Pro Farmer has made their fall harvest estimates for corn and soybeans, and it’s shaping up to be a fairly decent year. Pro Farmer’s estimates assume that there won’t be any major changes in the weather (especially early frost) over the remainder of the growing season, and they calculate their estimates should be within 1% on corn and 2% on soybeans, given relatively normal weather patterns.

For corn, the national estimate is 153.3 bushels per acre, with a total harvest of 12.152 billion bushels. For soy, the national yield estimate is 39.95 bushels per acre, with a total of 2.930 billion bushels harvested.

For corn, the figures represent a slight decline from last year’s record-setting yield of 155 bushels/acre. Soy yield is also down a bit from last year’s 41.2 bushels/acre. These are still extremely high yields by historical standards – last year was just exceptionally good.

State-by-state, Illinois and Iowa are the reigning corn champs in terms of yield, with estimates of 168.5 bushels/acre in both states despite a poor start to the growing season and a lot of dry weather (ironic given the floods, but then, Mother Nature always has a sense of humor when it comes to farm production). Indiana is up sharply with 167 bushels/acre. Ohio is turning in a notably poor year, with 151 bushels/acre, due to a rocky start to the planting season. For soybeans, Nebraska tops the charts with 50 bushels/acre, and analysts credit this to the development of precise irrigation skills among Nebraska’s bean farmers.

Overall the estimates are on-track for a solid if not spectacular and record-setting production cycle. These numbers do indicate that the ability of the farming sector to absorb major blows from the weather, such as the floods this summer, have improved over the past decades. Part of that can be attributed to greater capitalization – it’s easier to shift your planting when you’ve got multiple/scalable tractors to do it with – but I’d wager that the biggest change has been in the access to weather technology, and in the greater education and skill possessed by the modern US farmer.