The South Central District in Minnesota was the largest corn producing district in Minnesota in 2015 with 321 million bushels according to estimates released by USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service Upper Midwest Field Office.

Renville County was the largest corn producing county with 51.6 million bushels. Redwood, Martin, Faribault, and Nobles rounded out the top five.

Faribault led all counties with a county-wide average yield of 207.4 bushels per acre. Nicollet (206.8), Watonwan (206.1), Dodge (204.0), and Martin (203.4) Counties rounded out the top five. Thirteen counties surpassed the 200 bushel per acre yield mark.

State regions stand out in 2015 with crop yields

Soybean production
Last year, 55 counties produced record high soybean yields. Five counties produced more than 10 million bushels, led by Renville with 11.9 million bushels. Redwood (11.4 million), Faribault (10.2 million), Polk (10.1 million), and Blue Earth (10.1 million) also topped 10 million bushels.

Three districts averaged more than 55 bushels per acre, led by the South Central District, where yields averaged 59.2 bushels per acre. The Southeast District (57.1) and the Southwest District (55.3) also topped 55 bushels per acre.

The three northern districts averaged less than 40 bushels per acre.

Producers in the Northwest District averaged just 35.5 bushels per acre.

~~~PAGE_BREAK_HERE~~~

Statewide, five counties averaged more than 60 bushels per acre, with Martin County recording the highest yield in the state at 61.7 bushels per acre. Faribault (61.3), Dodge (60.6), Nicollet (60.1) and Waseca (60.1) also topped 60 bushels per acre.

Sunflower production
In 2015, the Northwest District was the largest oil sunflower producing district in Minnesota with 106.1 million pounds, up 102% from 2014.

The West Central District produced 11.1 million pounds of oil sunflowers.

The total oil sunflower production for Minnesota was 123.8 million pounds, a 90% increase from 2014.

In the Northwest District, the yield increased 170 pounds from the previous year to 1,640 pounds per acre for oil sunflowers.

At the state level, the yield was 1,650 pounds per acre, a 14% increase from 2014.

Minnesota produced 42.3 million pounds of non-oil sunflowers, up 87% from 2014. Yield increased 240 pounds from 2014 to 1,800 pounds per acre.

Corn silage production
Minnesota producers in the Central District chopped 3.07 million tons of corn silage in 2015, according to USDA NASS estimates.

This was 32% of the state total.

The Southeastern District produced 2.02 million tons of silage, representing 21% of the state total.

Stearns, Winona, and Stevens were the top three silage producing counties with 1.28 million tons, 450,000 tons and 439,000 tons, respectively. Morrison, Otter Tail, and Kandiyohi also produced more than 100,000 tons of silage during the year.

Winona County had the highest average silage yield at 25.5 tons per acre. Le Sueur and Waseca tied for second with a yield of 24.0 tons per acre. Six other counties had a yield of 20.0 tons or above.