Big state corn harvest in 2025 is nearly complete
STARKVILLE, Miss. (Press Release) – According to an MSU Press Release, Mississippi’s corn crop is much bigger than expected this year, and favorable conditions in the Delta are producing a very good crop on many acres.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service, or NASS, increased its estimation of state corn acres in September to 880,000 acres.
Erick Larson, Extension grain crop agronomist, said this is one of the largest crops on record in the state. In 2024, state growers harvested about 500,000 acres.
“Mississippi had 930,000 acres of corn in 2007, but there has not been a larger crop since 1960,” Larson said.
Will Maples, agricultural economist with the Mississippi State University Extension Service, said Mississippi is expected to have a corn yield of 179 bushels per acre, according to NASS.
“This would lead to an 80% increase in corn production this year due to higher acreage,” Maples said.
The increase in acres comes despite poor corn prices.
“Like other crops, corn prices are struggling this year and are below a profitable level for producers,” Maples said. “USDA projects the average farm price at $3.90 per bushel, down from $4.30 per bushel last year.”
He said the biggest story in the corn market is the outlook for a record year of production nationwide.
“The U.S. is currently projected to produce a record high 16.8 billion bushels, which is 9% higher than the previous record set in 2023,” Maples said. “An almost ideal growing season across the Midwest led to the projection of a record national yield at 186.7 bushels per acre.
“This outlook for high supplies is going to keep downward pressure on the market throughout the winter,” he said. “Exports have been great, but that has mainly been driven by how cheap and plentiful U.S. corn is this year.”
Larson said corn farmers faced challenges at planting, but when the weather cooperated, corn acres were planted rapidly. Most areas with corn had significant acreage planted in late-March or in mid-April.
“The northeast region had a tough time planting because of wet field conditions, but there was a good planting window during Easter week and a few days the last week of April,” Larson said. “Once we got into May, it was almost a total rainout until late in the month when it was too late to plant corn.”
Once the crop was planted, the next challenge was management.
“We had a lot of complications associated with wet weather and storms,” Larson said. “For the most part, the Delta tolerated some of those problems better, mainly because they have the infrastructure to use ag aviation when they couldn’t use ground equipment.
“That helped tremendously with fertilizer and herbicide applications,” he said.
Consequently, the Delta is seeing very good corn yields. Corn requires supplemental nitrogen, and high corn yields are only possible when the plants have sufficient access to this resource at the appropriate times. Knowing this, growers normally apply this important nutrient several times during the spring and early summer.
“As you get into areas where ag aviation is not as abundantly available, then the corn yields are highly variable depending primarily on nitrogen application timing and the way that it interacted with the rainfall and the excessive soil moistures that we had during May and June,” Larson said.
Nitrogen timing is critical.
“Growers who put out a lot of nitrogen by early May greatly increased the exposure of the nitrogen to wet soils, which causes extensive losses,” Larson said. “If they put it out too late, they missed the window and crop growth suffered.
“Both of these problems substantially reduced corn productivity,” he said.
Larson said wet weather caused major issues in areas where growers could not get in fields for a month or more this year. This happened most frequently in the northeast region of the state.
Corn harvest should be complete in the state by the end of September. Sunny weather with low humidity and no tropical storms is best for corn harvest.
