By Patricio Grassini and Jose Andrade et.al
As the corn season moves from planting into pollination and grain fill, yield expectations can shift quickly with changing weather. The Yield Forecasting Center helps put those conditions into context by showing whether current-season yield potential is trending above, below or near the long-term average.
The Yield Forecasting Center (YFC) will provide real-time information on corn development and yield potential forecasts every three weeks, starting in mid-July, to aid growers and ag industry in making management, logistics and marketing decisions through the 2026 season.
The YFC platform consists of a core team at UNL in collaboration with agronomists and extension educators from universities throughout the Corn Belt. Forecasts will be provided for 43 locations, including separate forecasts for rainfed and irrigated corn in regions where both irrigated and rainfed production are important, such as Nebraska and Kansas (Figure 1).
This article summarizes the methods used in the YFC to forecast corn development and yield and provides guidelines for interpreting the results.
Source : unl.edu