The big pile of corn you could have seen at Rio Creek Feed Mill’s Luxemburg facility up until recently was all you needed to know about this year’s harvest. While some Midwestern states had to struggle with droughts, Mother Nature was exceptionally kind to Wisconsin farmers in 2021. The United States Department of Agriculture estimates approximately 506 bushels of corn and 112 million bushels of soybeans were produced in 2021 according to a November 9th report. That means the corn harvest was down only about one bushel per acre and the soybean harvest was up two bushels per acre compared to 2021. Rio Creek Feed Mill still had to store some of the corn it collected outside despite building a 1.3 million bushel bin a few years ago due to above-average to record yields this year. Agronomist Adam Barta says a lot of factors went into the success of this year and the farmers’ excitement to put some other crops into the ground.

Nationwide, corn production for grain was up seven percent from 2020 with a forecasted amount of 15.1 billion bushels. Soybean production was also up five percent from 2020 with 4.42 billion bushels harvested. Barta says farmers are already hard at work planning where and how much nutrients need to be spread and what crops to plant in 2022.