What State Produces the Most Corn: Ranked in Bushels

Iowa is the state that produces the most corn. USDA’s revised estimate for the 2025 crop puts Iowa at 2.76 billion bushels, 16% of the US total, ahead of Illinois at 2.34 billion and Nebraska at 2.02 billion (USDA NASS, Crop Production, October 2026). The five leading states grew 58% of the national crop between them.

This page gives the full top 10 in bushels, the same ranking for 2019, the October 2026 forecast for the 2026 crop, and the reasons the order stays so stable. It also has a calculator that turns your own acres, yield and price into bushels and value, so you can set your farm beside your state’s average.

Which state produces the most corn: the ranking

The table uses USDA’s latest figures for the 2025 crop, from the October 2026 Crop Production report. The October 2026 report carries revised 2025 numbers, so a few differ slightly from the January 2026 summary (for example Iowa was 2.77 billion bushels in January). Yield is per harvested acre of corn for grain. Shares are our calculation from the same table.

Together the ten states in the table grew about 82% of the US crop. Iowa and Illinois alone grew 30%. The USDA Economic Research Service describes the same pattern: corn is grown in most states, but production is concentrated in the Heartland region, from the Great Plains through Ohio (USDA ERS, Feed Grains Sector at a Glance). The next state in line, Ohio, grew 580 million bushels in 2025, just behind Wisconsin.

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Corn for grain grown by the eight leading states

Million bushels, 2025 crop, USDA revised estimate

Why Iowa produces the most corn

Total bushels are acres multiplied by yield, and Iowa leads on the first number. It harvested 13.15 million acres of corn, 2.2 million more than Illinois. Illinois had the higher yield, 214 bushels per acre against 210, but not enough to close the gap. The scatter chart below plots both numbers for the eight leading states.

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More acres or higher yield: how the leaders get their bushels

Eight leading states, 2025: harvested area against yield per harvested acre

Yield also depends on water. Water matters. University of Nebraska-Lincoln crop models show how large the gap between irrigated and dryland corn can be: at Clay Center, the long-term yield potential is 258 bushels per acre irrigated and 189 dryland (UNL CropWatch, August 2026). Those are simulated potentials for one site, not state averages. Kansas shows the other side. Its 2025 average was 145 bushels per acre, more than 40 below the US average, and it still ranked seventh because it planted so many acres.

Weather moves the ranking at the edges more than at the top. Minnesota’s yield rose from 174 to 201 bushels per acre between 2024 and 2025, a gain of 15.5% (USDA NASS, Crop Production 2025 Summary), yet Iowa, Illinois and Nebraska held the top three places in 2019, 2023, 2024 and 2025.

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Which state has the best corn yield

Yield and total output rank states differently. The table lists every state that harvested more than 1 million acres of corn for grain in 2025, from the same USDA revised estimate. Washington posted the highest yield of any state, 251 bushels per acre, but on only 125,000 acres, so it is left out of the ranking by size.

The US average was 186.5 bushels per acre. Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Minnesota and Nebraska ran above it, while Kansas, Texas and Colorado ran well below. State averages also depend on the mix of irrigated and dryland fields, as the Nebraska model figures above show.

Corn production by state, then and now

Many readers search for the 2019 figures, so here they are, from USDA’s Crop Production 2019 Summary (USDA NASS, January 2020). US output that year was 13.69 billion bushels from 81.5 million harvested acres, an average of 168.0 bushels per acre.

The top four states were the same in 2019 and 2025. The big change was in the northern Plains and the Great Lakes. NOAA ranked 2019 as the second wettest year on record for the contiguous US, with North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan each having their wettest year ever (NOAA NCEI, annual climate report 2019). USDA reported that Midwest wetness caused significant planting delays that year. South Dakota’s crop was 567 million bushels in 2019 and 1,086 million in 2025, almost double.

Not every move is weather. Between 2019 and 2025 the national crop grew 24%, helped by a larger harvested area (81.5 to 90.9 million acres) and a higher average yield (168.0 to 186.5 bushels per acre). The dumbbell chart shows the change for eight of the ten leading states.

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Corn crop by state: 2019 and 2025

Million bushels, eight of the ten leading states in 2025

How to read USDA corn numbers

Three details trip people up. First, USDA reports corn for grain and corn for silage separately. This page covers grain only. Silage, cut green and chopped for cattle feed, was a record 136 million tons in 2025 from 6.2 million acres (USDA NASS, Crop Production 2025 Summary). Second, planted and harvested acres differ because some corn is cut for silage or not harvested. In 2025 farmers planted 98.8 million acres of corn for all purposes and harvested 91.3 million for grain, as first reported in January 2026. Third, numbers move. USDA publishes forecasts through the season, full state estimates in the January summary, and later revisions, which is why the 2025 figures here differ a little from older pages.

The 2023 and 2024 rows come from the January 2026 summary, so they may differ slightly from later revisions. Output moves with both area and yield: the 2025 crop was 24% larger than the 2019 crop, and yield per acre was up 11%.

What the October forecast for the new crop says

On 9 October 2026 USDA forecast the 2026 corn crop at 16.03 billion bushels (up 1% from its September forecast), 5% below the 2025 crop, from 88.5 million harvested acres and a yield of 181.2 bushels per acre. NASS says there is a 90% chance, judged on 20 years of results, that the final crop lands between 15.5 and 16.6 billion bushels (USDA NASS, Crop Production, October 2026). These are forecasts based on conditions on 1 October, before harvest was finished. The final state numbers come in the January 2027 summary.

The forecast keeps Iowa first and extends its lead over Illinois. It also shows smaller crops in several Plains states, with Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota and Kansas all forecast lower. Ohio is forecast to move up to eighth place. The percentage changes are our calculation from the 2025 revised figures in the same report. Any forecast can change at harvest.

Acreage choices matter as well as weather. Researchers at the University of Illinois expect soybeans to look more profitable than corn when the 2027 crop budgets are set, which could move some acres out of corn in Illinois (farmdoc daily, August 2026).

What changes the ranking from year to year

Three things move the order of the middle states. The first is acres: farmers choose between corn and soybeans each spring, and relative returns drive the mix. The second is weather, as the 2019 wet year showed in the Dakotas and Minnesota. The third is mid-season heat and water. In late August 2026, University of Nebraska-Lincoln crop models run with ten universities flagged warm nights that increased the chance of below-average irrigated yields in eastern and southwestern Nebraska and Kansas, while most rainfed sites looked near or above average. The October forecast shows lower yields than 2025 in both states.

Because yield is so important, the top-three order is more stable than the order of the states from fourth to tenth. Iowa and Illinois grew 30% of the 2025 crop between them. A swing of 10 bushels per acre in Iowa moves the national crop by more than 100 million bushels.

How the US compares with the rest of the world

Corn is a global crop, and the US share is large. In the 2025/26 marketing year USDA’s September 2026 supply and demand estimates put US output at 432 million tonnes out of 1,331 million tonnes worldwide, about 32% (USDA WASDE, September 2026). China is next at 301 million tonnes, followed by Brazil at 141 million. USDA ERS lists the United States as the world’s largest producer, consumer and exporter of corn.

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Corn production in selected countries

Million tonnes, 2025/26 marketing year, USDA estimate

Note: WASDE’s US figure for 2025/26 (432 million tonnes, about 17.0 billion bushels) is an earlier estimate and differs slightly from the revised October 2026 state tables above (16.96 billion bushels).

Most of the US crop stays at home. Under USDA’s 2025/26 balance sheet, feed and residual use was 6.35 billion bushels, ethanol and its by-products 5.55 billion, and exports 3.43 billion, out of total use of 16.68 billion bushels (WASDE, September 2026). So the state ranking matters well beyond Iowa: it shapes where livestock feed, ethanol plants and export terminals get their grain.

What the crop is worth

USDA’s Agricultural Prices report puts the US average price received by farmers at US$4.45 a bushel in August 2026, against US$3.96 a year earlier. Iowa’s price was US$4.44 and Illinois US$4.55 (USDA NASS, Agricultural Prices, 29 September 2026). These are monthly prices received by farmers, not futures prices or today’s quote. WASDE puts the 2025/26 season-average price at US$4.15.

At that season-average price, Iowa’s 2.76 billion bushels of 2025 corn were worth roughly US$11.5 billion at the farm gate. That is our calculation, which ignores basis differences between states, storage and the timing of sales. Value per acre is a different question from value per state: a farm with 190-bushel corn at US$4.50 grosses about US$855 per acre, and costs decide whether that is a profit. For the cost side, see our guide to average corn yield and income per acre by state.

Work out your own corn crop

The calculator below turns your acres, yield and price into bushels and gross value, and shows how your yield compares with a state or county average you choose. Prices change daily, so enter today’s price. The defaults are examples only.

Try the numbers for your own farm below.

How many US farms there are

The 2022 Census of Agriculture counted 1,900,487 farms in the United States, with an average size of 463 acres (USDA NASS, 2022 Census of Agriculture). Only some of these farms grow corn. The next census covers 2027; until then NASS Quick Stats gives state and county counts.

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Checking corn fields from space

A state ranking is built from millions of field-level decisions. Growers who want to see how their own fields compare during the season can use satellite vegetation maps. The Farmonaut Satellite + AI Farm Monitoring System shows how plant vigor varies across a field, so you can check the low areas on foot. A satellite map shows that a patch is different; it does not name the cause.

At harvest, set your own yield against the averages above. State averages mix irrigated and dryland fields and good and poor soils, so treat them as a reference point, not a target.

▶ How satellite NDVI maps show crop stress on a corn farm before it is visible on foot. · 4:09

Related pages on our site

More on this topic: corn yield per acre by state, Midwest agriculture facts, large-scale farm management app, farm fleet management, product traceability, farm carbon footprinting, crop loans and insurance, satellite and weather API documentation, satellite crop monitoring web app and the developer API.

How we checked the numbers

State production, yield and area for 2025 and the 2026 forecast come from USDA NASS Crop Production, October 2026. The 2019 figures come from the NASS 2019 Summary. World output, use and the season-average price come from the September 2026 WASDE, and monthly prices from NASS Agricultural Prices. Shares, rankings, percentage changes and the Iowa value estimate are our own arithmetic on those tables. Production is for corn grown for grain; silage is not included. The 2025 state figures are USDA’s revised estimates and may differ slightly from older articles. Prices are monthly prices received, not futures.

FAQ

What state produces the most corn?

Iowa. Its 2025 crop was 2.76 billion bushels, about 16% of the US total, in USDA’s revised estimate. Illinois was second at 2.34 billion and Nebraska third at 2.02 billion.

What are the top 5 corn producing states?

In 2025 the top five were Iowa, Illinois, Nebraska, Minnesota and South Dakota, which grew 9.9 billion of the 17.0 billion bushels. Indiana was a close sixth. In 2019 the top five were Iowa, Illinois, Nebraska, Minnesota and Indiana.

Which state has the best corn yield?

Among the ten biggest producers, Illinois had the highest yield in 2025, 214 bushels per acre. Iowa followed at 210 and Indiana at 204. Smaller states can post higher averages from a few irrigated acres, so yield and total bushels answer different questions.

What is the Corn Belt?

It is the Midwest region where corn is the main crop. USDA ERS describes the main growing area as the Heartland region, from the Great Plains through Ohio, with Iowa and Illinois as the top two states.

How much corn does the US grow in total?

USDA’s revised figure for 2025 is 16.96 billion bushels from 90.9 million harvested acres. The October 2026 forecast, based on conditions on 1 October 2026, is 16.03 billion bushels.

Always follow the product label and local rules when you apply crop inputs, and get professional advice before making financial or land decisions based on these figures.