Retro: Late-August 2026 Hay Report
Grading: GRADED Sep 19, 2026 (Sep 10 AMS + ENSO rows; August price rows land Sep 29) — original report: Late-August 2026 Hay Report
Status: rows #20–27 (AMS Colorado Sep 10; CPC ENSO Sep 10) are graded below. Rows #17–19 (USDA August state prices) grade Sep 29 by script. The predictions were frozen and committed on Aug 27 with machine-readable source specs; scores are computed from the ledger by scripts/scorecard.py, never typed.
Results (graded September 19, 2026)
AMS Colorado Direct Hay Report, Sep 10
| Predicted | Observed | Grade |
|---|---|---|
| A SE farm-gate per-ton alfalfa trade prints again (YES) | None — the Southeast section had one per-bale ask and a prairie-grass lot | MISS |
| …its weighted price $315 ($250–380) | — | NO-PRINT |
| NE dairy trade $330 ($265–395) | none; the only NE per-ton trade was 2,000 t of Good 3x4 at $260 FOB-farm | NO-PRINT |
| Weekly confirmed volume 2,500 t (800–4,200) | 8,500 t — 4,500 t of it organic San Luis Valley contracts | MISS — high |
| Demand "Good" or better | "Good to Very Good" | HIT |
CPC ENSO Discussion, Sep 10
| Predicted | Observed | Grade |
|---|---|---|
| Advisory continues | continues | HIT |
| Weekly traditional Niño-3.4 +2.7 (+1.4 to +4.0) | +2.7 (the 02SEP line, the newest available on Sep 10) | HIT — point exact |
| "Historic event" odds 69% (59–79) | 75% | HIT |
Interval coverage: 6 of 16 two-sided numeric ranges contained the outcome (+2 NEAR), across both graded sheets. The economically central cluster is 1-for-5.
What the misses teach
- We predicted the target would be visible, and it wasn't. A new six-year ledger of Colorado reports (242 of them, rebuilt from USDA's file server) shows the grading target — a SE FOB-farm Good-or-better large-square trade of 100 tons or more — prints in about 2.5% of reports. Local calls are now categorical with the base rate stated.
- The Aug 27 spot anchored on a print tied for the highest Southeast print in six years (88 tons at $325). The largest Colorado commercial print of 2026 came in $65 under it. The September report revises the nowcast down to $270 (first published as $280, corrected the same day after an independent review found a $170 Oklahoma lot left out of the comparables).
- Weekly volume is not forecastable at any width we'd publish. Dropped as a prediction row.
- Pinning the metric works. Last cycle the ENSO rows went 1-for-3 with the metric in prose; this cycle 3-for-3 with it specified to the file and line.
Rows #17–19 (Colorado alfalfa August $235, range $170–300; all-hay $230; Kansas $155) grade after the USDA price release on September 29.