Fundamentally Speaking

This graphic shows the 2025 soybean yields for the top 18 producing states and the U.S. on the left-hand axis in bushels per acre (bpa) while reported on the right-hand axis is the percent that this year's yield deviates from the 25-year trend and the percent change vs. the 2024 final yield.

This year's 53.0 bpa national soybean yield is a record and the first one since 2016 with this nine-year timespan being one of the longest ever between record soybean yields for the U.S.

The 2025 U.S. yield comes in a mere 0.1% above the 25-year trend, albeit the first above trend national soybean yield since 2021.

One would expect when the USDA yield is a record that most of the states also had very good yields, but that is not the case this year as 10 of the 18 states actually had 2025 yields below their respective 25-year trend, especially those in the Eastern Corn Belt and Delta.

It does appear that the dry September and October in much of the eastern half of the U.S. pared soybean yields this season in that part of the country.

On the other hand, yields in some of the larger soybean producing states in the Western Corn Belt were quite strong with IA and NE having record yields with Kansas up the most vs. both the 25-year trend and compared to the 2024 yield.

On the opposite side of the ledger, Kentucky's 36 bpa yield was its lowest since 2010, off 34% from trend and down 25% vs. the prior year, the largest negative deviations in both cases for all the states followed by TN and NC.

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