US farmers forecast to hit new corn production record

By Kent ThiesseFarm Management Analyst & Vice President MinnStar Bank Lake Crystal
There was a lot of anticipation leading into Aug. 12 USDA Crop Report, due to the very favorable crop conditions that existed in many areas of the U.S.
Major corn and soybean producing states such as Iowa, Illinois, and Indiana have had nearly ideal growing conditions throughout much of the 2014 crop year.
Some portions of Minnesota, North Dakota, and Wisconsin were severely affected by very late planting and record rainfall amounts in June, which led to a significant amount of prevented planted and drowned out crop acres in certain areas. Much of this same region is now dealing with crop maturity concerns, due to cool temperatures throughout most of the summer.
The Aug. 12 crop report estimated the 2014 total U.S. corn production to be just over 14.0 billion bushels, which would be a new corn production record. This would be a slight increase from the 2013 production level of 13.9 billion bushels, and compares to 10.8 billion bushels in 2012, 12.3 billion bushels in 2011, and 13.1 billion bushels in 2009.
Based on Aug. 1 conditions, USDA is estimating total harvested corn acreage in the U.S. for 2014 at 83.3 million acres, which is unchanged from July USDA estimates, but down considerably from the 2013 level of 87.7 million harvested corn acres. Some experts feel that the total number of harvested corn acres in 2014 may decline due to the large amount of prevented planted acres in Minnesota and surrounding states.   
In the crop report, USDA projected a new record national average corn yield of 167.4 bushels per acre, which is up considerably from the national corn yield of 158.8 bushels per acre in 2013.