Gordon Johnson, Extension Vegetable & Fruit Specialist; gcjohn@udel.edu
Processing vegetable acres will be up this year in Delaware and on Delmarva including peas, lima beans, and sweet corn. Pickle acreage will remain steady. This increase in acres is largely due to reduction in stocks. For example, for lima beans, cold storage stocks in January 2011 were 58 million pounds and in January 2012 these stocks were down to 44 million pounds. Peas were down from 234 to 210 million pounds and sweet corn was down from 521 to 436 million pounds. This drop in sweet corn stocks is a major driver in picking up acres. It is interesting to note that in 2011, Delmarva lima bean acres were close to 19,000. This represented over 60% of the US acres and 40% of the production. California acres are down due to competition for land with more profitable crops.