Course 03 of 20 · Agricultural Commodities Desk Academy

Crop Calendars, Balances & Weather

Stage A, Crop, grade and price fundamentals. Level 2 of 10.

The supply and demand balance sheet: planting to harvest calendars by hemisphere, stocks to use ratios, and how weather and crop condition data revise a balance.

122 chapters · 11 modules · every chapter one 8 to 10 minute explainer · builds on: Course 01, Course 02

Enrol or enquire See the 122 chapters
How a chapter is delivered

One chapter is one idea taken to the point of use

Each chapter covers one idea to the point where you can use it, and comes two ways: a narrated explainer, and a deep dive audio discussion of around thirty minutes that works the same material at depth.

Self-paced throughout, and the same chapters can be taught as a cohort. Chapters run in order: each one assumes only what the chapters before it taught, and capability belonging to a later course is named and deferred rather than half-covered.

Curriculum

11 modules · 122 chapters

Open any module for its full chapter list, in teaching order.

M0 The Marketing Year and the Table It Closes Ch 1-10
  1. What a Grain Desk Does With a Balance Sheet
  2. The Arithmetic a Marketing Year Table Must Satisfy
  3. Where One Marketing Year Stops and the Next Begins
  4. Old Crop and New Crop as Two Different Tables
  5. Keeping One Unit Across a World Table
  6. Which Geography a Balance Has to Close Over
  7. Starting With a Single Crop, and Saying So
  8. The Bodies Whose Grain Numbers a Desk Works From
  9. From Sowing Intentions to a Defended Carryover
  10. What a Balance Says About Scarcity and What It Leaves to the Bid Sheet
M1 Two Hemispheres and a Crop Always in the Ground Ch 11-20
  1. Why the World Is Never Between Crops
  2. The Northern Planting and Harvest Windows
  3. The Southern Calendar Running Six Months Out of Step
  4. Winter Crops and Spring Crops Inside One Country
  5. The Second Crop Planted Into the First Crop's Stubble
  6. Tropical Belts That Harvest All Year
  7. Aggregating Marketing Years That Do Not Line Up
  8. Rolling Both Hemispheres Into One Running View
  9. The Calendar Gap Where Supply Has to Come From Stocks
  10. Whether a Warming Climate Is Moving Planting Dates
M2 Acreage: the Crop Decided Before It Is Sown Ch 21-30
  1. The Grower's Spring Choice Between Two Crops
  2. Reading a New Crop Price Ratio at Planting Time
  3. Rotation and the Agronomy That Resists Price
  4. What a Planting Intentions Survey Can and Cannot See
  5. Planted Area and the Smaller Figure That Gets Harvested
  6. When the Field Is Too Wet to Plant At All
  7. Counting Area Twice When Two Crops Share One Field
  8. Measuring Area From Orbit and From Field Registers
  9. Why an Acreage Figure Is Revised After Harvest
  10. An Area Line Assembled for One Crop and One Season
M3 Yield and the Trend It Is Measured Against Ch 31-41
  1. Production as Area Multiplied by Yield
  2. The Trend Yield and Where the Line Came From
  3. Yield Built From Plant Count, Grain Sites and Kernel Weight
  4. Objective Yield Sampling in a Standing Crop
  5. Farmer Reported Yield and the Bias It Carries
  6. Yield Models Built on Weather Variables
  7. The Path a Yield Figure Takes Across One Season
  8. What a Published Yield Estimate Was Actually Built From
  9. How Far One Yield Revision Rewrites a Whole Table
  10. Yield Variability Across a Growing Region
  11. When a Variety Change Retires the Trend Line
M4 Crop Progress and Condition Evidence Ch 42-51
  1. The Weekly Crop Progress Report as a Running Record
  2. Planting Pace Read Against the Agronomic Deadline
  3. The Condition Rating Scale and What a Rater Is Judging
  4. Collapsing Five Categories Into One Number
  5. The Case For and Against Condition Ratings as a Yield Signal
  6. Crop Tours and What a Hundred Stops Can Establish
  7. Vegetation Indices and the Greenness of a Field
  8. Soil Moisture Measured, Modelled and Inferred
  9. Reconciling a Crop Tour Against an Official Rating
  10. Turning Condition Evidence Into a Yield Number
M5 Weather Against the Growth Stages Ch 52-63
  1. Why the Date of a Weather Event Decides Its Cost
  2. Cold, Snow Cover and a Winter Crop's Survival
  3. Mud, Frost Dates and a Planting Window That Closes
  4. Heat and Dryness Through the Pollination Window
  5. Grain Fill and the Weeks That Decide Weight
  6. Rain on a Ripe Crop Waiting to Be Cut
  7. Hail, Wind and the Localised Loss
  8. The Monsoon Onset and a Sowing Season That Waits on It
  9. Weather Services and the Products a Grain Desk Uses
  10. How Far Ahead a Forecast Is Worth Reading
  11. Two Cases on Whether a Pacific Oscillation Moves a Harvest
  12. What a Private Weather Forecast Is Worth to a Grain Desk
M6 The Use Side of a Grain Balance Ch 64-77
  1. Domestic Disappearance as an Inference, Not a Count
  2. Feed Use and the Residual Hidden Inside It
  3. Estimating Feed Demand From Animal Units
  4. Substitution in the Trough and What It Does to One Crop's Table
  5. Food, Seed and the Slow Moving Use Lines
  6. Crush as a Use Line in an Oilseed Table
  7. Industrial Grind Driven by a Policy Mandate
  8. Three Export Numbers That Arrive in One Week
  9. Weekly Export Sales as Evidence Arriving Early
  10. Export Pace Against the Commitment Already Booked
  11. The Import Buyer's Side of the Same Balance
  12. When Declared Loadings and Recorded Arrivals Will Not Agree
  13. Price Response on the Use Side and the Lag Before It Shows
  14. A Use Side Assembled and Pressure Tested
M7 Stocks On Farm, Off Farm and Unseen Ch 78-88
  1. Beginning Stocks as the Number You Inherit
  2. Every Place a Tonne Can Rest
  3. On Farm Storage and the Grain a Grower Will Not Sell Yet
  4. Commercial Stocks and Who Has to Report Them
  5. The Quarterly Stocks Survey and What It Settles
  6. Two Candidate Plugs in a Grain Balance
  7. Pipeline Grain That Cannot Be Drawn Down
  8. Registered Stocks as a Narrow Window on Total Inventory
  9. Stocks Held Where They Will Never Be Exported
  10. The Stocks Nobody Surveys
  11. Reading a Stocks Report Without Over-Reading It
M8 Stocks to Use as the Summary Number Ch 89-97
  1. The Ratio That Compresses a Table Into One Figure
  2. Choosing the Denominator and Changing the Answer
  3. Days of Use as the Same Number in Plainer Clothes
  4. Exporter Stocks to Use and the Ratio That Trades
  5. Two Cases on Whether the Ratio Predicts a Price Level
  6. Rebasing a Ratio After the Market Changed Shape
  7. What a Single Ratio Conceals About One Crop Year
  8. The Ratio Across Several Crops at Once
  9. Where the Ratio Points and Where a Bid Sheet Decides
M9 Assembling, Revising and Defending a Table Ch 98-108
  1. A First Marketing Year Closed End to End
  2. Solving for the Line You Chose Not to Observe
  3. Checking the Plug Against a Bin by Bin Count
  4. The Tonnes That Refuse to Reconcile
  5. Where Grain Tonnes Usually Go Missing
  6. Revising a Table When a Report Lands Mid Week
  7. Two Published Tables, One Crop, Different Answers
  8. What Must Travel Beside a Finished Table
  9. Which Report Was In Hand When the View Was Formed
  10. Reading an Estimate Against the Interest That Produced It
  11. Building One Consistent History of a Crop
M10 The Crop Not Yet Harvested Ch 109-122
  1. Projecting a Year Before the Seed Is in the Ground
  2. A New Crop Production Line From Intentions and Trend
  3. Forward Use Lines Without a Straight Extrapolation
  4. The Opening Inventory a New Crop Table Inherits
  5. Re-Running a Past Drought Through This Year's Acreage
  6. Rationing a Short Crop Across Competing Buyers
  7. The Assumption That Actually Moves the Answer
  8. The Cadence of a Rolling Agricultural Balance
  9. A Marketing Year Projected Through Both Hemispheres
  10. Briefing a Merchandiser in Ninety Seconds
  11. The Questions a Supply and Demand Table Should Refuse
  12. Marking Your Own Yield Call Against the Final Print
  13. Attributing a Miss Across Area, Yield and Use
  14. What a Finished Balance Hands to the Desk

The brochure gives each of these 122 chapters a paragraph on what it covers and what you can do once you have worked through it.

This is course 3 of twenty

It stands alone, and it is also the entry point to the Agricultural Commodities Desk Academy pathway.

Enrol or enquire See the whole pathway