Home » Kentucky’s winter wheat yield reached record levels, says USDA report

Kentucky’s winter wheat yield reached record levels, says USDA report

Fourth largest overall wheat crop in Kentucky

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (Sept. 30, 2016) — Kentucky farmers yielded a record 80 bushels per acre of winter wheat, says the Small Grains Summary Report released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS). It’s the fourth largest overall wheat crop in Kentucky. Data is from the Small Grains Production Survey conducted earlier this month.

Kentucky farmers harvested 32 million bushels of winter wheat during the summer of 2016, according to the Kentucky Field Office of USDA’S National Agricultural Statistics Service. That was down slightly from the previous year and up 6 percent from the August forecast. Yield is estimated at 80 bushels per acre, up 7 bushels from 2015 and up 6 from the August forecast.

Farmers seeded 510,000 acres last fall, down 50,000 acres from 2015. Area harvested for grain totaled 400,000 acres. Acres for other uses totaled 110,000 acres and was used as cover crop for tobacco, cut as hay, chopped for silage or abandoned.

Production of all wheat for the U.S. totaled 2.31 billion bushels, down slightly from the Aug. 1 forecast and up 12 percent from 2015. Grain area totaled 43.9 million acres, down 7 percent from the previous year.

The U.S. yield is estimated at 52.6 bushels per acre, unchanged from the Aug. 1 forecast and up 9 bushels from last year. The levels of production and changes from 2015 by type are winter wheat, 1.67 billion bushels, up 22 percent; other spring wheat, 534 million bushels, down 11 percent, and durum wheat, 104 million bushels, up 24 percent.