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Garden State Corn, Soybean Growers
Set Yield Records in 2000
 
For Immediate Release: March 9, 2001 Contact:

Hope Gruzlovic
(609)292-8896
hope.gruzlovic@ag.state.nj.us

     

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.