New York farms produce record-high yield of winter wheat this year

ALBANY, N.Y. — New York farms harvested 9.63 million bushels of winter wheat in 2021, with an average yield of 77 bushels per acre — a record-high yield.

Winter-wheat production in the state was up 21.5 percent this year from 2020, when the state’s farms produced 7.92 billion bushels of winter wheat. This year’s yield was up nearly 17 percent from 66 bushels per acre a year ago. Harvested area for wheat came in at 125,000 acres in 2021, up from 120,000 acres a year prior.

The data comes from Donnie Fike, state statistician of the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS), New York field office. 

The NASS New York field office also estimated New York oat production at 1.97 million bushels this year, up more than 16 percent from nearly 1.7 million bushels in 2020. The yield was estimated at 68 bushels per acre in 2021, up 15 bushels, or 28 percent, from last year. Harvested area was pegged at 29,000 acres this year, down 9 percent from 32,000 acres a year earlier.

Barley production in New York was estimated at 315,000 bushels in 2021, up 15,000 bushels, or 5 percent, from 2020. The average yield hit a record high for the Empire State at 63 bushels per acre this year, up from 60 bushels in the previous year. This year, producers seeded 9,000 acres of barley and harvested 5,000 acres, both unchanged from 2020, according to the field office.