old wise tale. A fast finish is never a good finish to crops. More hot and dry for the next several days. Beans have not filled yet and what seed that is there will shrink. Corn has not reach milk line and the weather will prevent natural good things like all important test weight to develop. So as the markets show very little concern, there is a lot of worry in the corn belt. Early premature death is going to shrink production whether the market cares or not. The sweet corn crop that was just eaten was awesome. Some of the best.
For corn, the rule of thumb is that the longer you extend the filling, the more time the plant has to funnel energy to fill the kernels and the plumper they get......as long as you get the GDDs in well before it turns cold and ideally have some time to dry in the field to save on the energy bill.
This is especially the case with an early planted crop like this year, when we know there will be more than enough GDDs to mature and dry the crop before cold weather hits.
I checked maturity on corn and most states are a bit ahead, except for PA and MI, not major production but IN is actually a bit behind. That's mainly because we've been cooler than the rest of the belt with less GDD's. So up to last weeks heat wave, corn filling temperatures were outstanding. However, since then it's not been so favorable and as mentioned lots of times, I still think we've taken at least a couple of bushels off the final yields because of this very dry finish, with heat mixed in.
But the big speculators are no longer as interested in trading bullish weather on a crop that's made. Especially when near record heat and not much rain last week hardly hurt the ratings.
Ratings are what you see on the outside and don't tell us much about kernel size or test weight, however.
On the beans, the crop is about average for maturity and for sure losing at leasta couple of bushels from poor pod filling DRY weather.
Pro Farmer mentioned alot of flat pods and a crop that needed rain to maximize yields while filling.
The rule of thumb too, is that as the growing season goes on and the crop grows closer to harvest, risk premium comes out..........sometimes even during adverse weather late in the season.
Unexpectedly adverse weather can always make it go the other way but the closer we are to early harvest, with its strong seasonal pressuring tendency, that really gets going in September, the harder it is to generate speculative buying interest based on supply side dynamics because the market knows a huge injection of new crop supply is getting ready to hit the pipeline.
As somebody that loves following the impact of the weather on the crop and the market price, it's always kind of sad to know that another season of those challenges/rewards has passed.
I hope you have a decent crop this year, mcfarm. After the Spring drought caused the threat of a major, widespread crop failure, I'm sure this feels good.
The late June rains came just in time to save the crop. Close call. July temps were mild and we had some huge rains again in early August that caused an unprecedented +5% for the beans G/E 2 weeks ago.
Could have been a much different season without the weather doing us several big timing favors like it has been doing in the vast majority of years the past 3 decades which have featured the LEAST amount of drought in the Midwest since we've been keeping records.
Climate change has actually been protecting the Cornbelt from past droughts, like the Dust Bowl 1930's. Adding CO2 as atmospheric fertilizer on top of that.
Even global drought has decreased slightly as the planet continues to green up every year.
Don't let the fake climate crisis rhetoric fool anybody one bit about that.
1 addition to the spec bean situation is world supply....very tight in beans and you would think that would add some interests. Not nearly the same situation in corn supply. Also bean some surprising sale of beans lately to the big trouble maker China. They are wise traders and are buying from us now for a reason.
There obviously are other contributing factors with genetics and farming technology but the +CO2 and weather have been a big plus.
With Corn, it's a different picture because of the introduction of nitrogen fertilizer causing corn yields to triple real fast and nothing to do with CO2 or weather during that initial tripling. However, recent decades have featured a steady increase, along with a steady increase in CO2 and beneficial weather.
A brief history of U.S. #corn yield growth since the 1860s Notable growth in yields was seen after the adoption of modern fertilizers in the 1940s, which made drought years esp. in the 1980s stand out more than before (compare with 1930s Dust Bowl for example).
Another secret about fossil fuels: Haber Bosch process-fertilizers feeding the planet using natural gas-doubling food production/crop yields. September 2019
Those areas mentioned above have had below average rains this growing season. If not for the huge increase in CO2 the past 100 years, crop conditions would have deteriorated much more. Increased CO2, besides acting as atmospheric fertilizer also causes plants to be more water efficient. They don't need to open their stomata as wide or as often to let CO2 in. As a result, they lose less water/moisture from evapotranspiration. Soybeans are a C3 plant. C3 plants benefit the most from the increase in CO2.
Differences among Plant Functional Types in Response to Elevated CO2
The preceding discussion has presented the average effects of elevated CO2, but obscures important patterns of difference in response among plant species. One of the most important determinants of species differences in response to elevated CO2 is photosynthetic type. Most plant species (~90%) utilize a photosynthetic process known as C3 photosynthesis. Other species use either of two physiologically distinct processes known as C4 and CAM photosynthesis (Figure 2). C4 plants include most tropical and sub-tropical grasses and several important crops, including maize (corn), sugar cane, sorghum, and the millets. There has therefore been considerably more research on the responses to elevated CO2 in C4 than in CAM plants.
Figure 2: Each plant species utilizes one of several distinct physiological variants of photosynthesis mechanisms, including the variants known as C3 and C4 photosynthesis.
Summary
"Current evidence suggests that the concentrations of atmospheric CO2 predicted for the year 2100 will have major implications for plant physiology and growth. Under elevated CO2 most plant species show higher rates of photosynthesis, increased growth, decreased water use and lowered tissue concentrations of nitrogen and protein. Rising CO2 over the next century is likely to affect both agricultural production and food quality. The effects of elevated CO2 are not uniform; some species, particularly those that utilize the C4 variant of photosynthesis, show less of a response to elevated CO2 than do other types of plants. Rising CO2 is therefore likely to have complex effects on the growth and composition of natural plant communities."
++++++++++++++++
Larry,
We should note below, what happens when they use modes that dial in the reality of photosythesis.
Look at the massive, continuous increase in the greening (leaf area) for our planet thru the year 2100.
This increase in greening from leaves, also means an increase in evapotranspiration from those leaves, similar to but not as amplified as the U.S. Cornbelt.
"The paper’s authors reviewed more than 250 published articles that have used satellite data, modeling, and field observations, to understand the causes and consequences of global greening. Among the key results, the authors noted that on a global scale greening can be attributed to the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Rising levels of carbon dioxide increase the rate of photosynthesis and growth in plants."
metmike: Why isn't this paper, based on 250........let me repeat that number 250 published articles using the best technology known to science............getting much news coverage?
Because they don't want you to know this.
From the projections: According to climate models, the future looks even greener. The second map shows what the green-up might look like in the future based on the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) climate model, under a scenario in which increases in greenhouse gases lead to almost 5° Celsius (9° Fahrenheit) of warming by the end of the 21st century. Specifically, it shows the predicted change in the growing season’s “leaf area index” from 2081-2100 relative to 1981-2000. The chart below the map shows the predicted changes by latitude. Notice that high latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere are still expected to change the most.
metmike: There is almost no chance we will see that amount of warming.
Here we identify centennial trends towards more favourable growing conditions in the US Midwest, including cooler summer temperature extremes and increased precipitation, and investigate the origins of these shifts.
++++++++++++++++
Summer Climate Change in the Midwest and Great Plains due to Agricultural Development during the Twentieth Century
I don't care how many global climate models tell us that climate change is increasing drought or how many really smart biased scientists that believe in the models tell us that climate change is increasing global drought or how many times they cherry pick dry places and try to use that as evidence(as if new droughts never emerged before human caused climate change)
Increased levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) have helped boost green foliage across the world's arid regions over the past 30 years through a process called CO2 fertilisation, according to CSIRO research.
In findings based on satellite observations, CSIRO, in collaboration with the Australian National University (ANU), found that this CO2 fertilisation correlated with an 11 per cent increase in foliage cover from 1982-2010 across parts of the arid areas studied in Australia, North America, the Middle East and Africa, according to CSIRO research scientist, Dr Randall Donohue.
