Trying to predict final yields is always a tricky prospect especially in mid-September but for the past several years Great Lakes Grain professionals have tried to do just that.
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Everyone of course is walking the rows this time of year looking for hints about what is to come, and predictions are many.
In fact while a lot of people are holding their collective breath and fretting about a possible so-so crop, in a lot of areas it won't be that bad.
Estimates were actually increased a little after the annual crop evaluation tour.
It isn't that anything is perfect, we all know a lot of fields are not. However even in the "roller-coaster" corn with lots of ups and downs and dips and doodles the ups, the good sections of the fields are very very good.
Or so we are told.
The market development manager for Great Lakes Grain, Don Kabbes says your yield monitors are going to be up and down a lot, but the ups may just Wow a lot of people.
As far as corn is concerned planting dates that were earlier than last year have also resulted in a better test weight than last year so that should boost the bushels a little.
Soybeans apparently are also looking good, although fears that a dry August would rob some yield potential seem to be well founded.
That the ups may be better than the downs, the good sections of the fields may more than offset those where ponding and other issues cut the potential of the plant is good news, and it may well be that it is not really news anymore.
Yield curves have been surprising some of us for a few years now. Grains and some oilseeds have stood the test of drought, and cool and moisture well.
Well let's not get too far ahead of ourselves, I know the sounds of my voice travel a fair distance in this weekly missive, and I know the comment about standing the test of drought isn't true everywhere.
A couple of years ago when southwestern Ontario corn was standing the test of drought the sand plains of counties to the east were looking very desert like.
Still the genetics, the ability to plant quickly when conditions are right, the ability to get seed placed, well perfectly might not be a perfect word, but seed and fertilizer gets very well placed, certainly helps swing the odds in favour of an OK or better yield when weather didn't really help out all that much.
All those genetics, all that development in equipment, and all that carefully blended fertilizer. All that science. And the people, both on the farm supply side, the scientists who do the crop studies and don't forget the farmers who bring it all together.
Good for them all, and good for the rest of us because they feed us.
It's odd that there are still science deniers out there, odd but perhaps understandable because there have been times when science gets it wrong and needs to retract a little.
That's is why it is always a good idea to do more studies, to double and triple check and to make sure that there are no effects that weren't though of when a technology was invented and put on the market.
None of us has the ability to get it perfect all the time. That's not an argument that we shouldn't move forward , it's an argument for a constant need to cross check and sometimes admit we don't know the answers.
Refusal to admit that something we thought was right and was OK and safe, maybe has some problems that need to be dealt with, doesn't make the supporters of science look very smart.
The very fact that in some cases we have sometimes moved away from products and methods that we thought were going to be pretty good enhances the credibility of science, it doesn't as some people think diminish it.
