Fundamentally Speaking

Despite a drop in the combined soybean good to excellent ratings by 1% to 68% vs last week, crop conditions as measured by the USDA are among the best in years.

This is one of the key reasons why the trade expects a record 2025 U.S. soybean yield projection in this week' s first crop production report of the season.

Interestingly, while U.S. corn yields have seen records three of the past four seasons, it has been eight years since the USDA posted an all-time high soybean yield of 51.9 bushels per acre (bpa) back in 2016.

This graphic plots the USDA 2025, average and maximum soybean ratings for the period 2000-2025 by week on the left-hand axis.

For this we use our usual ratings system where we weigh the crops based on the percentage in each category and assign that category a factor of 2 for very poor, 4 for poor, 6 for fair, 8 for good, and 10 for excellent and then sum the results.

Reported on the right-hand axis is the percent that this year's weekly soybean ratings deviate from the 2000-2025 average and how the maximum rating ever that week deviated from that average.

This year's U.S. soybean rating has essentially stayed steady at a time when ratings seasonally decline.

The week 32 soybean rating this week at 748 is the fifth highest since 2000 and 4.6% above the 2000-2025 week 32 average of 715.

A simple linear regression using the percent yields deviated from the 25-year trend vs 2000-2025 week 32 crop ratings indicates this year's soybean yield should be 1.3% above trend and with the 25-year trend this season at 52.9, this works out to 53.5 bpa, which is just below the August 2025 USDA projection given this week at 53.6 bpa.

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