The U.S. Department of Agriculture in January released its annual Crop Production Summary, showing that Colorado farmers didn't haul in quite as large of a crop as earlier USDA forecasts had anticipated. But while actual production in the state this fall fell short of those predictions (by about 8 million bushels) the 2016 Colorado corn crop still stood up well compared to recent years.

Corn for Grain Acres Harvested :

2016 … 1.17 million

2015 … 950,000

5-year avg. … 1.01 million

Yields 2016 … 137.0 bushels per acre

2015 … 142.0

5-year avg. … 137.0

Total Corn for Grain Production 2016 … 160.92 million bushels 2015 … 134.90 million 5-year avg. … 143.59 million

Nationwide, 2016 corn production was estimated at 15.2 billion bushels, while yields averaged out at 174.6 — the highest marks on record for the U.S. ❖