Minnesota's sugar beet crop yields could be up 27% from last year, according to last week's state crop report.

Doug Hartwig, director of the Minnesota Department of Agriculture's ag statistic service, reported that the sugar beet crop is estimated at a record high production of 11.87 million tons, up 27% from last year.

Sugar beet yield is estimated at 25.1 tons per acre, also an all-time record.

Minnesota corn for grain production is forecast at 1.13 billion bushels, down 5% from 2005's record production. Based on conditions as of November 1, Hartwig says yield is forecast at 166 bushels per acre, down 8 bushels from the record yield set in 2005. If realized, both yield and production would be the second highest on record, after 2005.

Soybean production for the state is forecast at 312 million bushels, up 2% from 2005. The yield is forecast at 43 bushels per acre, down 2 bushels from last year's record yield.

Fall potato production is forecast at 20.4 million hundredweight, up 16% from last year. Yield is forecast at 425 hundredweight per acre, second only to the record high of 430 hundredweight per acre in 2004, Hartwig notes.