Illinois Counties Tops In Amber Waves Of Grain

Mar 23, 2023

By Charlie Schlenker

McLean and Piatt counties led the nation in corn and soybean categories last year.

The U.S. Agriculture Department says McLean County farmers harvested nearly 71 million bushels of corn in 2022, the most of any county in the nation. Piatt County farmers averaged 74.2 bushels per acre of soybean yields, again tops in the country.

“Our Illinois farmers have once again proved why agriculture is the No. 1 industry in the state of Illinois,” said Illinois Department of Agriculture Director Jerry Costello. “Our agricultural reach goes far beyond our state. In 2022, Illinois exports of corn and soybeans to the world totaled over $3.5 billion.”

The top five corn-producing counties in the nation are all in central Illinois, including in order after McLean: Iroquois, Livingston, LaSalle, and Champaign. In soybean yield, the top 11 counties are all in Illinois. Number two through 11 are Macon, Sangamon, Scott, Logan, Tazewell, Stark, Morgan, Christian, Champaign, and Woodford counties.

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Video: Learning to Wrench From Dad the Hard Way

Harvest is a week out and the farm picked this week to fall apart. The truck needs a battery, the barn curtain's got a problem, and the corn and beans are telling us we're out of time to get it all fixed.

So it's a full day of wrenching. Tork supervises while I get the truck back running, then we're out at the hog barn where one rusted up part has the whole curtain system hung up. Ladder work, cable work, and a little dad-and-son disagreement about the right way to do it. We close it out walking the fields, shelling beans and checking corn, because whether everything's fixed or not, harvest starts when harvest starts.

Chapters: 00:00 Everything breaks the week before harvest 01:00 Tork supervises while I fix the truck 12:30 Out to the barn to find the curtain problem 14:30 One rusty part hung up the whole curtain 20:00 Running the curtain cable from the ladder 24:00 Walking the beans and corn before harvest 26:30 Wrapping up

We're a 6th generation family farm in southeast Iowa showing the real ups and downs of pig farming and row crop farming. No script, just the work. Subscribe and follow along.

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