Growers reduced winter wheat plantings 7 percent for this year, but that’s just the first step toward harvest, says economist Darrel Good of U-Illinois. The crop will be determined by how much of the land is harvested and by yields, writes Good at farmdoc daily. The harvest, in late spring, could be 1.387 billion bushels, or 1-percent larger than last year’s crop, assuming normal weather and yields. The yield per acre in 2015 was an average 42.5 bushels, one of the lower yields in the past decade. “Odds would seem to favor a higher average yield in 2016,” he says. “Based on actual yields for the 30-year period from 1986 through 2015, the trend yield for 2016 is 47 bushels an acre.”
A rebound to average yields would offset smaller plantings by a small margin. “Obviously, actual production could differ substantially from the projected level,” said Good, with weather the unknown factor, especially if the El Niño weather pattern fades. El Niño usually brings above-normal precipitation to the major winter wheat states in the southern and central Plains. The USDA will update its estimate of winter wheat sowing on March 31, based on a survey of growers.