US hard red winter wheat: yield nowcast
Seven Great Plains states, weighted by harvested acres. From May the bar is USDA's own Crop Production forecast.
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Every forecast, season by season
Pick a harvest year, a forecast date and a region. Everything updates: the forecast with its 80% interval, how the view moved through the season, and how this forecast date has scored over all seasons.
From orbit NOAA satellites
The crop, seen from space
Weekly vegetation health over the wheat area, 4 km pixels masked to wheat fields. Shown for context: the nowcast for this origin does not rely on them (it uses USDA crop condition ratings). All origins on the satellite page →
This season against every season since 2000
VHI combines greenness (VCI) and heat stress (TCI); below 40 the crop is under stress.
Every season, week by week
Red: stress. Blue: healthy canopy.
Does the satellite see the yield?
Correlation r = 0.85 over 15 seasons.
Market link
Does the nowcast see the USDA report coming?
The nowcast calls the direction of the May report well. Later revisions are harder, and the HRW yield alone explains little of the futures move: the price trades the world balance, covered on the Markets page.
Futures move vs USDA revision
One point per Crop Production report, 2012–2026.
Our day-before call vs the revision
Reference: trend for May, previous USDA forecast after.