New
Jersey corn and soybean growers last year rebounded
dramatically from 1999's disastrous drought, setting
new state average yield records for their crops
in 2000, according to Vic Tolomeo, State Statistician
in the New Jersey Agricultural Statistics Service
(NJASS). Reports of the record-setting yields were
provided in response to a December NJASS survey
of New Jersey farmers. The new Garden State corn
yield record is now 134 bushels per acre, surpassing
the previous record of 126 bushels set in 1996.
Highest yields - more than 140 bushels per acres
- were harvested in Salem, Middlesex and Gloucester
Counties. The new state record for soybean yields
is 40 bushels per acre, breaking the previous record
of 37 bushels which was also set in 1996. Farmers
in both Salem and Cumberland Counties reported
average yields of 43 bushels per acre while the
average yield in Warren was 47 bushels per acre.
The survey revealed that growers harvested 75,000
acres (10,050,000 bushels) of corn for grain and
98,000 acres (3,920,000 bushels) of soybeans for
beans. These figures were a significant increase
over 1999 when just 2,220,000 bushels of corn for
grain and 2,352,000 bushels of soybeans were produced.
Nationally the production of corn for grain in
2000 was 9.97 billion bushels, up 6 percent from
1999 and second only to 1994's record production
of 10.1 billion bushels. In 2000 the nation's corn
for grain yield of just over 137 bushels per acre
was the second largest yield on record. United
States soybean production in 2000 totaled 2.77
billion bushels, the highest on record followed
by 2.74 billion bushels in 1998. The nation's average
soybean yield per acre in 2000 was just over 38
bushels. For further information please call Vic
Tolomeo, Barbara Smith, or Mark Hudson at 1-800-328-0179
or visit the NJASS web site at http://www.nass.usda.gov/nj.
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