Louisiana Corn Harvest Wrapping Up

By Don Molino, The Voice of Louisiana Agriculture Radio Network

LSU AgCenter Extension Service Corn Specialist Dr. Dan Fromme at the Dean Lee Research Station just south of Alexandria reports between 80 and 90% of the Louisiana corn crop has now been harvested.

"To kind of summarize this year's crop it's a little bit different, sort of a mixed bag this year as far as yields are concerned," said Fromme. "We obviously were dry back in May and June. There have been some people that have been very surprised at how good the yields  have been this year and others are kind of disappointed."

"We hope to average somewhere around 160 bushels per acre this year which would be down from the last couple of years where we've been well over 180 bushels to the acre," Fromme continued.

Fromme also said it's going to a real hard year to put a number on what the corn yields are going to finally be until "we get all the reports later on this fall.  We've had some farmers say they're off 10 to 20 bushels this year."

Some 50 to 70% of the Louisiana corn acres are irrigated which helped bring in larger yields in 2018.

"This year, compared to last year, will not be a bin buster, but there are a lot of people out there that are really satisfied connsidering how it was this season," accoridng to Fromme.