield would be 21 percent lower than normal, based on yield losses in other years – 1983, 1993 and 1995 – with slow progress in planting.
Market prices for corn are rising because of the darkening outlook for this year’s crop. Futures contracts for delivery of corn in July ended the day at $4.50-3/4 a bushel on Tuesday in Chicago, up nearly $1 since May 10.
In a normal year, a yield of 173 bushels an acre could be expected, wrote Hart. “The 21 percent decline would put the national yield in 135 bushels an acre range, with a yield loss similar to the drought of 2012.”
The last major drought in the Corn Belt was in 2012, when yields in the fall were 20 percent lower than USDA projected in May, before extreme heat withered fields from the central Plains to the Ohio Valley. The 135-bushel yield cited by Hart would be the lowest since 123.4 bushels an acre in 2012.
Economist Todd Hobbs of the University of Illinois said in late May that with the historically slow planting season, corn “appears set to hit a level similar to a severe drought.” Besides lower yields in late-planted fields, growers would be unable to plant corn on millions of acres of land, said Hobbs. An Illinois colleague, Scott Irwin, calculated on Tuesday a potential U.S. average yield of 153.3 bushels an acre this year. In its first projection of the year, in May, the USDA pegged the yield at 176 bushels an acre. It cut it to 166 bushels last week because of “unprecedented planting delays.”
The USDA reported on Monday that 92 percent of the corn crop was planted, a record low and weeks past the usual end of the planting season for corn.