It’s official: we are in a “deep” solar minimum.

In the US, the situation with yields and production of the major grain crops was better than might have been supposed considering all the problems.
For corn yield per acre and total production came in at the 6th highest ever.
In any year prior to 2014, 2019 totals would have been a record smashing year.
Farmers are a resourceful lot, and not being able to plant corn does not mean those fields went unplanted, typically.
I am not saying it was a wonderful year, but it was hardly a disaster for the US on the whole.
Futures and spot prices reflect this. They are low by historical comparisons with many recent years. Since 2014 the price of corn has not moved much, again as compared to many of the years in the last ten.
Corn production (I am not sure if and by how much these numbers may be revised in coming months) is given by the USDA as 13.7 billion bushels for 2019. Well shy of the record of 15.1 billion bushels in 2016, but 13.7 would have been a record smashing harvest in any year prior to 2013.
The spread between acres planted and acres harvest was a little wider than some years, but not by much, and was less than many other recent years (since 1999), with acres planted reported at 89.9 million acres and acres harvested at 81.8 million acres. This appears to be very similar than, AFAICT, every year this millennium. The map of acres harvested by state and the change from previous year, shown on a single map, has a bunch of states lower but a larger number of states higher than the previous year. Overall 75,000 acres were harvested in 2019 than in 2018.
This sort of pattern is typical…problems get large loud coverage and good news gets little if any.

Soybeans appear to be the same as corn by many metrics…sixth highest year ever in terms of acres planted (nearly all acres planted are harvested for beans: 76.5 planted and 75.6 harvested…narrower than most years), yield per acre, and total US production. Acreas planted were way down year over year, no doubt due to the China trade war. Future years will doubtlessly I am sure, more than make up for it once Trump has hammered things out. Prices for beans are low compared to nearly ever year in the past ten, although it has been a long bull market in bean prices. Current price of 922 per contract was only exceeded a handful of time from 1981 to 2008.

For wheat, 2019 continues a multidecadal down trend in acres planted, but yields are a completely different story, with durum wheat at 45.7 bushels per acres smashing the old record. Winter wheat and Spring Wheat were second highest yield on record, and very close to the record year for each.

Other field crops show similar numbers…some crops and excellent year, some average, some slightly below average but still near the sharply increasing trend lines seen in yields for all crops.
Total wheat production for the US was about average of what has been the case for the past 20 years…no trend seen.

Rice had a bang up year. Trends are up sharply for yield per acre, and 2019 was comparable to recent years and far above what was the best ever 10 years ago, although like wheat US has been planting less and less for several decades although increases in yield make up for it and it was an slightly lower than average year in terms of production.

Prices reflect all of these numbers…there are no shortages, and prices are not too high and not too low, compared to recent years. Consumers like low prices, and farmers like high prices.
No one is gonna go hungry on account of US crop yields.

Price of some things, like eggs and beef, are very low right now at retail outlets I shop at, and I have heard chicken would be very low if not for price fixing by the major producers.
It seems that when one part of the country has bad weather than interferes with planting or harvests, farmers in other places are able to anticipate or react, and plan accordingly to take advantage of a perception that prices will go higher, and if a lot of people do so, prices may wind up going lower or being a wash.
It will be very interesting to see how things go in coming years.
Large river floods can increase production in subsequent years, or lower costs, for several reasons.

Here are my sources for this info:
Prices:
https://www.cnbc.com/futures-and-commodities/

Crop info:
https://www.nass.usda.gov/Charts_and_Maps/Field_Crops/index.php

The good news is that, speaking only for the US now, we have a lot of agricultural temperature zones, and there are a lot of possible crops to plant and seed choices within a crop.
The trend lines in yield and production remain solidly up, and we just had the first year since 2014 that was not far above the trendlines.
Since the trendlines are linear moving averages, logically every year cannot be above the trendline.
And many years way above the trendline, which we just had, moves the trendline upwards.
So even though we are below trendlines, the actual numbers are so high they would have been record smashing just 6 years ago!
And nothing was very far below trend.
Not even as much below as most of the previous 5 years were above.
And looking at 30 years of data, it is highly unusual to ever have 5 years in a row far above the trendlines.
More typically year far above or below trend are immediately followed by a return to the mean or a sharp divergence the other way.
If it stays wet and cool for any extended length of time, growers will compensate by changing what they grow, and the corn belt will likely shift south some.
Also by a happy bit of good fortune, or maybe years of knowing how to keep growing enough food, when conditions are bad for one crop, those same conditions will be OK or even beneficial for something else.
Those trendlines have not be heading in one direction for many decades in a row by coincidence.
A combination of higher CO2 and improvements in seeds, techniques and knowledge have kept it that way.
The percentage of increases in the past 30 years is jaw dropping.
Not the least reason for which it is amazing, is because 30 years ago, we were not exactly stupid and the yields were already at the top of a very long and sharp uptrend.
Prior to 1940, 35 bushels per acre would have been a record.
Between the late 1930s and late 1950s, the trend was solidly up and a bad year in that time was above 35 bushels per acre.
By 1950 yields were near or above 40 every year, and must have seemed miraculous to old timers who had seen decade after decade of yields topping out under 35.
Around 1958 everything changed dramatically, and the trendlines shot rapidly up on a whole new trajectory.
By 1962 yields were never again below 60.
By 1970 years with close to and then above 80 appeared.
By the late 1970s years close to and then above 100 were achieved for the first time.
By 1989, yields close to 120 were occurring regularly.
The pace of improvements in yearly yields increased more sharply, although so to did variability.
The higher the numbers have gone, the larger the amount between a good and a bad year, although the overall increases were so fast that bad years were still great by standards of a few years prior.
1988 was far below trend, but it would have been a record year for yields prior to 1970.
1995 was the last time yields were as low as ~100 (slightly above), but within a few years the first harvest of 140 bushels per acre was achieved.
This year 167 bushels per acres was below trend!
2017 and 2018 had yields around 176 or so.

Source:
https://www.agry.purdue.edu/ext/corn/news/timeless/YieldTrends.html

How high can the numbers go?
Well, it needs to be pointed out that these numbers are all averages for the entire country.
What about the records set by individual farmers in a given season?
Where are those records in recent years?
Hold on to your hat if you never knew about any of this, because individual farmers have for many years been achieving yields far in excess of national average.
Several times more!
In 2003 a guy grew 322 bushels per acre on his contest plot to win that years record.
“The short answer is, “Yes!” Many growers are producing yields over 300 bu/acre every year. Some of these producers are represented in the National Corn Growers Yield Contest every year. Contest winners from across the country typically produce between 250 to 350 bushels per acre per year. In 2006, seven of the 27 national winners produced over 300 bu/acre with the highest yield of 347 bu/acre coming from Purdy, MO. National contest winners have rarely yielded more than 350 bu/acre, yet yields of 360-370 bu/acre have been documented. Yields of 300 bu/acre are possible with today’s genetics, excellent management, and stress-free environments. The difficulty is in producing yields of this caliber on a large scale. Unfortunately, most producers do not have the right combination of these three factors to produce 300 bushels per acre.
Iowa’s average corn yield was 166 bu/acre in 2006, which is just slightly above the 30-year trend line. Our highest average yield was 181 bu/acre in 2004. Iowa is increasing yield at approximately 2 bushels per acre per year”
From a Feb 2007 article:
https://crops.extension.iastate.edu/encyclopedia/are-we-capable-producing-300-buacre-corn-yields

In 2017 he grew over 542 bushels per acre on his contest plot!
The guy who did this is farming land in Virginia that was first cultivated in 1609 and has been farmed ever since!
His farm includes land that was part of the original Jamestown colony Mainland Farms.
Source:
https://www.morningagclips.com/va-farmer-remains-corn-wars-record-holder/

Here is more from that guy, David Hula, in 2018:
”

In the 2017 National Corn Growers Association Yield Contest, Charles City, Va. farmer David Hula scored the highest yield ever: a whopping 542.270 bushels per acre. At this year’s North Carolina Commodities Conference in Durham Jan. 11 he shared some of the steps that got him there.
Among his keys to success: a micronutrient cocktail, a planting depth of 1 ¾ inches and tissue sampling. All of Hula’s ground is no-till or “never till” as he puts it and job one is striving for even emergence.

Hula farms with his brothers John and Jeff. David’s son Craig is also involved. The brothers are the third generation of Hulas to run Renwood Farms that provides high-quality cereal and soybean seed to farmers throughout the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic.
Hula’s record breaking entry was in the contest’s strip-till/no-till irrigated division. He achieved the top yield in the contest with the hybrid Pioneer P1197 AM. Hula’s son Craig took second place in the same division with a yield of 529.1376 with the hybrid DEKALB DKC6744RIB, and Hula’s brother Johnny placed third in the division with a yield of 504.6890 with the hybrid Progeny PGY5115VT2P.
“We don’t have a magic piece of dirt. We’re farming fine sandy loam soils. We have a pretty deep soil profile, but it is fine sandy loam. Because of our sandy soils and lack of manure our nutrient levels are not excessively high,” Hula said at the Durham conference.
“Your goal should be to have enough nutrients available to your crop in a form in which the crop can use it and to assure this we use tissue sampling, That’s how we manage our nutrients. We give it a baseline and then we predict. We have been pulling tissue samples on a weekly basis for10 years now,” he said.

Increasing kernel count and influencing the growth of the ear is vital. Hula says the use of a micronutrient cocktail that includes copper, iron, boron, zinc, manganese and molybdenum is vital for getting there. The Hulas apply the micronutrient cocktail at V-4 on all of their acreage.
“On high-yielding environments it is a standalone application with some humic acids, carbon source and PGRs, and on regular production it is tank mixed with our herbicides,” Hula said.
The Hulas like to keep their soil pH closer to 6 rather than at 6.5 that is common in the Midwest. They make a lime application in front of their crop only when the pH dips below 5.8. They apply lime once every three to four years. Hula notes that they make micronutrient applications to assure availability despite the soil pH.
Potash is a must for big yields and the Hulas apply potash in front of their corn crop. “Corn is a big luxury consumer of potash. It’s just going to soak it up. It takes almost as much potash as nitrogen, almost a one-to-one ratio,” Hula said.
Corn will use the potash and then release it to small grains and soybeans which the Hulas plant following corn. They apply 200 to 250 pounds of potash per acre based on soil sampling. The Hulas like to add fertilizer in furrow and also use starter.
The Hulas strive to make their crop nutritionally balanced, which is why tissue sampling is important. They use starter fertilizer and also add fertilizer in furrow. In addition to applying the micronutrient cocktail at V-4, they put down five gallons of 3-18-18 foliar fertilizer at V-5 and a side-dress of 160-0-205. A the V-8 stage, they make a side-dress application of 80N-10S then at pre-VT stage they put on additional nitrogen and sulfur depending on their yield goal.
Hula says he likes entering the NCGA corn yield contest each year because it encourages him to try something new. Like many in the corn business, Hula sees even more potential for yield gains in the years to come. He notes that seed companies are making it easier for farmers to build yields by providing ever improving hybrids.

“I think the genetic potential for corn today is 800 bushels. There is no way Randy Dowdy (the Valdosta, Ga. grower who was the top finisher in the 2016 contest with a yield of 521 bushels per acre irrigated) or myself have captured all the genetic potential. If 800 is the actual number and the country averages170 bushels, we have a long way to go. I think down the road we as producers will tap into the higher yields, but it will take a team effort and favor from the good Lord,” he said.”

https://www.farmprogress.com/corn/micronutrient-cocktail-one-key-record-breaking-corn-yields

Here is more from David Hula and a video:
https://www.genesis.ag/world-record-corn-yield/

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Thanks.

Loydo, oh, shit, I’ll burn, I’LL BURN !! NO chance to ESCAPE !! Give me our CO2 extinguisher, NOW !!