1234 - 3/13/2014 12:25

I dropped the 123 bushel per acre yield because it shows that while the average increases from 148.8 to 151.? the variance decreases dramatically from 9.9 to 6.6 bushels per acre. I agree that at some point in the future we should up date the yield trend but since the trend line shows an increase of only about a bushel per year yield while the noise is 7 bushel per acre the noise has far more effect on yield than the trend yield.
My concern with the USDA's use of the trend line yield is that it just isn't realistic. Just because you can calculate a trend line yield increase add it to the current yield to project a future yield doesn't mean you actually can routinely achieve it. The evidence over the last few years is very clearly against it. The USDA and all the other predicting outfits do themselves and us a great disservice by continuing this fiction.