2013 N.C. corn crop yields set record

North Carolina’s corn crop in 2013 had an average yield of 142 bushels per acre, a new state record, according to the USDA’s 2013 Crop Summary.

The 2013 yield was 25 bushels higher than the previous year’s, and 10 bushels more than the old record, set in 2006. Corn production is forecast to total 123.5 million bushels, a 29 percent increase from 2012. Harvested acres were 870,000, up 50,000 acres from the previous year.

The sweet potato crop matched its record yield of 200 hundredweight per acre, a number reached in 2012, 2011 and 2009. But acreage was down 9,000 from 2012, to 53,000 acres. As a result, total production dropped 15 percent, to 10.6 million hundredweight.

Yields of cotton, peanuts, soybeans and tobacco were lower in 2013 than in 2012.

The cotton yield of 819 pounds per acre was 195 pounds less than 2012′s yield. Production totaled 785,000 bales, a 36 percent decrease. Harvested acres were 465,000, compared with 585,000 in 2012.

Peanuts didn’t match the whopper of a record set in 2012. The 2013 yield was 3,900 pounds per acre, 200 pounds less than the previous year.

Soybean yields totaled 33 bushels per acre, slightly above the 10-year average, but less than 2012′s record.

N.C. tobacco farmers harvested 181,900 acres of tobacco, 10 percent more than in 2012. But yields of flue-cured and burley tobacco were lower. Flue-cured yield averaged 2,000 pounds per acre, compared with 2,300 in 2012. Burley yield was 1,400 pounds per acre, 500 pounds less than the previous year.