The four-day Pro Farmer crop tour, which concluded in Rochester, Minnesota, on Thursday, found above-average production potential in each of the seven Midwestern states it covered. Several states boasted the highest projected corn yields and soybean pod counts in tour records dating to 2003.

About 100 participants spent the week scouting more than 1,500 corn and soybean fields in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa and Minnesota.

Grain traders have been monitoring the tour’s findings to gauge the size of the 2025 harvest in the United States, the world’s largest corn exporter and No. 2 soybean supplier.

The tour projected the corn yield in Iowa, the biggest U.S. corn grower, at 198.43 bushels per acre (bpa), above the 2024 tour average of 192.79 bpa, and Minnesota’s corn yield at 202.86 bpa, a sharp jump from 164.90 in 2024.

The yield estimates for both states were the highest in the tour’s 22-year data set.

“The Minnesota (corn) crop was way better than last year. It’s a good, solid crop, with plenty of moisture,” said Sherman Newlin, an analyst with Risk Management Commodities who was on the tour.

The four-day tour, which does not project soybean yields, estimated the number of soybean pods in a 3-by-3-foot (91cm x 91cm) square in Iowa at an average of 1,384.38 pods, while Minnesota’s average count was 1,247.86 pods. Both were the highest in tour data.

“The story of the tour is the massive pod counts we are seeing,” said Ted Seifried, chief strategist for Zaner Ag Hedge and a scout on the tour.

However, the same warm and wet weather that helped promote crop growth this summer has also fostered the spread of yield-robbing diseases in the two states, particularly Iowa.

“Sudden death syndrome and white mold could be limiting factors for reaching today’s scouted potential” in soybeans, said Tim Gregerson, a Nebraska farmer on the tour.

Scouts noted southern rust, a fungal disease, in Iowa and Minnesota corn, although it was too soon to know its impact on yields.

“The crop still needs another four to five weeks to finish (growing),” Gregerson said.

—1 acre = 0.405 hectares

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The four-day Pro Farmer crop tour, which started on Monday and covered seven major corn and soybean states, found strong production potential so far. Grain market participants have been monitoring the tour’s findings to gauge the size of the 2025 harvest in the United States, the world’s largest corn exporter and No. 2 soybean supplier.

Above-average Illinois soy potential

The tour, which does not project soybean yields, estimated the number of soybean pods in a 3-by-3-foot square in Illinois, the top soy-producing state, at an average of 1,479.22, above last year’s tour average of 1,419.11 pods and the highest in tour records, which date back to 2003.

The tour projected the Illinois corn yield at 199.57 bushels per acre (bpa), down from 204.14 bpa in 2024, but the second-highest on tour records.

In Iowa’s western third, the tour’s corn yield forecasts and soybean pod counts were well above the three-year averages. It will release full statewide figures for Iowa on Thursday.

Rust, fungal issues

Timely rains benefited crops in western Iowa but also promoted the growth of fungal diseases such as southern rust in corn and sudden death syndrome in soybeans, which tend to lower crop yields.

“I think we’ve lost 10 per cent of the yield due to disease,” Roger Cerven, an Iowa farmer who is on the tour, said of sudden death syndrome in soybeans.

For corn, southern rust was so widespread in some Iowa fields that scouts emerged with sleeves covered in dusty orange-colored residue from rust spores on corn leaves.

The extent of any impact of diseases on yields won’t be fully known until crops are closer to harvest, scouts said, but some effects may emerge sooner.

“The crop, I think, is going to look a whole lot different in 10 days or two weeks than what it does right now,” said Chip Flory, one of the tour’s leaders.

Roughly 100 crop scouts are on the tour, which wraps up in Rochester, Minnesota, on Thursday. The editors of Pro Farmer, a newsletter, will release their own estimate of U.S. corn and soybean production on Friday.

—1 acre = 0.405 hectares

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In Indiana, corn yield potential is the highest in the tour’s records since at least 2003, though the average soybean pod count in the state is slightly below 2024 levels.

Corn crop shows record potential

Market players are monitoring the four-day crop tour, which started on Monday and covers seven top U.S. corn and soybean states, for more cues on harvest prospects after the U.S. Department of Agriculture forecast on August 12 a record-large corn crop, depressing Chicago Board of Trade corn Cv1 futures.

Nebraska’s crops benefited from timely rainfall across much of the state. While irrigation is common in parts of Nebraska, the rains have helped to boost growth on dryland fields, which typically produce lower yields than irrigated acres.

“This is probably one of the better crops I’ve seen, mainly because the dryland (acreage) is not bringing the average down,” said Brent Judisch, a farmer from Cedar Falls, Iowa, who is on the western leg of the tour.

The Pro Farmer tour, which does not project soybean yields, estimated the average number of soybean pods in a 3-foot-by-3-foot (91cm-by-91cm) square in Nebraska at 1,348.31 pods, above last year’s average of 1,172.48 pods and the highest in tour records through 2003.

Indiana soy estimated above average

Crop scouts projected Nebraska’s average corn yield at 179.50 bushels per acre (bpa), above the 2024 tour average of 173.25 and the highest since the 2021 tour.

For Indiana, scouts projected an average corn yield of 193.82 bpa, the biggest in the tour’s records and an increase from the 2024 estimate of 187.54 bpa.

The tour estimated the average soybean pod count for Indiana at 1,376.59 pods, down from 1,409.02 pods in 2024 but above the three-year average of 1,294.98 pods.

“We see a lot of potential right now, but there is still a lot of this growing season left,” said Lane Akre, a Pro Farmer economist on the eastern half of the tour.

Scouts will survey crops in Illinois and western Iowa on Wednesday and the tour wraps up in Rochester, Minnesota, on Thursday.

The editors of Pro Farmer, a newsletter, will release their own estimate of U.S. corn and soybean production on Friday.

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A lot depends on the weather and markets, but representatives of the soy and pulse industry believe that nitrogen-fixing crops could become 25 percent of total acres in Manitoba.

“We think there should be a legume once every four years (in the rotation),” Daryl Domitruk, executive director of Manitoba Pulse & Soybean Growers, said at the association’s annual meeting held Feb. 14 during the CropConnect conference in Winnipeg.

“In Manitoba, if we have 10 million acres of annual cropland, that’s 2.5 million acres…. We think that it can be anywhere from 1.75 million acres of soybeans and the remainder made up by dry beans and peas.”

Manitoba is the largest dry bean producer in Canada, mostly pinto, navy and black beans.

The 25 percent share for soybeans and pulse crops hasn’t happened yet because soy acres have been highly volatile over the last seven years.

Acres have ranged from 2.3 million acres in 2017 to 900,000 in 2022 and everywhere in between.

Dry growing seasons, novice growers planting varieties that were ill-suited for their farm and disappointing yields pushed acres down from the high point of 2017.

However, soy proponents say the roller coaster may soon calm down.

“If we get out of these dry (growing) seasons we’ve been having, our acres will go up,” said association chair Melvin Rattai, who farms near Beausejour.

Dennis Lange, a soy and pulse specialist with Manitoba Agriculture, is also predicting that soybean acres will stabilize in the coming years. He expects it to settle out at 1.5 to 1.7 million, with an acreage bump in years with strong prices.

Following the annual meeting in Winnipeg, Rattai said there’s a dedicated group of soy growers that represent about one million acres.

The remaining production depends on weather and markets, which are difficult for farmers to control.

What they can control is investment in research, such as development of varieties with improved tolerance of drought and dry conditions.

“We’re starting to see that already…. The breeders are making some progress,” Rattai said.

“They (the newest varieties) can produce more beans with less water.… They are starting to show up.”

Soybean yields in Manitoba were all over the map from 2017-22. The average yield was around 27 bushels in 2019 and then hit a record of 45 bu. in 2022.

That sort of variability creates too much risk so growers will choose canola or wheat instead of soy.

“We’ve invested a lot in drought-tolerant genetics … to stabilize the yield of soybeans,” Domitruk said.

“With science and diligent research, we can get to a stable yield…. I think a warming climate is going to help us. Soybeans, they thrive in that (heat).”

More research is needed to reduce yield volatility, but another opportunity could lift up the province’s soy industry.

A number of growers are experimenting with identity preserved (IP), or food grade, soybeans, which are used to make tofu and other products.

“I just finished a trade mission to Japan.… That is the high-end market that we need to access,” Rattai said.

“They’re using our beans already. They just want more of the IP beans.”

IP soybeans are not genetically modified and don’t come with herbicide tolerance, making them more challenging to grow.

Last year, Rattai planted IP soybeans for the first time on his farm and the crop was a success.

In comparison to Roundup Ready beans, yields were only five percent lower.

“We had a 55 bushel crop… With the new varieties coming out, they’re going to compete very well with the GMO (beans).”

One unknown for Manitoba soybean acres will be demand from renewable diesel and sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) refineries in North America.

Azure Sustainable Fuels, a Calgary company, is looking at building a SAF plant in Portage la Prairie, Man., which could produce 20,000 barrels of aviation fuel per day.

The project is still at the design and engineering stage, but if Azure can raise the funds to build the $1.9 billion plant, demand for soybean and canola oil could skyrocket in Manitoba.

—Robert Arnason writes for the Western Producer from Manitoba.

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“The key word this year is variability,” he said. “It all depends on when you got that rain, or if you got that rain.

“If you got that rain, generally, harvest is moving along at a pretty good pace right now but there are going to be some lows in areas that didn’t get any significant rainfall.”

Why it matters: All Manitoba farmers dealt with patchy rains in 2023. Pulse growers are now seeing the effect.

Soybean acres started to claw back some of their decline from last year, climbing to 1.5 million seeded acres in 2023. They had taken a significant hit in the wake of 2022’s wet spring. Less than one million acres went into the ground last season, a number not seen since 2012.

“A lot of it was growers deciding to maybe hold off on soybeans because it was getting to be a later year,” said Lange.

Those who did plant the crop in 2022 reaped big benefits. Conditions were friendly and yields jumped.

“We actually broke a record last year. Provincially, we [were] at 45 bushels per acre on average,” said Lange.

Today, the five-year average yield for the soybeans sits around 35 bushels per acre, while Lange put the 10-year average at 36. Current conditions indicate the 2023 crop will average around 34 bu./ acre.

“With the lack of moisture in some regions, especially in that July and August period, you really saw a yield drop in those early harvest beans,” Lange said. “For anything harvested towards the end of August and early September, those yields were coming in from 20 to 30 bushels per acre, and there were some under 20.”

He was unsurprised by those numbers because there wasn’t enough moisture to keep the beans from prematurely finishing off. Longer-maturing crops are likely better.

“What we are seeing now are areas that had better rainfall through July,” he said. “We are starting to see 30- to 40-bushel yields pretty consistently now.”

In areas that received good moisture, Lange says some soybean fields have 50 to 60 bu./acre.

As of Sept. 21, Manitoba soybean harvest was about 21 per cent complete, with the central region leading the way. About 45 per cent of soybeans were harvested in that region.

Lange said seed moisture is around 12 per cent, and some growers report green, immature seeds. Though those seeds will dry down, too many can be a problem.

“Use your judgment when you’re out there. If you’re seeing a lot of green pods come in, you may want to wait for a couple of days.”

Lange has also been questioned about pre-harvest aids like glyphosate or Reglone, but cautioned farmers not to apply too early and to be mindful of any maximum residue level requirements.

“What’s really important if you’re growing a food-grade soybean is to make sure you have that discussion with your buyer to make sure that what you’re doing in that field is going to meet their requirements for export,” said Lange. “You don’t want to be going into early-stage issues with MRLs; that could be very costly in the end.”

Dry beans

Much like soybeans, dry bean acres were greater this year at 140,000, after bottoming out last year at 115,000.

Pinto bean acres jumped from 61,000 to 82,000 and black beans jumped from 20,000 acres to 30,000. Navy beans, kidney beans and cranberry bean acres remained relatively consistent year-over-year.

“When you look at the yield in 2022, we had near-perfect growing conditions for dry beans,” said Lange.

Dry bean growers in 2022 saw record yields as well, with a high of just over 2,300 pounds per acre. But once again, Lange predicts yields slightly below average yields this year of 1,700 lb./acre. The five-year average for dry beans is 1,860 lb./acre and the 10-year average is 1,776 lb.

Seed moisture has been lower because of dry conditions. Lange puts it in the 12-13 per cent range, but added that, “even with the drier seed moisture, the crack seed coats have been low, typically under 10 per cent.”

Early yields range from 1,200-1,500 lb./acre, but Lange said those numbers are beginning to improve.

“Now we’re getting into the harvest portion here where the better quality beans are coming off, the beans that had more moisture, so our ranges are anywhere from 1,500 to 2,500 lb./acre.”

Hard frost has been reported in a few regions, but didn’t cause significant damage.

“Frost on dry beans can be quite devastating if the crop isn’t mature enough, but in these instances, because there was green leaf material, it actually protected the pod,” Lange noted.

Dry bean harvest was expected to wrap up by the end of September.

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Manitoba soybean yields are “anywhere from 20 to 50” bushels per acre, said Mark Jorgenson of Delmar Commodities. Crops were looking “exceptional” up until the end of July, he said, “but the tap just turned off and a lot of guys got nothing (for precipitation) in August.

“You got it, or you didn’t, and that’s how the yields are showing,” said Jorgenson, adding that even neighbouring fields were reporting different yields due to sporadic shower activity.

Average soybean yields in the province are typically in the high 30s to low 40s in bushels per acre, but Jorgenson expects the average to be in the lower 30s in 2018.

With a lower acreage base to start, Statistics Canada is currently predicting soybean production in the province to come in at 1.77 million tonnes, which would be down from the record 2.25 million tonnes grown the previous year but still above the five-year average.

While Manitoba soybean production may be down, prices will continue to be dictated by the U.S. “At the end of the day, we obviously can’t replace the loss of U.S. beans. We’re a much smaller acreage base,” said Jorgenson.

“There is uncertainty in the market with all of the tariffs,” he said, pointing to the ongoing trade dispute between the U.S. and China weighing on soybean futures prices.

“China still needs to eat and they have a huge appetite for soybeans,” said Jorgenson. Canadian soybeans were seeing some additional demand due to the U.S./China dispute, he added, with good new-crop pricing opportunities available earlier in the year.

While Canadian prices usually follow the U.S. “every once in a while somebody needs to fill a train… and flat prices shoot up.

“I think there will be opportunities, and you just need to be patient,” he added.

— Phil Franz-Warkentin writes for Commodity News Service Canada, a Glacier FarmMedia company specializing in grain and commodity market reporting.

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Many crop analysts see soybean yields below what farmers have enjoyed for the past couple of years, but they stress that fields are variable and that longer-season varieties may give different results once harvest begins on those types.

Cassandra Tkachuk, Manitoba Pulse and Soybean Growers’ production specialist, said she is seeing smaller seeds and a wide range of yields from 20 to 50 bushels per acre.

“So, I think we might end up somewhere in the middle of the road there for average yield, like around 35-ish, would be my prediction,” she said.

The average soybean yield for Manitoba is generally considered to be about 35 bu./ac. Farmers expecting the above-average yields of the past two years might be disappointed.

Bruce Burnett, Glacier FarmMedia’s director of weather and markets information, said soybeans are coming in at lower yields than they have for the past two years, but overall yields might get close to the longer-term average.

“I think the early soybeans might be a bit disappointing in terms of yields, but we’ll have to see what the later soybeans come up with.”

The issue most affecting yields was the dry summer, especially in the key filling time in August, he said. The number of beans per pod is down and pod size is also a concern, he added.

Intermittent rains falling in many areas likely won’t be enough to harm plants, he said, unless it drags on and fields get exceptionally wet.

Soybean fields were just starting to mature up when the rains started, Tkachuk said. Farmers in the Red River Valley have taken off about 40 per cent of their soybeans, with farmers in other areas of the province lagging.

“I’m thinking that right around the time that the rain started, quite a few fields were really just maturing up and getting ready to be harvested, and then it was just not great timing to finish up,” she said.

With a few dry days, harvest should be able to progress, she said.

Burnett pointed to decent weather forecasts for the next little while, but it’s variable, he added.

The southern Prairies’ weather outlook is mostly OK through the weekend, he said, but with possible showers for Monday and into next week, depending on location.

Northern growing areas, where cereals and canola were still being harvested, might have a few more problems, he said.

“It’s one of those things where if you’re in the northern growing areas you’re getting some rains every two or three days.”

— Terry Fries writes for Commodity News Service Canada, a Winnipeg company specializing in grain and commodity market reporting. Follow CNS Canada at @CNSCanada on Twitter.

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“This year we had just over 1.6 million acres planted. Early projections call for two million acres” next year, said Dennis Lange, pulse specialist for Manitoba Agriculture.

For that to occur, some other crops will have to make room. Canola could be one of the crops to feel the pinch, along with peas and a few others, Lange said.

“We saw a rise (in field peas) last year. But we’ve had some weather conditions, especially in the south, so we’ll probably see those acres drop off.”

Soybeans held their own this year despite the wet weather, he said. Average yields hit a record 41.3 bu./ac. in the province in 2016, according to data from Statistics Canada. That’s up by about four bushels an acre from the previous record.

“I’m saying we could see 42-bu./ac.-a-year averages,” he said, adding the picture would become clearer once crop insurance data had been tabulated.

Low fertilizer costs are yet another reason behind soybeans’ attractiveness.

However, some of the factors that producers should consider before planting include seed costs and the long growing season needed for a successful harvest, Lange said.

“What growers have to remember is that we haven’t had a killing frost in soybeans in over six years,” he noted.

Soybeans are typically planted in May and harvested in mid- to late September, said Lange.

However, he said, 2016 was an exception due to the wet weather.

“This year it went into late October due to the late weather but with commodity prices being strong, growers have had good yields, good returns,” he said.

Meanwhile, it appears U.S. soybean acres will grow as well. A recent forecast by Informa Economics predicted U.S. growers could plant six per cent more soybeans in 2017, which would bring the U.S. crop’s area to 88.4 million acres.

— Dave Sims writes for Commodity News Service Canada, a Winnipeg company specializing in grain and commodity market reporting.

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“Overall, fields have been pretty good this year provincially,” Dennis Lange, Manitoba Agriculture’s pulse specialist, said Oct. 13 in an interview. “We are probably looking maybe at 40 to 42 bushels an acre for a provincial average. That’s just an estimate, we don’t have final numbers yet.”

Lange’s estimate assumes the remaining 25 to 30 per cent of soybeans still in the fields as of last week are successfully harvested.

Manitoba’s record provincial average soybean yield of 38.5 bushels an acre, based on crop insurance data, was set in 2013. Last year’s average was close at 38.3.

The 10- and five-year averages are 33 and 35 bushels an acre, respectively.

Dale Alderson, of Intel Seeds at Oakville, predicts a provincial average soybean yield of 40 to 45 bushels an acre.

“Soybean yields were tremendous where there wasn’t a lot of standing water,” he said.

• Read more: Soybean yields may be major thorn in bulls’ sides

Based on weigh-wagon tests, Alderson said he saw yields of the same variety vary from 62 bushels an acre to 37, depending on moisture conditions. The lower yield was in excessively wet fields.

Soybeans, famous for how they tolerate wet conditions, can only take so much, Lange said.

“There will be yields of 10 to 15 bushels an acre,” he said. “By the same token I have also heard of yields of 45 to 55 bushels an acre this year too. I’ve heard of yields higher than that, but that was from (combine) yield monitors and I take them with a grain of salt.

“You hear about the really good numbers, but not so much about the poor ones.”

Soybeans generally did so well in Manitoba Lange said two million acres of the crop in 2017 wouldn’t be a surprise. That would be a 25 per cent jump from the record 1.6 million acres of soybeans seeded this spring, including 78,000 acres of pedigreed soybeans.

For a number of years soybeans have been Manitoba’s third-largest-acreage crop, behind canola and red spring wheat respectively.

“Interest in soybean seed is up this fall,” Alderson said. “That generally follows a good experience.”

More farmers are booking soybean seed earlier too, he said, probably to ensure they get the variety they want.

“The one caution I have with producers growing more acres of soybeans, or any crop, is that we haven’t had (an early-fall) frost in five or six years,” Lange said. “Keep those kinds of things in mind when expanding acres… and putting all your eggs in one basket as they say.”

As of Oct. 13, an estimated 70 to 75 per cent of Manitoba’s soybean crop had been harvested.

“In the south we are maybe a little higher, but you can still drive around and find soybeans that haven’t been harvested yet for one reason or another,” Lange said. “It might have been too wet to get in, or it was a little longer-season variety that wasn’t ready during the last time guys were threshing.

“There are soybeans out west that haven’t been harvested yet. There was a lot of rain out west last week. Some areas had over 100 mm.”

Ripe standing soybeans can tolerate wet fall weather, although some are subject to shattering after going through several wet-dry cycles, Lange said. However, that’s less of a risk during cooler weather, he added.

With good yields and soybean prices of $11 or more a bushel there is good reason for farmers to try and get the rest of the soybean crop off this fall, Lange said.

“Some growers have had some real challenges this year (harvesting) just because how wet it has been,” he said. “A number of growers has purchased track and rear-wheel assists for their combines.”

Most American buyers want soybeans under 13 per cent moisture. Soybeans with higher moisture content will have to be aerated or dried if levels warrant.

“Drying becomes another issue,” Lange said. “You can’t dry soybeans at high temperatures. One hundred to 110 F is the maximum. You can’t put a lot of heat to them otherwise you will split them and the quality goes down.”

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The U.S. Agriculture Department on Monday raised expected demand for U.S. soybeans during the 2016-17 crop year by 35 million bushels, of which 25 million for exports and 10 million for crushings.

But the already record production outlook was raised by a whopping 141 million bushels, with increased yield forecasts from top production states Iowa and Illinois leading the charge amid near-perfect growing weather during the key development month of August.

“We have a phenomenal demand story in the soy complex,” said Greg Grow, director of agribusiness for Archer Financial Services. “(But) with the much greater than normal August, rains, it is still probable that the final bean yields… could go up a bit more.”

Demand may have topped out, he added.

USDA’s forecast for 2016-17 soybean demand has risen by 136 million bushels since the government’s initial assessment in May, largely due to expectations of an additional 100 million in exports. Its outlook for U.S. production has climbed by 401 million bushels during the same period.

The benchmark Chicago Board of Trade November soybean futures contract, which tracks the crop currently heading toward maturity across the U.S. Midwest, fell 16 cents to settle at $9.64-1/4 on Monday (all figures US$). Soy futures snapped a six session winning streak.

The market may already be factoring in a huge U.S. soybean harvest that is nearly in the bag, but the possibility of another year of shortfalls in Brazil and Argentina could keep the bears at bay, said Ted Seifried, chief ag market strategist for Zaner Group.

The strong demand pull throughout 2016 was enough to limit declines as the U.S. crop flourished during the summer, and could provide support as combines roll across the Midwest this fall.

Soybean futures fell 12.6 per cent during June, July, August, outperforming corn, which plunged 22.1 per cent, and wheat, which sank 16.4 per cent, during the same time frame.

“Though there’s a bearish reaction to this report, I’m not so sure this is really that bearish of a report,” Seifried said, referring to the latest outlook from the USDA. “I think that soybeans new crop carry-over is not a big enough cushion for if something goes wrong with the South American growing season.”

— Mark Weinraub is a Reuters correspondent covering grain markets from Chicago. Additional reporting for Reuters by P.J. Huffstutter in Chicago.

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