West-central Iowa tops in corn production

Iowa farmers harvested bumper crops of corn and soybeans in 2015, according to estimates of production and yield released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Agricultural Statistics Service.

A total of 2.5 billion bushels of corn was harvested in 2015, up from 2.4 billion bushels in 2014. Average yield was 192 bushels per acre, compared with 178 bushels per acre in 2014.

Iowa's West Central District was the largest corn producing district in 2015 with 383 million bushels. Kossuth County was the largest corn producing county with 62.2 million bushels harvested.

Pottawattamie, Sioux, Woodbury, and Crawford rounded out the top five.

Four of the five highest yielding counties were in Iowa's Northwest District. Cherokee led all counties with a county-wide average of 209.6 bushels per acre. Pocahontas, O'Brien, Sac, and Osceola counties rounded out the top five with yields all over 204 bushels.

Twenty-two of the 99 counties surpassed the 200-bushel mark in 2015.

Linn County farmers produced 28 million bushels of corn in 2015, up from 26.5 million bushels in 2014. Average yield was 189.2 bushels per acre, up from 176.1 bushels per acre in 2014.

Johnson County farmers produced 20.3 million bushels of corn last year, an improvement from 19.8 million bushels in 2014. Average yield was 187.1 bushels per acre, up from 184.6 bushels per acre in 2014.

Fifty-three Iowa counties had record high soybean production and set record yields in 2015.

Three counties produced more than 10 million bushels, led by Kossuth County with 13.5 million bushels. Plymouth (11.6 million) and Pottawattamie (11.3 million) also topped the 10 million threshold.

Soybean yields averaged 60.5 bushels per acre in the Northwest District, the only district to top the 60-bushel barrier.