How big a corn crop will our growers harvest this season? Will us soybean production actually set a new record high, as some have predicted? We’ll have a very much better idea about that just hours from now, this Friday the eighth.

“By the time we get to November, the forecasts are usually very close to what we end up seeing as the final yields.”

Lance Honig with USDA Ag Statistics Service.

“In a year like this, in particular, where harvest has been moving very quickly, what that means is for the farmers that we’re surveying, and it’s close to 6000 farmers that we surveyed leading up to this report, in many cases, they’re reporting actual yields to it because they’re well into harvest, if not finished.”

But Honig says USDA, data collection effort includes more than just surveying farmers. Experts have been tracking over 3000 sample field plots over the last couple of months, and in fact…

“We’re sending trained integrators into fields to harvest those plots because they’ve reached that level of maturity. And so we’re analyzing those yields in our lab in St. Louis. And so it’s pretty close to final data that we’re collecting.”

Data collection for Friday’s upcoming crop production report has wrapped up now, and the encrypted, raw data is being sent into USDA. And on Thursday night, USDA statisticians and market analysts are going to be physically and electronically locked into a special secure section of USDA headquarters building in Washington where they will see all the data for the first time, collating it, analyzing it.

“Leading up to a Friday noon release, all of those final numbers are going to happen in that physically-secure lock up environment.”

But USDA will be producing more during that lock up than just a production forecast for US crops. Also coming out will be USDA World Ag Supply and Demand report that will forecast US and international market prospects for those crops. Outlook Board Chairman Mark Jakanowski and his crew have been tracking recent market developments, including…

“Remarkably strong corn export sales, pretty strong pickup and soybean export sales as well.”

USDA’s Supply and Demand report will have new forecasts for this season’s average prices, exports and much more. And again, that report and the US Crop Production report both out on Friday, noon Eastern Time.