According to today’s U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) 2017 Crop Production Summary, it was a record-breaking year for corn yields.
“Crop conditions looked relatively good all season, and looks can sometimes be deceiving, but in this case it wasn’t,” said David Knopf, director of the NASS Eastern Mountain Regional Office in Kentucky. “Yields for corn, soybeans and tobacco strongly rebounded from last year when weather conditions limited yield.”
Corn yield set a new record high of 178 bushels per acre.
“That’s six bushels more than the previous record in 2015,” Knopf said. “Production was down from last year, based on fewer harvested acres, but ranks as the fifth largest corn crop grown in the state.”
Corn production in Kentucky is estimated at 217 million bushels, down one percent from the November forecast and down two percent from the previous crop. Yield was estimated at 178 bushels per acre, up one bushel from the November forecast and up 19 bushels from the 2016 level. Acres for harvest as grain were estimated at 1.22 million acres, down 180,000 acres from 2016. The U.S. corn production is estimated at 14.6 billion bushels, up slightly from the November forecast and down four percent from the revised 2016 estimate. The average yield in the United States is estimated at 176.6 bushels per acre. This is up 1.2 bushels from the November forecast and two bushels above the revised 2016 average yield. Area harvested for grain is estimated at 82.7 million acres, down one percent from the November forecast and down five percent from the revised 2016 acreage.