What Are the Major Crops Grown in Tennessee?

Tennessee’s agricultural landscape stretches across roughly 400 miles of varied terrain, and the major crops reflect that geographic diversity. Soybeans, corn, cotton, hay, and wheat dominate the state’s farmland, with tobacco, nursery crops, and vegetables rounding out the mix.¹ What grows where in Tennessee depends heavily on which part of the state you are looking at, because the flat river-bottom land of West Tennessee, the rolling hills of Middle Tennessee, and the ridges of East Tennessee each favor different crops and farming systems.

Soybeans and Corn Lead the Way

Soybeans are Tennessee’s single most valuable row crop and occupy more planted acreage than any other field crop in the state. Most of that production concentrates in the western third, where deep, fertile alluvial soils along the Mississippi River floodplain provide ideal growing conditions. Corn follows closely and often competes for the same acres. Farmers in West and Middle Tennessee rotate between the two, planting whichever crop looks more profitable given current commodity prices and input costs. The two crops together account for the bulk of Tennessee’s row-crop revenue and dominate the state’s agricultural map, with soybeans showing up as the largest block of cropland on satellite imagery and corn close behind.¹

Tennessee is not Iowa or Illinois, though. Yields per acre for both crops tend to run a bit lower than in the Corn Belt because of the state’s heavier clay soils, more variable rainfall, and warmer summers. Dryland production, meaning fields that rely on rainfall rather than irrigation, accounts for the vast majority of soybean and corn acres. That dependence on natural rainfall makes yields more volatile from year to year than in heavily irrigated regions farther west.

Cotton in West Tennessee

Cotton has deep historical roots in Tennessee and remains a significant cash crop, though its footprint is almost entirely confined to the western counties. The flat terrain and long growing season in the area between Memphis and Jackson suit cotton well, and it shows up prominently on cropland maps of the region.¹ West Tennessee is classified as a moderately humid region with a relatively short growing season compared to the Deep South cotton states, which means the crop faces tighter windows for planting and harvest than cotton growers in Mississippi or Alabama deal with.²

Because of those climatic constraints, Tennessee cotton farmers have increasingly turned to precision agriculture tools to maximize lint yield. Remote sensing and satellite imagery, for instance, have been used on irrigated fields in West Tennessee to predict cotton lint yield based on crop indices tracked throughout the growing season.³ That kind of technology helps growers make better decisions about irrigation timing and input application, which matters in a region where rainfall patterns shift considerably from one year to the next.²

Cotton acreage in Tennessee fluctuates more than soybeans or corn from year to year because cotton prices are volatile and the crop is expensive to grow. When prices dip, some farmers shift those acres into soybeans. When cotton prices spike, land comes back into production. That push and pull makes cotton a perennial presence in West Tennessee but not always at the same scale.

Wheat and the Double-Crop System

Wheat does not get the attention that soybeans or corn receive in Tennessee, but it plays an important structural role in the state’s farming calendar. Tennessee’s climate allows a practice called double cropping, where winter wheat is planted in the fall, harvested in late spring or early June, and then soybeans are planted immediately into the wheat stubble for a second harvest in the same year. This wheat-soybean double-crop system is one of the defining features of Middle and West Tennessee agriculture. It lets farmers pull two harvests off the same field in a single year, which can improve total revenue per acre even though the soybean crop planted after wheat typically yields less than a full-season soybean crop would.

The system also provides soil cover through the winter months, reducing erosion on Tennessee’s sloping fields. Cover crop research in the state has explored whether other species planted between cash crops can match or improve on the soil health benefits of the traditional wheat-soybean rotation. That work reflects a broader trend in Tennessee agriculture toward keeping something growing on the ground year-round rather than leaving fields bare through winter.

Hay, Forage, and Pasture

If you fly over Middle and East Tennessee, the dominant color is not the gold of grain fields but the green of pasture and hayfields. Grass and pasture cover more total acreage in Tennessee than any single row crop, and hay production is one of the state’s most valuable agricultural outputs. Beef cattle production across the southeastern United States is largely forage-based, and Tennessee is no exception. The state’s cattle industry relies primarily on tall fescue, a cool-season grass that thrives in Tennessee’s climate and stays green through much of the year.⁴

Tall fescue does have a gap, though. It goes semi-dormant during the hottest summer months, leaving cattle with less to graze right when they need nutrition most. To fill that gap, Tennessee researchers and farmers have experimented with warm-season grasses like bermudagrass, switchgrass, big bluestem, indiangrass, eastern gamagrass, and even crabgrass as summer complements to fescue pastures.⁴ The idea is to extend the grazing season so that cattle spend more days eating fresh forage and fewer days eating stored hay, which cuts feed costs. Multi-year grazing trials at Tennessee locations have compared the profitability and risk of these warm-season options for stocker cattle operations, and the results suggest that the economics vary depending on which grass is used and how rainfall cooperates in a given year.

The sheer scale of hay and pasture in Tennessee sometimes gets overlooked because these crops are consumed on the farm rather than sold at a grain elevator, but they underpin one of the state’s largest agricultural sectors. Tennessee consistently ranks among the top states in the country for beef cow inventory, and virtually all of those animals eat Tennessee-grown forage.

Tobacco’s Shrinking but Persistent Role

Tennessee was once one of the nation’s leading tobacco-producing states, and the crop still appears on the list of the state’s agricultural products.¹ Burley tobacco, the air-cured variety used primarily in cigarettes, was historically grown across Middle and East Tennessee on small family farms. The federal tobacco price support and quota system that propped up the industry for decades ended in 2004, and acreage has declined substantially since then.

That said, tobacco has not vanished. It remains one of the highest-value crops per acre that a Tennessee farmer can grow, which keeps it attractive for small-scale producers who have the labor available for a very hands-on crop. The farms that still grow tobacco tend to be concentrated in a handful of counties where the tradition and infrastructure persist. For the state as a whole, tobacco has gone from a pillar of the agricultural economy to a niche product, but it is a niche that still generates meaningful income for the growers who stick with it.

Nursery, Greenhouse, and Specialty Crops

Tennessee’s nursery and greenhouse industry is a quiet powerhouse that sometimes surprises people who think of the state purely in terms of row crops. Ornamental trees, shrubs, and greenhouse-grown plants collectively represent one of the state’s top agricultural commodities by dollar value. The middle part of the state, particularly the counties around McMinnville in Warren County, has one of the highest concentrations of nursery operations in the entire country. That cluster has earned the region a reputation as a national hub for wholesale ornamental plant production.

Vegetables and fruits round out Tennessee’s specialty crop picture. Tomatoes, snap beans, sweet potatoes, and peppers are all grown commercially, though on much smaller acreage than the big row crops. Strawberries and blueberries have gained ground in recent years as pick-your-own operations and local food markets have expanded. None of these approach the economic scale of soybeans or cattle, but they contribute to the diversity that distinguishes Tennessee agriculture from the more monoculture-oriented farming of states farther west and north.

Industrial Hemp as an Emerging Crop

One of the more interesting recent additions to Tennessee’s crop portfolio is industrial hemp. After federal legalization in 2018, Tennessee became one of the more active states in hemp production, and researchers have been evaluating whether hemp can become a viable commodity crop in the region’s climate. A study comparing industrial hemp to other potential bioenergy crops found that hemp stem yields of about 5,400 kilograms per hectare were comparable to switchgrass and biomass sorghum, but with lower input requirements.⁵ Hemp also has the advantage of producing grain in addition to stem biomass, with roughly 1,230 kilograms per hectare of grain harvested alongside the stems in field trials.⁵

That dual-use potential is what makes hemp economically interesting. When both grain sales and biofuel production from stems are factored in, hemp generated higher projected gross profit per hectare than switchgrass, kenaf, or biomass sorghum.⁵ The challenge is market development. Growing hemp is one thing; finding consistent, well-paying buyers for the harvested product is another. Tennessee’s hemp acreage surged in the first years after legalization, then pulled back as CBD market prices collapsed and many growers lost money. The crop’s long-term future in the state likely depends on whether processing infrastructure for fiber and grain uses catches up with production capacity.

How Geography Shapes What Gets Planted

Tennessee’s three grand divisions are not just a cultural or political distinction. They correspond to genuinely different agricultural zones. West Tennessee, roughly the area between the Tennessee River and the Mississippi, has the state’s best row-crop land. The soils are deep, relatively flat, and formed from wind-blown loess deposits that make excellent farmland. This is where most of the soybeans, corn, cotton, and wheat get planted. The 2021 Cropland Data Layer from USGS satellite imagery makes this visually obvious, with the western third of the state lit up in the colors representing these row crops.¹

Middle Tennessee transitions into a landscape of rolling limestone hills, sinkhole plains, and river valleys. The soil is productive but the terrain is hillier, which limits large-scale row cropping in many areas and favors cattle grazing. The Nashville Basin, a broad low-lying area in the center of this region, has some excellent crop ground, but much of the surrounding Highland Rim is better suited to pasture. This is where hay and forage dominate, and where the horse industry, another significant part of Tennessee agriculture, concentrates around the Shelbyville and Franklin areas.

East Tennessee is mountainous and narrow-valleyed, with the smallest proportion of land in crop production. Tobacco historically thrived on the small, steep farms of this region because it produces high value on limited acreage. Cattle grazing on fescue-covered hillsides remains common. The Great Valley of East Tennessee, between the Cumberland Plateau and the Blue Ridge, contains some productive farmland, but the scale is modest compared to the western flatlands.

Climate Pressures on Tennessee’s Crop Mix

Tennessee’s agricultural future is not immune to climate shifts, and recent modeling work has explored what changing temperature and rainfall patterns could mean for the state’s major crops. Under higher-emission climate scenarios, dryland corn, cotton, and soybean yields show more variation and volatility than under moderate warming scenarios.⁶ Dryland soybean and sorghum yields trend downward under these projections, though with less dramatic year-to-year swings. For irrigated crops, yields tend to come in lower under more severe warming compared to moderate scenarios.⁶

The practical implication is that Tennessee farmers who rely entirely on rainfall, which is most of them, face growing uncertainty about what any given growing season will deliver. Summers that are slightly hotter and drier stress corn more than soybeans, which could gradually tilt the acreage balance between those two crops. Cotton, already at the northern edge of its comfortable range in West Tennessee, could see more inconsistent years. Wheat yields also diverge under different warming paths, adding uncertainty to the double-crop system that many Tennessee operations depend on.⁶

Irrigation is one obvious buffer, but Tennessee has historically had little irrigated acreage compared to states in the arid West or even the Mississippi Delta region. Expanding irrigation infrastructure in West Tennessee is technically feasible, given the shallow aquifer underlying the region, and some growers have already invested in center-pivot systems for cotton and corn. Whether irrigation adoption accelerates will depend on how volatile dryland yields become and whether the economics of installing and operating irrigation equipment pencil out for mid-South row-crop operations. For now, most Tennessee farmers are adapting by adjusting planting dates, choosing shorter-season varieties, and diversifying their crop rotations rather than making large capital investments in water delivery systems.