IEM Daily Feature
Wednesday, 16 July 2014

Wettest Month and Corn Yield

Posted: 16 Jul 2014 05:43 AM

There is some current talk in the news about US corn yield projections and Iowa pulling down the average due to the very wet June in the state. Does having a really wet month during the growing season lead to significant reductions in corn yield? The featured chart attempts to look into this using USDA NASS corn yield compared with the largest precipitation departure month for that year. The yield departures are computed by comparing with the current trend analysis as corn yields have increased thanks to better management practices, genetics, etc. Of course, there is no magic weather metric that directly provides corn yield, but having a wet month certainly appears to limit the upside potential. The dashed line shows where 2014 could potentially appear on this plot.

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Tags:   corn