The North American corn harvest is now winding up. The current USDA- projected national average corn yield is 176 bushels per acre. This is a jump from 33.1bu/ac in 1945, 86.4bu/ac in 1975, 113.5bu/ac in 1995 and 168.4bu/ac in 2015. In early December, the national award-winner of the highest yield per acre will be announced, a competition which has been run for years by the National Corn Growers Association. This one factoid alone refutes the green lies that population growth will outrun food growth. Bunk!
In 2019, a Charles City, Virginia, farmer, David Hula, produced 616.16 bushels of corn per acre, which is 18.48 tons of shelled corn per acre, or 37.68 metric tons of shelled corn per hectare. This is a world record, the highest ever recorded in the national corn-yield contest. The current yearly U.S. average corn yield is 176 bushels per acre (12.18 tons, or 11.05 metric tons per hectare).
What do you do to get yields like this? Some of Hula’s corn is grown about 20 miles from Jamestown, Va., on land that has been farmed since 1609. Local distilleries purchase his corn because it is famous for its consistent high quality, needed to win distillery awards yearly. “My granddad was one of the first ones to break 100 bushels in the area, “ David told the Richmond CBS 6NEWS. “Then my dad broke 200 bushels. We were the first ones to break 300, 400, 500, and 600, so we’ve been blessed.”
