Posted 7/4/2015 08:01 (#4660724 - in reply to #4660642) Subject: RE:The point was to ...
Death comes to us all. Life's but a walking shadow
If I understand the USDA's rating system an excellent rating implies the crop (at that point in time) is expected to make its full yield potential. The other condition ratings correspond to lower expectations. The goal is to make a weighted average that weights the percent of the crop with a particular rating (percent x discounted yield potential) for both 2014 and 2015 and then adjust the 2014 yield by the ratio of the 2015 to the 2014 weighted average.
You are correct that the outcome depends heavily on how you discount yield by condition category. But what is surprising about the results shown in the last table is not so much how Ill, Ind and Missouri are effected but how little Iowa and Minn are increased given the concerns there in 2014. I thought that a difference of only 525 million bushel between this year and last year was quite modest compared to the current conditions being reported there.
Additional note: It is important to keep in mind here that for this analysis the actual total production for each year isn't nearly as important as the difference between the two years.
Help with assessing crop conditions, please?
