USDA NASS 2018 Kansas Corn Statistics

The United States Department of Agriculture released the final statistics from the 2018 corn production year. We’re nice and won’t make you read the entire report yourself, so here is our summary of the National Agricultural Statistics Service’s  findings for the 2018 Kansas corn crop.

• The area planted to corn for all purposes is estimated at 5.45 million acres, down 50,000 acres from the previous year. Kansas ranks 5^th in overall area planted to corn for all purposes.
• The area harvested for corn grain production is estimated at 5 million acres, down 4% from the previous year. Kansas ranks 6^th in area harvested for corn grain production.
• The average yield for Kansas corn production in 2018 is estimated at 129 bushels per acre, down 3 bpa from 2017.
• The annual Kansas corn production is estimated at 645 million bushels, down 6% from last year. This estimate ranks Kansas as 7^th in production of corn harvested for grain.
• The annual area harvested for corn silage in 2018 is estimated at 390,000 acres. This is an 56% increase from last year, landing Kansas in a tie for 3^rd place with Pennsylvania.
• Corn silage yield of 13.5 tons per acre is down 8.0 tons from last year.
• The annual production for corn silage is estimated at 5.27 million tons, down 2% from last year. This leads Kansas to a ranking of 9^th in corn silage production.

Overall, as a state we lost overall production this season due to the drought that hit the eastern half of the state. However, this was still our 3^rd highest corn crop on record. 2017 was a record year for corn silage harvested in the state, and while total production decreased, we did see an increased in silage acres harvested. Factors for this include a growing dairy industry, other feed demands for silage and the forced cutting due to drought conditions. We look forward to what the next growing season will bring with a wetter winter than we are accustomed to.