Out Here In The Fields

While you were busy with other things, the United States had one of the best harvests in modern memory:

2014-15 Corn Harvest Quality Report indicates record good crop

The overall quality of the United States’ 2014 corn crop was good, with 88 percent of samples rating at grade No. 2 or better, according to the U.S. Grains Council 2014-15 Corn Harvest Quality Report.

“This year’s report shows for the second year in a row that the United States has an abundant supply of high-quality corn available to export,” said Kurt Shultz, USGC director of global strategies. “The average values from the report indicate that the United States will have a crop that will store and handle well as it moves through the market channels to export.”

According to the report, the 2014 corn crop is entering the marketing channels with the following key characteristics:

• Average test weight well above the limit for No. 1 grade corn, indicating overall good quality.
•  Low levels of broken corn and foreign material, with 96.2 percent below the limit for No. 1 grade corn.
• 100 percent of sampled corn testing below the Food and Drug Administration aflatoxin action level of 20 parts per billion.
• Slightly lower moisture content than in 2013, as was the incidence of stress cracks. However, total damage levels were significantly higher, likely due to weather conditions, though 94 percent of samples were still below the limit for No. 2 corn.
• Protein concentration lower than in 2013, likely due to higher yields in 2014.
• Comparable starch concentration to 2013, indicating relatively good kernel filling and maturation.

This report is based on 629 yellow commodity corn samples taken from defined areas within 12 of the top corn-producing and -exporting states, including Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin. Inbound samples were collected from local grain elevators to observe quality at the point of origin and to provide representative information about the variability of quality characteristics across the geographic regions.

The corn samples were tested at the Illinois Crop Improvement Association’s Identity Preserved Grain Laboratory in Champaign, Ill., in accordance with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Federal Grain Inspection Service Grain Inspection Handbook.

Total U.S. corn production for 2014 is estimated at 14.4 billion bushels (365 million metric tons), an all-time record, according to the USDA World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates report...

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Your pal,

driftglass