By Jessica Merzdorf,
The Indiana popcorn harvest exploded in 2016, with yields up by nearly 30 percent compared with 2015.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture reports that total production was up 45 percent from 2015 to a record 4.46 million hundredweight of popcorn, or nearly 500 million pounds. The total crop value was $71.4 million, compared to $50.7 million in 2015.
Wet conditions in the spring and summer raised fears that the early-season damage of 2015 would be repeated, but the weather was warmer and drier than normal at the end of the growing season, creating perfect conditions for the record-setting crop.
“Our most recent record-setting year was 2014, but the 2016 production numbers and acres planted and harvested are quite a bit higher than that year, with the yield being identical,” said Greg Matli, state statistician for the Indiana field office of the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service. “The moisture conditions ended up sustaining the crop through the entire growing season.” The current data series is from 1992 to date.
Producers planted 94,000 acres in 2016, 9,000 more than the previous year, and harvested 93,000 acres, an increase of 10,000 acres. Price per hundredweight was lower in 2016 at $16 per hundredweight, compared to $16.50 in 2015 and $18.90 in 2014.