Deriving Wheat Production from The March Survey

The March planting intentions survey reported 30. 8 million acres seeded to winter wheat was about the same as found in the winter 2020 survey. Farmers intend to plant 13.9 million acres to spring wheat in 2020 which is down marginally from a year ago.

Assuming our trend yield calculation and the March survey winter wheat production will total 1.2 billion bushels compared to 1.3 billion bushels in 2019. The same assumptions for spring wheat production suggest a 600 million bushel crop compared to 616 million bushels in 2019. 

In the period 1995 through 2019 the trend only accounts for about 40% of the variation in winter wheat yields and 70% of spring wheat yield.  Yield estimates will tighten this spring and summer as weekly crop conditions reports become available. The variation for winter wheat yield accounted for tightens to 72% when a late June crop condition index is added to the model. The mid August spring wheat model accounts for 90% of variation in 1995 through 2019 spring wheat yields.