Corn Crops: First Drought, Now This.

WILEY, CO - AUGUST 22: Farmer Jay Sneller displays an ear from a drought-ravaged corn crop on August 22, 2012 in Wiley, Colorado. He cut the crop down to grind up and sell as livestock feed. More than 50 percent of high plains areas of eastern Colorado, Nebraska and Kansas are still in extreme or exceptional drought, despite recent lower temperatures, according to the University of Nebraska's Drought Monitor. The record-breaking drought, which has affected more than half of the continental United States, is expected to drive up food prices by 2013, due to lower crop harvests and the adverse effect on the nation's cattle industry. (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)

The Missouri corn crop can’t get a break from the weather. Drought slowed growth most of the season. Now moisture from remnants of Hurricane Isaac delays harvest of that corn.

This may not be the year to let the crop dry in the field, says Bill Wiebold, University of Missouri Extension agronomist. Early harvest can pay, even it increases costs.

“Timely harvest is essential to harvest as much yield as possible, even if it means more drying and aeration costs,” Wiebold says.

Delays can lead to broken stalks and dropped ears from a drought-weakened crop. “Poor stalk quality leads to increased preharvest and harvest losses,” Wiebold adds.

In August, USDA estimated the Missouri corn yield at 75 bushels per acre. Wiebold, using a 30-year-yield trend line, calculated the 2012 Missouri corn yield should have made 141 bushels per acre. “That’s a yield drop of 47 percent,” he says. Harvest will verify actual yield.

“With that drop in production, farmers may be cautious to sink additional expenses into the crop,” Wiebold says.

“Harvesting a larger portion of the low yields may outweigh additional costs associated with early harvest,” he says. “Timely harvest as soon as fields are dry enough to withstand combine and wagon traffic is important to reduce harvest losses.”

There are many reasons stalk quality drops following a droughty growing season, Wiebold says. Some disease-causing fungi, such as charcoal rot, grow well in heat on drought-stressed cornstalks. Also, potassium builds stalk quality, but uptake was reduced on dry soils.

Stalk diameters of plants are smaller this year. The lateral expansion was limited by reduced turgor (water pressure) in the plant cells, Wiebold says. Many corn plants died early, allowing fungi to attack the dead cells and break down cellulose and other structural strengths.

The results can be cornstalk breakage below the ear. “It will be difficult to gather those ears into the combine,” Wiebold says.

While rains were needed, storms increase stalk breakage and delay harvest. Gulf air masses meeting a series of cold fronts bring more moisture while temperatures remain high.

High dew points result in fog and damp plant tissue. That stimulates growth of fungi, which further weakens cornstalks.

All the corn that can be harvested, stored and dried will likely be worth more than any prices seen before, Wiebold says. “The harvest should be worth the extra effort.”

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Drought 2012: Harsh Reality of Higher Food Prices

Droughts tend to produce vast yield variations. This week's ProFramer crop tour reaffirmed this tendency and as UBS notes, conditions declined with the expectations of low yields compounded by the harsher reality of poor quality - likely to be a major issue for corn feeders. 

Interestingly, Soybeans looked good from the road but up close (pod formation and beans/pod) were well below normal; and UBS adds to forget the CME for the moment - the cash market is now the attention grabber as they expect it to lead this rally in Ags higher - especially the July 2013s, raising an interesting question of if (or when) the US will restrict exports? Especially with no let-up in the drought conditions.

Lower yields AND lower quality...

With Corn and Soybean conditions data just awful...

and its not getting better anytime soon...

Drought Worsens In Plains

While other corn growers already have knocked down their drought-ravaged crops to feed them to livestock, Nebraska farmer Doug Nelson still waits for his maize to mature, well aware it won’t be a banner year.

On the day a new report suggested the nation’s worst dry spell in at least a generation is deepening in America’s breadbasket, Nelson said Thursday he expects to harvest anywhere from nothing to 43 bushels per acre on his unirrigated acreage, a far cry from the 120 to 140 bushels he'd typically get. On the irrigated land, he could see 150 to 200 bushels an acre; in previous years, Nelson would see a minimum of 180 bushels.

‘‘For the most part, we haven’t seen a hit like this since 1974, as far as my career goes,’’ said the 61-year-old Nelson, who farms some 5,000 acres near Wayne. ‘‘But we'll have the combines going here in probably another month, and then we'll know for sure.

‘‘You can walk these fields and run into good spots, then walk another part where there’s a different soil and have nothing.’’

That’s part of the growing frustration with an increasing drought in Nebraska and several other farming states, despite recently cooler temperatures that have, at the very least, given people a break from this summer’s stifling heat.

The U.S. Drought Monitor’s weekly map showed that, as of Tuesday, just over two-thirds of Iowa, the nation’s biggest corn producer, was in extreme or exceptional drought — the worst two classifications. That’s up more than 5 percentage points, to 67.5 percent, from the previous week.

Nearly all of Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri and Illinois are in extreme or exceptional drought, with Illinois showing the most dramatic climb, spiking 17 percentage points in one week to 96.72 percent, according to the map.

In neighboring Indiana, where 5 inches of rain fell in some parts over the past week or so, the area in exceptional or extreme drought fell 9 percentage points, to 37.09 percent.

Conditions cooled in the region, but little or no meaningful rain fell, said Mike Brewer, a National Climatic Data Center scientist who put together the latest map, which is released by the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln.

The lack of rain allowed exceptional and extreme drought conditions to continue expanding in the area from northern Missouri and into Kansas and Nebraska, he said.

On Wednesday, the USDA added 33 counties from eight drought-stricken states to its list of natural disaster areas, bringing that tally to 1,821 counties in 35 states over the past six weeks. That’s more than half of all U.S. counties, and the vast majority received the designation because of drought.

Plains farmers have begun harvesting what corn managed to survive, although many growers cut their fields weeks ago, chalking the year up as a loss. Some ranchers have sold livestock because they had no grass for grazing or money to buy feed, the price of which has soared.

In the lower 48 states, there was a subtle increase in the overall area experiencing at least some drought, from 61.77 percent last week to 63.2 percent. There was little change in the overall area seeing exceptional or extreme drought, which went from 6.26 percent last week to 6.31 percent this week.

Rain is expected in the northern Plains in coming days, though it may be too late to save many withered crops.

The U.S. Agriculture Department twice has slashed its forecast for this year’s corn and soybean output because of the drought. In the spring, it forecast the nation’s biggest harvest, as farmers planted 96.4 million acres of corn — the most since 1937. But the agency now expects the nation to produce 10.8 billion bushels, the fewest since 2006.

If that estimate holds, the federal government says it will be enough to meet the world’s needs and ensure there are no shortages. But experts say food prices will almost certainly climb — corn is widely used in products ranging from cosmetics to cereal, colas to candy bars.

While just 1 percent of the nation’s corn crop is brought in from the fields by this time of year, the USDA said Monday in its weekly crop progress report that 4 percent of the harvest is complete. The reaping is farther along in Kansas, Missouri, South Dakota, Kentucky and Tennessee.

In an occupation that’s at nature’s mercy, ‘‘we've got to calculate we’re gonna lose a crop once in a while and calculate that into our expenses,’’ said Nelson, whose northeastern Nebraska farmland is about 60 percent corn, the rest soybeans. ‘‘Sometimes it’s heat, drought, excessive rains, bugs, winds. I guess that’s what keeps us coming back for next year.’’

© Copyright 2012 Globe Newspaper Company.

Corn Shortage: The Next Big Crisis

By now you know we're experiencing the worst drought in over 50 years which has sent corn prices soaring to record highs. With over 60% of the US in the midst of drought conditions, the USDA has said that 50% of America's corn crop will be in poor to very poor condition.

With corn supplies are at their lowest levels in 17 years and with corn being such a large part of the industrial food chain, we have the 'perfect storm' for serious food shortages.

Corn feeds the chickens that provide us with eggs. Corn feeds the cows that provide us with beef and dairy products. Nearly all soda contain high fructose corn syrup. Even beer is fermented from glucose that originated in corn.

Corn is in margarine, coffee sweetener, icing, gravy, hot sauce, mayonnaise, soups, cake mixes, snacks foods, salad dressings, frozen waffles, and on and on. If you eat produce in any form, it’s likely got corn in or on it: corn was in the pesticide, the cardboard in which it was shipped, even the wax applied to its surface to give it a sheen.

Corn is in toothpaste, disposable diapers, matches, trash bags, disposable batteries, make up, even magazines covers.

Corn in approximately 25% of all items located in your local grocery store. And of course, all the fuel for our cars and trucks contain ethanol which is made from, you guessed it, corn.

And the situation is equally bad for soybeans, the second largest produced crop in the US: today inventories are at their lowest levels in 32 years. And the current drought has resulted in 39% of this year’s soybean crop being in poor to very poor condition.

Forget about Europe and the imminent global financial collaspe, the corn (and soybean) shortages is the REAL CRISIS.