Bushels Per Acre Calculator
Convert a quick field walk into a bushels-per-acre number — and see what those bushels are worth at today's price.
Corn Yield Calculator
Enter field measurements to calculate bushels per acre
Harvestable ear count
Kernel rows around
Length-wise count
Standard: 15.5%
Use "Average of multiple" for accuracy
Multiply your bu/ac result by your acres, then by your local cash corn price. At 200 bu/ac on 500 acres and $4.50/bu corn, that's $450,000 of gross revenue riding on the estimate — worth the 15 minutes it takes to sample.
One bushel of #2 yellow corn weighs 56 lb at 15.5%% moisture. That's the standard used by every elevator in the United States, and it's the unit your yield estimate is reported in.
Bushels Per Acre: What the Number Really Means
Bushels per acre is the standard yield unit in American agriculture, and for good reason — it's the same unit elevators use to buy grain, lenders use to size operating loans, and landlords use to negotiate crop-share rents. When you estimate corn yield in bu/ac, you're speaking the same language as everyone else in the grain chain. The number tells you not just how much you grew, but how much you can sell, store, or forward-contract.
A bushel of #2 yellow corn is defined as 56 pounds at 15.5%% moisture. That definition matters because moisture changes weight: a bushel of corn at 20%% moisture weighs more than 56 pounds (because water is heavy), but elevators discount the price back to the 15.5%% standard. This is why every credible yield calculator applies a moisture adjustment — without it, the number would flatter wet corn and understate dry corn.
The USDA Yield Component Method that powers this calculator has been the standard pre-harvest estimation technique since the 1960s. It works because corn yield decomposes cleanly into three countable pieces: ears per acre, kernel rows around the ear, and kernels along the row. Multiply them and divide by 90,000 (the long-run average kernels per bushel), and you have bushels per acre. The beauty of the method is that it requires no equipment more sophisticated than a tape measure and a pocket calculator — or this page.
Why Bushels Per Acre Matters for Your Bottom Line
Knowing your bu/ac number early changes three decisions. First, marketing: if you can confidently estimate 200 bu/ac in August, you can forward-sell bushels you don't yet have in the bin. Second, storage: a 1,000-acre farm at 200 bu/ac needs 200,000 bushels of bin space or commercial storage lined up — that decision gets made weeks before harvest. Third, equipment: knowing the bushels tells you how many truckloads, how many combine hours, and whether you need to bring in a custom operator.
The economics work like this. Take a 200 bu/ac estimate on 500 acres at a $4.50 cash corn price. Gross revenue = 200 × 500 × $4.50 = $450,000. If your estimate is off by 10%% (the typical error band of the ear count method), the swing is $45,000. That's real money, and it's why spending 20 minutes on a careful five-sample field walk pays for itself many times over.
What's a Good Bushels-Per-Acre Number?
The US national average sits at about 177 bu/ac. State averages range from 138 in Kansas to 214 in Illinois. Anything above 175 is a respectable crop; above 200 is genuinely good; above 250 is contest territory and usually requires irrigation plus ideal weather. Below 150 typically signals a limiting factor worth diagnosing — population, nitrogen, drainage, or a stress event during pollination.
Frequently Asked Questions
Everything you need to know
Bushels per acre is calculated by counting ears per acre, kernel rows per ear, and kernels per row, multiplying those three numbers to get total kernels per acre, then dividing by 90,000 (the average kernels per bushel at 15.5% moisture). A moisture adjustment scales the result to the standard. The calculator above runs the full calculation from four inputs.
The US national average is about 177 bushels per acre. Illinois leads at roughly 214 bu/ac, followed by Iowa at 204, Nebraska at 193, Minnesota at 181, Indiana at 169, and Ohio at 165. Yields above 200 are considered good; above 250 is exceptional.
Corn prices fluctuate daily. In recent years cash corn has traded between roughly $3.50 and $7.00 per bushel depending on supply, demand, export activity, and ethanol production. To estimate gross revenue per acre, multiply your bu/ac result by your local cash price. At 200 bu/ac and $4.50/bu, gross revenue is $900 per acre.
Corn is bought and sold at 15.5% moisture. Wetter corn weighs more (water is heavy) but gets discounted back to the standard; drier corn weighs less. The moisture adjustment factor (100 minus your moisture, divided by 84.5) corrects the raw estimate to what the grain would weigh at the standard moisture.
Editorial Standards & Sources
All formulas and benchmarks on this page are based on the USDA Yield Component Method (Nielsen, R.L., Purdue University Extension) and USDA NASS crop production data. Our calculators are reviewed annually against the latest extension publications from Iowa State, University of Illinois, University of Nebraska, and Ohio State.
Methodology: The default 90,000-kernels-per-bushel divisor and the 15.5% moisture standard used throughout this site come directly from published USDA and land-grant extension guidance rather than an internal estimate. Where a figure is our own approximation — such as the ±10% accuracy range for the ear count method — we say so explicitly rather than presenting it as an official statistic.
Known limitations: Pre-harvest estimates from any ear-count-based calculator are a planning tool, not a substitute for actual combine yield-monitor data or elevator scale tickets. Accuracy depends heavily on how representative the field samples are; we recommend a minimum of five sample locations per field, as outlined in the sampling guidance on this page.
Content last reviewed for accuracy in August 2025. Have a correction or suggestion? Contact our editorial team — we respond to all substantive feedback within 5 business days.