Digital Yield Tour Takeaways

2023 DTN Digital Yield Tour Results, Comparisons to USDA

8/14/2023 | 9:19 AM CDT

By Katie Micik Dehlinger , Farm Business Editor

The sixth DTN Digital Yield Tour found a comeback corn crop that could yield an average of 177 bushels per acre. (DTN photo by Elaine Shein)

MT. JULIET, Tenn. (DTN) -- The sixth DTN Digital Yield Tour found a comeback corn crop that could yield an average of 177 bushels per acre (bpa). Soybean drought damage to the bean crop wasn't as dire, but its outlook is more like average, at 51 bpa.

The Digital Yield Tour is powered by Gro Intelligence's yield models, which generate county yield estimates each day using data from satellites, temperatures, precipitation and more. The yield tour's national yield estimates were released Monday, Aug. 7.

On Friday, Aug. 11, USDA released its first corn and soybean yield estimates using survey data from farmers. The National Agricultural Statistics Service estimated farmers will harvest an average of 175.1 bpa, slightly less than 2 bushels below the Digital Yield Tour.

On soybeans, USDA moved closer to Gro's estimate, coming in with an average yield of 50.9 bpa. You can find a table below comparing USDA and Digital Yield Tour estimates. Otherwise, here are a few final thoughts of the analysts and experts involved in this year's tour.

-- Gro Intelligence Senior Analyst Will Osnato said he thinks farmers understand just how dire the situation got this summer, but not everyone in the market really did. He thinks it's important to appreciate "just how above normal, and therefore rare, the amount of rain was in July to get the country back close to normal. So, as much as we're sitting here, close to normal, that wasn't a normal amount of rain to recover. That required a pretty extraordinary amount of rain, which is unlikely. We were at an extremely unlikely and dire situation that required pretty extraordinary circumstances to recover."

-- "Overall, I would, you know, give Illinois the most improved award, probably followed by Nebraska," Gro Intelligence Senior Analyst Kelly Goughary said. While there are plenty of places where mid-August rains can help add test weight to corn, the time has come and gone in some areas, where corn is entering the dent stage quickly. For more, please read: https://www.dtnpf.com/….

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-- DTN Crops Editor Jason Jenkins said the resilience of modern corn hybrids and soybean varieties allowed them to hold on and make it through the dry spell without succumbing. "Yes, top-end yield was probably taken off, but 10 years ago, what would have been the story? I think a lot of crops may have burned up in June and never made it to receive the relief from those July rains."

-- "Resilience might be the key word of the year," DTN Lead Analyst Todd Hultman said. As an analyst, Hultman said he typically looks at corn and soybeans from a national perspective, but the unique progression of the crops in each state added interesting context.

"We're navigating through a weather situation that we can't really compare to easily to any other year. It's obviously a challenge, but how nice is it to have objective data tools like this to get us to face the factual situation."

CORN YIELDS
	AUGUST	AUGUST	2022
	GRO INTEL	USDA	USDA
NATIONAL	177	175.1	173.3
ILLINOIS	197.3	201	214
INDIANA	193.7	195	190
IOWA	202	203	200
KANSAS	150.7	124	115
MINNESOTA	180	183	195
MISSOURI	150.1	143	161
NEBRASKA	189.5	184	165
OHIO	190.7	191	187
SOUTH DAKOTA	159.4	145	132
WISCONSIN	172.2	166	180

SOYBEAN YIELDS
	AUGUST	AUGUST	2022
	GRO INTEL	USDA	USDA
NATIONAL	51	50.9	49.5
ILLINOIS	60.2	62	63
INDIANA	58.9	60	57.5
IOWA	58.4	58	58.5
KANSAS	39	35	27.5
MINNESOTA	47.2	49	50
MISSOURI	48.4	45	45.5
NEBRASKA	55.6	58	49
OHIO	58.7	57	55.5
SOUTH DAKOTA	45.8	42	38
WISCONSIN	51.5	50	54