Heading into next week’s (mercifully) planned USDA Crop Production and WASDE reports, a key focus of the markets has been forecasting the agency’s yield numbers. Over the past five years, USDA has exhibited a tendency to reduce its forecast of the corn and soybean yield, harvested area, and production figures from the September to the November reports. That shows a marked difference from the average change from 2000-2024, in which yields were generally revised higher and by degrees that offset larger cuts to harvested area estimates.
What is more interesting is looking at the yield trends by major cropping region. The five-year average yield change from September to November is negative for all the reg...
A pika (/ˈpaɪkə, ˈpiːkə/ PY-kə, PEE-kə[3][4]) is a small, mountain-dwelling mammal native to Asia and North America. With short limbs, a very round body, an even coat of fur, and no external tail, they resemble their close relative the rabbit, but with short, rounded ears.[5] The large-eared pi...
Lobelia (/loʊˈbiːliə, lə-/[4][5][6]) is a genus of flowering plants in the family Campanulaceae comprising 415 species,[7] with a subcosmopolitan distribution primarily in tropical to warm temperate regions of the world, a few species extending into cooler temperate regions.[8] They are known g...
The Olympic marmot (Marmota olympus) is a rodent in the squirrel family, Sciuridae. It occurs only in the U.S. state of Washington, at the middle elevations of the Olympic Peninsula. The closest relatives of this species are the hoary marmot and the Vancouver Island marmot. In 2009, it was decl...
