by Ben Nuelle
22 of 99 Iowa counties produced yields above 200 bushel per acre for corn in 2015. USDA?s National Agriculture Statistics Service released county estimates corn and soybeans last Thursday. NASS Regional Director Greg Thessen says there wasn?t much of a surprise with soybean yields.
?I think that?s what we had sort of been hearing all year. It varies between the highest yields in counties being in the northwest and sometimes it gets down into the west or east central areas that end up with the highest yields but last year looks like northwest Iowa had the highest yields. Many of those counties were above 60 bushels which is really good for the soybean crop.?
Three counties produced over 10 million bushels. They were Kossuth County, with 13.5 million, bushels. Plymouth 11.6 million and Pottawattamie 1.3 million. Thessen says north and western Iowa came out on top in corn production.
?Many counties in Iowa posted records. I believe it was 56 counties for corn that posted a record high and there was around 22nd counties that ended up with a yield above 200 bushels which is pretty amazing for corn. We often hear of yields in the 180 but to have 22 counties over 200 bushels it was a phenomenal crop in a northern part of the state.?
Cherokee led all counties with a county-wide average of 209 bushels per acre. Pocahontas, O?Brien, Sac, and Osceola Counties rounded out the top five with corn yields all over 204 bushels.
