Death comes to us all. Life's but a walking shadow | It isn't just that the Pro Farmer results are an average 7.1 bu. too high it's that they are consistently too high. Here is some of the data from the article. In fact simple satistical analysis indicates that there is only a 2.5 % probability that the USDA average yield is the same or rather a 97.5 % probability they are different.
Notice that the one year they were closest was 2009, If I remember that was the year of a great finish so actually the harvest caught up to their estimate. It is more likely their estimate is pretty consistently about 10 bushel too high. Ten bushel on 85 million acres makes quite a difference, only 850 million bushel.
Let's hope the traders have sense enough to discount the Pro Farmer results.
From Pro Farmer:
7-State Average - I really like the consistency of this data. On average since 2001 the simple average of all samples has been 7.1 above USDA's national average corn yield. Which makes sense... when sampling yields in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, South Dakota and Nebraska, the average of those samples should be higher than the national average. Unfortunately, we don't calculate this average until after the Crop Tour is officially over. We'll release the average as soon as we can.
7-State Avg. USDA Final Crop Tour Difference (i calculated)
2011 147.2 158.75 11.55
2010 152.8 167.30 14.50
2009 164.7 169.56 4.86
2008 153.9 161.94 8.04
2007 150.7 158.50 7.80
For what it is worth.
Edited by 1234 8/21/2013 09:47
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Pro Farmer - this explains historical difference computations
