LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) released the Small Grains Summary report Thursday, showing a record high Kentucky wheat yield and the largest production since 2016.
“Growers shattered the Kentucky wheat yield record,” said David Knopf, director of the NASS Eastern Mountain Regional Office in Kentucky. “The new record is 87 bushels per acre, up from 80 in 2016. Production ranks as the seventh largest crop in Kentucky history.”
Kentucky farmers harvested 30.5 million bushels of wheat during the summer of 2021. This was up 42% from the previous year, which suffered from weather effects. Yield is estimated at 87.0 bushels per acre, up 24.0 bushels from 2020. Farmers seeded 510,000 acres last fall, unchanged from 2020. Area harvested for grain totaled 350,000 acres. Acres for other uses totaled 160,000 acres and was used as cover crop, cut as hay, chopped for silage or abandoned.
Production of all wheat for the U.S. totaled 1.65 billion bushels, down 10% from 2020. Grain area harvested totaled 37.2 million acres, up 1% from the previous year. The United States yield is estimated at 44.3 bushels per acre, down 5.4 bushels from last year. The levels of production and changes from 2020 by type are winter wheat, 1.28 billion bushels, up 9%; other spring wheat, 331 million bushels, down 44%, and durum wheat, 37.3 million bushels, down 46%
— USDA, NASS, Kentucky Field Office
For more news from Kentucky, click here.