Ohio yields record corn crop in 2009 harvest

By Ben Sutherly, Staff Writer
Corn glut causes backups at grain elevators

DAYTON — Farmers are in the final stretch of harvesting the best-yielding corn crop in state history.

Ohio’s projected yield, 166 bushels per acre, would shatter the previous record of 159 bushels set in 2006.

The soybean crop also is forecast to set records for both yield (48 bushels per acre) and production (220 million bushels).

A cool summer created stress-free conditions that let corn thrive, said Peter Thomison, an Ohio State University professor. Many farmers reported yields for their corn crop topped 200 bushels per acre, he said.

Despite the abundance, corn prices are forecast to hold steady or perhaps even rise next year due to strengthening demand, a boon for corn growers. As a commodity, corn is used in everything from ethanol to livestock feed to food additives such as high-fructose corn syrup. Consumers can expect a negligible impact on food prices.

This year’s corn harvest, however, brought the worst delays since 1992, the National Agricultural Statistics Service said. Wet weather in September and October held back the harvest. Locally, country elevators and other grain-handling facilities were swamped with corn in late October and November.

The corn’s high moisture compounded the backlog at some country grain elevators. They had to dry the crop so it wouldn’t spoil while in storage. Drying the crop slowed the rate at which it could be taken in.

Jay Darner, manager of Southwest Landmark in Xenia, said his grain elevator had to close a day or two at a time to dry corn or to make room for more at the facility, which has a capacity of 500,000 bushels.

It’s the first time the Xenia elevator has had to close temporarily in Darner’s 10 years there, he said.

But the backlogs are sometimes part of farming.

“You don’t build a church for Easter Sunday,” explained Neill McKinstray of The Andersons Inc.’s ethanol division, which runs the state’s largest ethanol plant in Greenville. “That’s the way it is in the grain-handling business.”

source: daytondailynews