The U.S. Department of Agriculture scaled back the amount of corn expected to be harvested this season due in large part to drier-than-expected conditions in the northern and western corn belt and other areas of the great plains.
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American farmers are still expected to produce 13.2 billion bushels of corn this year, according to a monthly crop production estimate released Friday morning.

While that's down 1 percent from last month, it's 25 percent higher than last year.

The report pointed out the new numbers are based on "actual harvest results … revealing that the impact of the hot, dry conditions during pollination was worse than initially expected," according to the report.

Even so, this is expected to be the second-highest yielding crop behind 2004 and the largest harvest of corn acres since 1933.
At Lanworth Inc. — an Illinois-based information technology company specializing in the application of aerial and satellite remote sensing to natural resource management — they noticed places like Iowa, Nebraska and Minnesota could be problematic during the late summer.

"In Iowa, for example, there was such variability in planting dates, we knew the crop was not going to respond uniformly to weather stress," said Nick Kouchoukos, director of information services with Lanworth.

Last month that firm estimated corn production would be around 13.11 billion bushels while soybeans would come in around 2.58 billion bushels.

Kouchoukos said they do not anticipate many changes in future forecasts.

"We think the numbers are going to pretty much remain where they are," he said Friday afternoon. "It was an early harvest and harvest is well in front of five-year averages, so we think most of the information is in."

Wisconsin farmers expected to harvest 462 million bushels of corn for grain. That's up from 400 million last year, according to the USDA report.

"Aside from a few problems in a few key areas it was a great corn crop," Kouchoukos said about U.S. production.

Like corn, soybean production is expected to be down slightly to 2.59 billion acres nationwide. That's down about 19 percent from last year's record high, according to the report.

Wisconsin farmers are expected to harvest 52 million bushels of soybeans.
 

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