trend line yields for corn

       How fast things change.  As you remember last year the warm dry spring allowed planting to go at record paces and some corn was out of the ground by now.  This year is the opposite with 7 inches of rain falling yesterday and temps of 34 degrees this morning.  I have not heard of any field work done yet.  The March reports were looking for 97.3 million acres of corn planted for 2013 and trend line yields of 163 bushels per acre.  Both are likely to change with recent weather events. ( The later we plant corn it tends to yield less and some acres will be switched to other crops.)
      For the last several years the trend line yields have had a large role in the USDA projections so I would like to show a chart with some comments.

 Corn: Yield by Year, US

First comment is that I had always felt that the two highest yield years were so perfect that it would be hard to repeat.  Thinking that the 163 was a good target to shoot for but on the high side.

Second comment is the most important:  Take a look at where 2012 is on the chart.  This year was the 5th worse drought for the US and yet we got historical average corn yields. Why weren't the yields down to the 70 bushel mark?  Look at these numbers.  1997 - 8% of corn GMO 2005 - 50% and 2012 - 88%

By improving the corn plants to withstand more adverse conditions we were able to provide a respectable amount of corn for the world.  On some of those perfect years there isn't much difference in yield between genetically modified varieties or not but on most years and especially a poor year the billions of dollars in research paid off well.  As the world grows and we need to produce more and produce food in locations with less desirable weather, the continued research improving plants will mean more for world hunger than any other development.

                                                                    Serving together,  Dean