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Which state grows the most rhubarb?

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Guess

Rhubarb is the plant you eat half of. The thick sour stalks go into pies; the big floppy leaves go in the bin — and University of Minnesota Extension does not soften the reason: “Rhubarb leaves are toxic. Do not eat them. Only the long, thick leaf petioles, the ‘stalks,’ are edible.” It is also a plant that will grow almost anywhere here. Illinois Extension calls it “a perennial vegetable that grows well in most of the United States,” and USDA's 2022 farm census printed a rhubarb acreage for 42 states. So this is not a question about where rhubarb can grow. It is a question about where farmers plant whole fields of it. Tap the states most-to-least.

Tapping assigns 1→4 in order

Rhubarb pie is a farmhouse thing. Michigan! 🐾

Answer

The real order is…
    Oregon — 571 acres of the 1,727 acres USDA counted in the whole country, and 1.23× second-place Washington. The pair of them is the real story: Oregon and Washington sit side by side on the Pacific coast, and between them they hold about six of every ten rhubarb acres in the United States. Now look at how small the whole thing is. 1,727 acres is under three square miles — a square mile is 640 acres — so every commercial rhubarb field in America, added together, would fit inside one small town. And the plant is stranger than the map. It is not a fruit: Extension files it as “a perennial vegetable,” and notes that “it is in the buckwheat family.” The half that gets thrown away is the half that would make you ill — a lesson this country has already learned once. During the food shortages of World War I, NDSU Extension records, “people were encouraged to consume rhubarb leaves as a vegetable,” advice that “was not a good idea because oxalic acid is found in abundance in the rhubarb leaves.”
    📚 Background Rhubarb is the crop you throw half of away. University of Minnesota Extension puts it in three short sentences: “Rhubarb leaves are toxic. Do not eat them. Only the long, thick leaf petioles, the ‘stalks,’ are edible.” The warning is old and it has been learned the hard way — NDSU Extension records that “during the World War I food shortages, people were encouraged to consume rhubarb leaves as a vegetable,” which “was not a good idea because oxalic acid is found in abundance in the rhubarb leaves.” The stalks, meanwhile, are so sour they are almost always cooked with sugar, which is how the plant got its nickname: Extension calls rhubarb a “pie-plant.” And it grows nearly everywhere — Illinois Extension calls it “a perennial vegetable that grows well in most of the United States” — so the question is not where rhubarb can grow, but where farmers grow it by the acre. (University of Minnesota Extension, “Growing rhubarb in home gardens”; NDSU Extension, “Prairie Fare: Can Rhubarb Become Toxic?”; Illinois Extension, “Rhubarb” (Home Vegetable Gardening)) (opens in a new tab)
    🔍 Explore more: 🍰『The half you throw away』→
    Rhubarb pie is a farmhouse thing. Michigan! 🐾

    Compare

    Rhubarb acres harvested (2022 Census of Agriculture)

    🇺🇸 United States (national)1,727 acres
    Oregon #1 571 acres
    Most: Oregon (571 acres); smallest printed number: Wyoming (1 acres).

    Note: acres of rhubarb harvested in 2022, from USDA's Census of Agriculture — a count taken once every five years, not a yearly estimate. The census counts farms, so the rhubarb plant behind somebody's garage is not in here. Rhubarb is a perennial: the same crown is cut spring after spring, and Extension advises waiting until the second season after planting before harvesting at all. USDA NASS. USDA printed a rhubarb figure for 42 states. Five more — Alabama, Hawaii, Mississippi, Oklahoma and South Carolina — carry USDA's withheld mark (D), used when printing a number would give away an individual farm. Two others, Arkansas and Nevada, carry a different mark, (Z), rather than a figure. And one state, Louisiana, has no line in the table at all, which is not the same thing as a printed zero. Add up the printed figures and they come to one acre less than USDA's national total — so everything not printed here comes to a single acre, and this is the national order nearly the whole way down. A check this site re-runs on every build.

    Half the plant goes in the bin. On purpose 🐾

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    📋 See the ranking table (top 42)
    Rhubarb acres harvested (2022 Census of Agriculture)
    Rank State Value Share of U.S. total
    #1 Oregon 571 acres 33.1%
    #2 Washington 464 acres 26.9%
    #3 Michigan 93 acres 5.4%
    #4 Maine 78 acres 4.5%
    #5 Minnesota 73 acres 4.2%
    #6 New York 67 acres 3.9%
    #7 Wisconsin 51 acres 3%
    #8 Pennsylvania 40 acres 2.3%
    #9 Massachusetts 36 acres 2.1%
    #10 Colorado 20 acres 1.2%
    #11 Iowa 19 acres 1.1%
    #11 Ohio 19 acres 1.1%
    #13 Vermont 18 acres 1%
    #14 Illinois 16 acres 0.9%
    #14 New Jersey 16 acres 0.9%
    #16 South Dakota 15 acres 0.9%
    #17 Virginia 14 acres 0.8%
    #18 Connecticut 13 acres 0.8%
    #19 Indiana 12 acres 0.7%
    #20 California 9 acres 0.5%
    #21 Alaska 8 acres 0.5%
    #21 Missouri 8 acres 0.5%
    #21 New Hampshire 8 acres 0.5%
    #24 Montana 7 acres 0.4%
    #25 Kansas 6 acres 0.3%
    #25 Nebraska 6 acres 0.3%
    #25 North Carolina 6 acres 0.3%
    #25 North Dakota 6 acres 0.3%
    #29 Idaho 5 acres 0.3%
    #30 Kentucky 4 acres 0.2%
    #31 Maryland 3 acres 0.2%
    #31 West Virginia 3 acres 0.2%
    #33 Georgia 2 acres 0.1%
    #33 Utah 2 acres 0.1%
    #35 Arizona 1 acres 0.1%
    #35 Delaware 1 acres 0.1%
    #35 Florida 1 acres 0.1%
    #35 New Mexico 1 acres 0.1%
    #35 Rhode Island 1 acres 0.1%
    #35 Tennessee 1 acres 0.1%
    #35 Texas 1 acres 0.1%
    #35 Wyoming 1 acres 0.1%
    🇺🇸 USA (total) 1,727 acres 100%

    USDA printed a rhubarb figure for 42 states. Five more — Alabama, Hawaii, Mississippi, Oklahoma and South Carolina — carry USDA's withheld mark (D), used when printing a number would give away an individual farm. Two others, Arkansas and Nevada, carry a different mark, (Z), rather than a figure. And one state, Louisiana, has no line in the table at all, which is not the same thing as a printed zero. Add up the printed figures and they come to one acre less than USDA's national total — so everything not printed here comes to a single acre, and this is the national order nearly the whole way down. A check this site re-runs on every build.

    Source: USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service (2022)

    Sources

    Data as of: 2022
    USDA NASS Quick Stats: RHUBARB - ACRES HARVESTED, 2022 Census of Agriculture, by state (opens in a new tab) (2026-08-29) — Published values only (the committed raw file holds the API response verbatim). USDA prints a rhubarb figure for 42 states. Five more (Alabama, Hawaii, Mississippi, Oklahoma and South Carolina) carry the withheld mark (D), which USDA uses when printing a state’s number would give away information about individual farms; two more (Arkansas and Nevada) carry the mark (Z) instead of a figure; and one state — Louisiana — has no line in the table at all. Everything without a printed figure comes to one acre in total (USDA's national total minus the printed figures), so this ranking is the national one nearly all the way down — a check this site re-runs on every build.
    ↳ In Quick Stats, pick RHUBARB / RHUBARB - ACRES HARVESTED, Census year 2022, Total domain, and compare states.