Corn crop yields for 2015 looking good

The past two years, Delaware’s corn harvests have produced record-breaking yields, and the 2015 crop appears to be headed that way also.

Delaware Department of Agriculture Secretary Ed Kee said Sept. 30 early indications for this year’s crop show yields on par with 2014’s statewide record of 200 bushels an acre. The previous record, set in 2013, was 166 bushels an acre.

He said in Sussex County, irrigated fields are producing well over 200 bushels an acre, with some as high as 250 bushels, and nonirrigated fields are between 150 and 200 bushels an acre. In 2014, said Kee, irrigated Sussex County cornfields produced on average 233 bushels an acre, while nonirrigated fields produced 196.

“It’s remarkable,” he said. “I anticipate this year’s crop to be at that level, if not better.”

Laura Hill, of Angola’s Love Creek Farm, was almost giddy confirming Kee’s numbers. She said they were seeing 180 bushels an acre in some areas.

“So far the corn harvest has been wonderful,” she said with an enjoy-it-while-you-got-it laugh. “It’s been phenomenal.”

Hill, her husband Roland, and their two boys farm 800 acres of corn on a number of highly visible fields between Lewes and Angola, where the homestead is located. Earlier this week the crew could be seen across the street from Cape Henlopen High School in the field with the big barn that’s being renovated. Last week they were harvesting corn on Plantation Road near Robinsonville Road.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is predicting a strong year for Delaware corn, but not quite as high as 2014.

In the USDA’s latest monthly crop forecast for Delaware, produced Sept. 11 by Judy McDermott, state statistician for the Delaware field office of the USDA’s Agricultural Statistics Service, corn production is forecast at 33.3 million bushels, down 1 percent from 2014.

The report said based on conditions as of Sept. 1, yields are forecast to average 180 bushels per acre, 20 bushels below the 2014 average.

Kee said the price of corn is down slightly from last year, but Delaware farmers enjoy a 20-cent per bushel price advantage over other areas of the country because of the need for chicken feed on the Delmarva Peninsula. The ballpark figures on the prices of corn are $3.50 a bushel this year, compared to $4 a bushel last year.

Technology advances a key factor

Kee said a combination of factors – weather, crop genetics that are more drought- and bug-resistant, the investment by farmers in irrigation systems, and precision planting and fertilization – are pushing corn yields to levels once thought unattainable.

Farmers can’t control the weather, but, said Kee, this season’s early rain, followed by a dry period, and then more rain worked well with the corn crop.

Hill said rain during the pollination period of corn helps significantly. She explained the rain helps wash the pollen on the exterior tassel down to the silks on the cob.

Kee said corn seeds genetically engineered to be more hardy have become readily available over the past five years, and farmers are using them.

“Genetics are pushing back barriers,” he said.

Kee said in the early 1970s there were 20,000 acres of irrigated cornfields in Delaware, and that was being done by a hand-moved piping system. He said today, with the use of center-pivot irrigation systems, 140,000 acres of the state's 500,000 are irrigated.

Hill said precision planting and fertilization begins in the spring. She said farm equipment now comes with computers onboard, which allow a farmer to track the productivity of a field. She said the computers can tell the farmers where more fertilizer or watering are needed in specific sections of a field.

Kee said he believes within the next 15 years, there will be corn yields of 300 bushels an acre because of these advances. He said he expects the demand for corn by local markets, as animal feed and in the production of ethanol, to continue to be a driving force.

Kee said Delaware’s total number of bushels can’t match the Midwest states – for comparison, he said, Iowa has 13 million acres of corn versus Delaware’s 185,000 acres – but the state’s yields per acre compare favorably to any state's.

Soybean production to see a drop

Weather conditions may have been near perfect for growing corn this season, but the same can’t be said for soybeans – the state’s second largest crop.

Kee said he did not expect this to be a bumper crop for soybeans because of the hot and dry weather that began in July and ran through August. It is too early to quantify the effect, he said, but the weather hurt the soybeans.

McDermott’s report attempts to quantify the effect of the weather. The report forecasts a soybean production of 7 million bushels, 20 percent less than 2014’s 8.78 million. Soybean yield, said the report, is expected to average 43 bushels per acre, down from last year’s record breaking average of 48.

The next forecast will be issued Oct. 9.