Another Big-Yielding Year for Illinois Soybeans, Corn

BY DANIEL GRANT, FARMWEEKNOW.COM 

Illinois farmers might have to update harvest equipment sooner than expected given the amount of bushels that poured through their machines last year.

USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) released its final county corn and soybean yield estimates last week. The local results provide insight into Illinois’ state record yields of 210 bushels per acre for corn and 65 bushels for beans in 2018.

Illinois finished the year as the No. 1 producer of soybeans in the nation (698.7 million bushels) and had the second-largest corn crop (2.27 billion bushels) in the U.S.

“It was a perfect storm of good weather in some places,” said Brian Schaumburg, a FarmWeek CropWatcher from McLean County. CropWatcher reports for this season begin in the April 8 issue.

McLean County led the state and nation in total production of corn (71.9 million bushels) and soybeans (21.5 million bushels) in 2018.

“It’s kind of a dubious distinction. There are counties with better average yields, but they just don’t have the acres we have,” Schaumburg said. “One thing about that many bushels, though, is it helps elevators and end users. They can source it here better.”

Overall, 49 counties (and two additional combined county averages) averaged 200-plus bushels for corn, while 23 counties averaged 70-plus bushels for soybeans, including three counties at or above 80 bushels.

In fact, the 14 highest soybean yielding counties in the nation last year were all in Illinois. The top five were Sangamon (82.3 bushels per acre), Morgan (81.6), Douglas (80), Piatt (79.2) and Moultrie (77.7).

“The soybean yields were surprising compared to historical state average yields,” said Mark Schleusener, Illinois state statistician with NASS. “You don’t have to go far in the past when getting a field average of 65 was a really good year” and now it’s the state average.

The other top soybean producing counties last year, along with McLean, were Champaign (17.8 million bushels), Livingston (17.6 million), LaSalle (17.6 million) and Iroquois (16.7 million).

Douglas County, which was in last year’s garden spot in east central Illinois, had the distinction of producing the highest corn yield in the state and second-highest in the nation (246 bushels per acre) to go with its 80-bushel bean average.

“If you knew how to duplicate last year, you could do pretty well,” said Larry Dallas, Douglas County Farm Bureau president from Tuscola.

“We didn’t get planted particularly early. It was the end of April before we got in the field, but we thought corn looked good all along,” he noted. “We were dry in May, but starting in June, we got good rains the rest of the year.”

The other top five corn yielding counties in the state last year, behind Douglas County, were Piatt (241.8 bushels per acre), Warren (241.7), Macon (239.9) and Sangamon (236.4).

Rounding out the top five corn producing counties, along with McLean, were Iroquois (61.6 million bushels), Livingston (61.3 million bushels), along with Champaign and LaSalle with 60.4 million bushels each.

Effingham County averaged 235.2 bushels per acre of corn, and 73.9 bushels per acre of soybeans.