crop yields

"Concerns are mounting over freeze damage to winter wheat crops in the southern Plains," says the Associated Press, pointing in particular to temperatures as low as the single digits in southern Kansas 10 days ago.

Growers plan a 20-percent increase in rice plantings this year in Arkansas, the state that often grows half of the U.S. rice crop, says U-Arkansas.

Rice farmers curtailed plantings by nearly 2 percent in the face of dry weather caused by the El Niño weather pattern, leading to the smallest world rice crop in four years.

Wheat farmers around the world are forecast to reap a crop of 723 million tonnes this year, down 10 million tonnes, or 1.4 percent, from the record harvest of 2015, said the UN Food and Agriculture Organization in its first forecast of 2016 crops.

An examination of weather and yield data does not provide a definitive indication of whether corn yields will be above or below average this year, but the risk of below-normal yields has to be considered, write two U-Illinois economists.

Crop yields on small farms across Africa, Asia and Latin America are higher on plots that attract more bees during the main flowering season.

After record-setting soybean crops two years in a row, U.S. farmers are expected to expand corn plantings and throttle back on soybeans this year.

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.

Wheat, the dominant crop of the Great Plains, is losing the race for higher yields -- and returns to the grower -- to corn and soybeans.

As environment ministers hashed out the details of a climate change agreement, FERN correspondent Daniel Grossman sat down with two prominent experts in Paris to talk about the impact of climate change on agriculture.

Persistently low commodity prices "might result in a marginal increase in corn acreage and a marginal decrease in soybean acreage in the coming year, said economist Darrel Good of U-Illinois.

Higher agricultural productivity is a key to meeting growing global demand for food, writes Yangxuan Liu, a doctoral candidate in agricultural economics at Purdue, in a blog on how improved technology could help small-scale farmers and the high-value crops they often grow.

Tar spot, a fungal disease of corn, was confirmed in north central Indiana, the first known instance of the disease in the U.S.

Canada, one of the five largest wheat growers and exporters of the world, faces a huge decline in wheat production this year, says the monthly World Agricultural Production report.

Along with the population, U.S. agricultural output has more than doubled since 1948, says a USDA report. "With little growth in total input use (0.07 percent per year) during that period, the extraordinary performance of the U.S. farm sector was driven mainly by productivity growth, at an annual rate of 1.42 percent," according to the report.

Dry wells are a common problem in drought-stricken California, but the state has reservoirs, rivers and snowmelt from the Sierra Nevada.

The drought in California is creating an unexpected threat to the state's almond growers. Water drawn from wells on the west side of Central California is high in salt, says Valley Public Radio in Fresno, which could adversely affect crop yields.

The least expensive way to attack greenhouse gas emissions on the farm may be larger investment in agricultural research and development, said University of California professor Aaron Smith in a blog on Tuesday. He cited a 2010 study that estimated agricultural R&D reduced carbon emissions through higher productivity at a cost of $15 per ton, "a much lower cost" than some commonly suggested practices, such as cover crops and conservation tillage.