Field Surveys Show Rebound From Drought : Corn Crop Up 49% Over ‘88, USDA Says

Corn production is rebounding from last year’s drought, the Agriculture Department said Thursday, estimating the 1989 crop at 7.35 billion bushels, an increase of 49% over last fall’s stunted harvest of 4.9 billion bushels.

The estimates were based on USDA’s first field surveys of the year and reflected conditions as of Aug. 1.

Overall, the department’s Agricultural Statistics Board put total U.S. crop production at 103% of the 1977 average, a scale used to compare output from year to year.

The latest figures came a week after Congress, responding to flooding in the South and drought in the Great Plains, approved an $897-million disaster relief bill for farmers.

While corn and soybean production were estimated at about average for the decade, wheat production across the Grain Belt was forecast at weaker than usual levels, with fields losing substantial moisture since early July.

Corn is the largest and most important crop grown on American farms and, used as feed, is essential to meat, poultry and dairy production.

Agriculture Department economists had projected the corn crop at 7.85 billion bushels in June and revised that to 7.45 billion last month due in part to late plantings in the eastern Corn Belt and dry fields in the West.

Much Better Yield

In the Midwest, however, rains starting in mid-July replenished some of the subsoil moisture that had been lost.

USDA economists estimated the yield per acre of corn in 1989 at 112.8 bushels an acre, up 28.2 bushels from last year but 6.6 bushels below the record high of 119.4 bushels produced in 1987.

They estimated that 65.2 million acres would be harvested, up 12% from 1988 but 1% less than the July forecast.

Soybean production was estimated at 1.91 billion bushels, up 24% from last year’s harvest of 1.54 billion.

USDA economists forecast the soybean yield at 32.3 bushels an acre, the fourth highest on record and 24% above a year ago.

Production of all wheat was estimated at 2.04 billion bushels, up 13% from the 1988 harvest of 1.81 billion bushels. That was 3% below the July estimate from USDA.

Winter wheat production was estimated at 1.47 billion bushels, down 6% from last year. Durum wheat was indicated at 90.7 million bushels, up 102% from the 1988 harvest but down 19% from the July forecast because of drought problems in the Dakotas.

The average yield for all wheat was forecast at 32.6 bushels an acre, just 1.5 below last year’s level, with an estimated area for harvest of 62.7 million acres.

Drop in Supplies

Other spring wheat was forecast at 487 million bushels, down 10% from the July forecast but more than double the 1988 crop.

With the Soviet grain crop forecast down and export prospects good, stocks of wheat next June are projected at 474 million bushels, almost 120 million below last month and 220 million below the start of the year.

Cotton production was estimated at 11.8 million bales, down 23% from last year and 20% below 1987.

Consumer prices for food rose at an annualized rate of 7% in the first half of 1989 as cold weather hit vegetable fields in Florida, California and Mexico. Poultry prices also rose sharply on increased demand.

But USDA economists are expecting consumer prices to rise no more than 1% on an annualized basis in the second half.