crop tours

Crop tours generate a lot of attention with their estimates of crop yields or output but the organizers often say little about the level of accuracy they represent.

U.S. farmers will harvest their biggest corn and soybean crops ever - 14.093 billion bushels of corn and 3.812 billion bushels of soybeans, says Pro Farmer after a first-hand look at crops in the seven leading states.

Crop scouts reported strong potential corn yields in southwestern Iowa and the northern half of Illinois as the annual Pro Farmer crop tour headed toward release today of an estimate of the U.S. corn and soybean crops.

A spot-check of fields in northern Indiana and into northwestern Illinois as part of the annual Pro Farmer crop tour found that conditions, and yields, improved as the scouts drove westward, says DTN.

Corn yields in Ohio and South Dakota are likely to be far above last year's levels, say scouts on the Pro Farmer crop tour. Their reports indicate a yield of 182.1 bushels an acre in Ohio and 152.7 bushels an acre in South Dakota.

Analysts are chewing over the arcane Crop Acreage Data page posted by USDA in hopes of a clearer picture of this fall's corn and soybean harvests.