Crop Report: USDA NASS releases state and national annual crop report highlights 

On Jan. 12, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) released the annual Crop Production 2022 Summary report for the U.S. and individual states.

The report offers statistics on corn, barley, wheat, hay, alfalfa, sugarbeet and bean production across the state of Wyoming.

Corn production

According to the Dec. 1 agricultural survey conducted by the NASS Mountain Regional Field Office, the 2022 corn for grain crop in Wyoming is estimated at 8.57 million bushels, 18 percent below last year’s production of 10.42 million bushels. The average yield of 153 bushels per acre (bpa) is 21 bpa above the yield achieved in 2021. 

Area harvested for grain in the state during 2022 came in at 56,000 acres, which is 23,000 acres less than last year, according to NASS. 

The report notes acreage cut for corn silage came in at 33,000 acres, which is 21,000 more area than last year, with production estimated at 792,000 tons, compared to the 276,000 tons produced in 2021. This is the largest corn silage production in Wyoming since 2004, which also reported 792,000 tons.

Wheat and barley

Winter wheat production in Wyoming, estimated at 1.62 million bushels, is down 47 percent from 2021, which is the lowest production reported since 1944. 

“Winter wheat producers seeded 115,000 acres in the fall of 2021 for harvest in 2022, unchanged from acres seeded for the previous year’s crop and the lowest since 112,000 acres were seeded in 1938,” reads the report. 

NASS notes acreage harvested for grain in Wyoming remained unchanged from last year at 95,000 acres. Winter wheat yield came in at 17 bpa, which is down 15 bpa from last year. This is the lowest yield since 12 bpa was reported in 1965. 

Winter wheat seedings, reported last fall for 2023 harvest, are estimated at 120,000 acres, up four percent from 2022.

According to the report, Wyoming’s barley seeded area is estimated at 77,000 acres, which is 7,000 acres less than last year. Harvested area, at 58,000 acres, is down 14,000 acres from 2021. 

Barley yield is up two bpa from last year to 93 bpa. Barley production in 2022 is estimated at 5.39 million bushels, down 18 percent from the previous year and the lowest production since 2007.

Hay production

The survey found all hay production for Wyoming in 2022 is estimated at 2.38 million tons, up 21 percent from the 2021 total. 

Alfalfa hay production is estimated at 1.6 million tons across the 550,000 acres harvested in the state, which is up 279,000 tons from the year prior. Average yield for the 2022 crop is 2.9 tons per acre. This number is 0.10 ton per acre higher than last year. 

All other hay production totaled 784,000 tons from 560,000 acres harvested, up 126,000 tons from 2021, notes the report. The average yield of 1.4 tons per acre remains unchanged from the 2021 total. 

According to NASS, new seedings of alfalfa and alfalfa mixtures in Wyoming are estimated to be 17 percent higher from the previous year at 35,000 acres. 

As of Dec. 1, producers in Wyoming were storing 1.3 million tons of all hay, 13 percent more than the 1.15 million tons producers stored in 2021.

Beans and sugarbeets

Dry edible bean production across the state, according to the NASS survey, came in at 319,000 hundredweight (cwt). 

This number is 16 percent less than the 2021 crop of 381,000 cwt. Average yield is estimated at 2,1300 pounds per acre, which is 280 pounds per acre below last year. Harvested area, at 15,000 acres, is down 800 acres from 2021. 

Wyoming pinto bean production in 2022 is reported at 271,000 cwt, down 14 percent from last year.

The report notes the state’s sugarbeet crop of 812,000 tons for 2022 is down 10 percent from the 903,000 tons produced in 2021. Producers harvested 27,900 acres in 2022, which is 2,700 acres less than they harvested in 2021. Average yield is estimated at 29.1 tons per acre, which is 0.4 ton per acre below 2021.

Hannah Bugas is the managing editor of the Wyoming Livestock Roundup. Send comments on this article to roundup@wylr.net.