The United States may be popping with record crops of corn this harvest season.

National projections are forecasting 2007 to have the largest corn crop in history.

Despite a planting season bogged down in late frosts and soggy fields, farmers were still able to finish seeding faster than usual, allowing the crops to mature ahead of schedule.

Not since 1944 has the nation seen so much corn, with 85 million acres projected to be harvested. Illinois alone is projected to harvest 13 million acres, second only to Iowa’s national high of 13.95 million.

These are, however, only projections.

Lou Malnassy, senior communication specialist with the National Corn Growers Association, said, “Given good yields and the record number of acres that have been planted, we could have an all-time record for total production.”

Ty Kalaus, an agricultural statistician with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, said there is still time for events to influence the crop.

“When there’s a nice warm fall, it helps the crop fill out more,” Kalaus said.

According to a report by the USDA’s National Agriculture Statistics Service, the nation is expected to produce 13.1 billion bushels of corn, a 24 percent increase from last year.

However, it is anticipated that the yields across the country will average 152.8 bushels per acre, second to 2004’s 160.4 bushels per acre.

In the nation’s east, yields are predicted to fall short of last year’s numbers due to dry conditions. Meanwhile in the Midwest, the abundance of precipitation has helped to bring the projected crop to its record high.