On 7/21/2011 8:08 AM, Kurt Ullman wrote:
In , wrote:

n

As for the Mexican imports, they've gone up as well, significantly.
However, as another noted, all corn for ethanol production is yellow
field corn, not white or sweet corn for (direct) human consumption.
You have any data on how the make up of the corn crop has changed?
FOr example (and example only as this is n=1 "study", some of the
farmers in our area changed from growing sweet corn to yellow field corn
precisely because of the extra money they could get.
....

Nationally, no I don't have any (altho I'm sure it's available in the
detailed USDA production statistics data). If I think I'll ask when go
into FSA office this afternoon if they have convenient way to get
statistics internally that would take me quite some time digging for
since don't know where that would be readily accessible (and I don't
have high speed connection so random surfing isn't much fun... ).

There's never been any sweet/white corn in this area (except for the
strip or two planted for own use in regular field that isn't for
production anyway) so there's not been any shift here in that direction.
We've never irrigated and have only tried dryland corn a few years;
it's never been reliable on our ground so we stay w/ milo for the summer
grain crop (a shorter corn-like plant w/ a bushing single grain head w/
round orange to red/orange seed; very attractive but much more drought
tolerant than even the dryland corn hybrids). Unless this weather
breaks very soon, though (and there's no indication that's going to
happen), what there is isn't going to make a crop; it's severely
stressed already and won't last long w/o some rain...

What there has been in this area this year has been a sizable shift to
cotton on dryland and even some irrigated owing to the extended drought
and requiring far less water and also more sunflowers; we're marginal
bean country and virtually no beans were planted. It's been so hot and
dry that many have abandoned irrigated corn or cut back to half or even
quarter of circle to try to salvage at least a partial crop letting rest
burn up.

--