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Wind lowers corn yields
Published 12:00pm Thursday, November 15, 2007The U.S. Department of Agriculture, citing the summer drought, has lowered its forecast for the size of Minnesota’s corn crop. The weather also affected the corn crop in Otter Tail County.
“Some areas just south and east of us also suffered yield loss due to wind damage (lodging),” Fergus Falls-based Regional Extension Educator Doug Holen said. “Grain quality in many parts of the state was also adversely affected due to the same factors.”
Lodging is the term for the crop tipping over or falling down. It can reduce yield and grain quality and makes harvest more difficult.
On Friday the USDA lowered its forecast for the size of Minnesota’s corn crop to 1.185 billion bushels — which would still be the second-largest harvest on record.
“The crop wasn’t as good as expected, and it’s all tied to the growing and weather conditions,” Minnesota Agricultural Statistics Ser-vice Director Doug Hartwig said.
“We had some drought areas, some hail, and that all affects the final yield.”
Minnesota farmers planted a record number of corn acres this spring, thanks to robust prices fueled by the ethanol boom.
That also held true in Otter Tail County where a new ag ethanol plant will open north of Fergus Falls in spring 2007.
The Otter Tail Ag Enterprises dry mill corn-to-ethanol production facility nearby will sit on a 109-acre site near County Road 116.
Although the weather didn’t fully cooperate, there’s still some $3.7 billion worth of corn stored on farms, in grain elevators and piled on the ground in Minnesota.
Corn yields are now forecast to average 151 bushels per acre, down from the forecast of 156 bushels in October and 158 bushels in September.
The statewide record set in 2005 is 174 bushels an acre.
