According to Mitch Sasse of Sasse Farms in Minnesota, this year’s sweetcorn crop is about 75 percent of last harvest, due to frost damaging the crop in May.
The sweet corn harvest story was similar throughout the region. An early frost stunted crop growth, heavy rains in some areas and stretches of heat also impacted the harvest. Sasse Farms typically plants sweet corn in early April.
Sweet corn is traditionally grown on about 100,000 acres of Minnesota farmland, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, putting the state third in overall production.
Minnesota sweet corn estimates point to a 2016 harvest yielding almost 7 tons of ear corn an acre, the total of which would be equivalent to about 700 million cans of corn through companies such as Birds Eye, Seneca Foods and Del Monte, as well as through the famous Green Giant label.
But Sasse was among local sweet corn producers who said that a 7-ton per acre harvest wasn’t really the norm in this region.
