This Friday, the USDA is releasing one of its more anticipated crop production reports. So, why does farm country look forward to this crop production report more than others? Lance Honig is Chair of USDA’s Agricultural Statistics Board.

“September is when we first introduced the objective yield survey for corn and soybeans for the season, which means we’ve sent trained enumerators into fields where they’re taking counts and measurements in some isolated cases where maturity is so far along, maybe there were or even able to capture some information from the fields physically.”

That data, along with farmer surveys, make up USDA’s crop production forecast this month. But Honig acknowledges interest is heightened by what was reported last month: higher than projected record corn acreage, production and yield forecast.

The September crop production report is scheduled for release Friday morning at noon Eastern time.