2025 Digital Yield Tour - Nebraska

By Todd Neeley DTN Environmental Editor and By Russ Quinn DTN Staff Reporter

LINCOLN, Neb. (DTN) -- After the 2025 growing season started very dry in much of Nebraska, an active moisture pattern developed in late spring and timely rains continued through the summer.

While Nebraska's corn crop may not beat 2021's 194-bushel-per-acre (bpa) record, the DTN Digital Yield Tour forecasts an above-average corn yield, with 30 of the state's 93 counties estimated to average 200 bpa or more in 2025. That's down from 41 counties last year.

CORN YIELD ESTIMATES:

-- DTN 2025: 187.8

-- DTN 2024: 198.3

-- USDA RMA 5-YEAR AVERAGE: 176.5 bpa

SOYBEAN YIELD ESTIMATES:

-- DTN 2025: 57.6 bpa

-- DTN 2024: 61.8 bpa

-- USDA RMA 5-YEAR AVERAGE: 59 bpa

While the DTN Digital Yield Tour is in its eighth season, this is the second that employs DTN's proprietary crop yield models. For more about how those models work, what makes them unique and some of the challenges posed by conditions this growing season, please see: https://www.dtnpf.com/….

Results for all states covered by the tour can be found here: https://www.dtnpf.com/….

Updated yield estimates will be shared in a DTN Ag Summit Series webinar on Aug. 19, along with fall weather and market outlooks. You can register for free here: https://dtn.link/….

WEATHER COMMENTS

"It looked really dire going into the spring planting season in Nebraska," DTN Ag Meteorologist John Baranick said. "Sustained drought from last summer spread across almost the entire state, and the rainfall early in the spring was not very good. But May came around and really took off, and the weather has been great since then. Lots of rainfall events have meant significant reduction in drought across the state. Though some pockets of drought still exist across the west and south, it's a far cry from where we started the year. Some areas that were in D3 drought in April are no longer in a drought category. That's unusual to accomplish in the summer: The state is usually going the other way, getting drier," he said.

"The June-July period ranks as the 10th wettest over the last 133 years. But that rain has also come with some hazards. Significant flood events have occurred as well as severe weather. Severe winds have been more common than hail this year, which is down from average; but hail has still had an effect in many areas this year," noted Baranick.

"While some bursts of heat have been noteworthy and may have come when corn was actively pollinating in mid-late July, DTN's analysis points to Nebraska as having a nearly average or slightly above-normal June-July period of temperatures," Baranick added.

MARKET COMMENTS

"Nebraska is interesting this year, given the lingering drought yet vast improvement in rain coverage over the past couple of months after a dry winter," DTN Lead Analyst Rhett Montgomery said. "I found it interesting that for corn, the DTN model is estimating 187.8 bpa compared to the model's 198.3 bpa last year, despite weekly USDA crop ratings being slightly higher this year for corn in Nebraska -- 74% good to excellent at the end of July last year compared to 77% this year."

Montgomery said, as of July 31, the drought monitor showed 33.83% of Nebraska still in some sort of drought. It's 62% if you include abnormally dry areas. That is significantly higher than last year's 7.8% reading to close July.

"Also, for comparison, Nebraska's yield for corn -- at least in the eyes of NASS (National Agricultural Statistics Service) -- fell 6 bpa from their August estimate to the 'final' January estimate," he said.

"For soybeans, this August's estimate is also a touch lower than last year's at this time of 61.8 bpa. Weekly USDA crop conditions are showing steady to slightly improved conditions for soybeans across the state this year as compared to late July 2024. Again, perhaps the lingering drought, especially for the western growing areas, is playing a role here."

Montgomery said state soybean yield estimates from NASS have declined from August to the final estimate in four of the past five years, with only 2021 showing improvement during that period.

OBSERVATIONS

-- Casey Cooksley, Custer County, Nebraska:

Casey Cooksley farms and raises cattle in Custer County, Nebraska, near Broken Bow. The area is near the geographical center of the state and on the edge of the state's famous Sandhills region.

The growing season of 2025 has certainly been an interesting one, Cooksley told DTN.

The spring months of March, April and May were extremely dry until the end of May, when rain finally began to fall.

Most of the spring crops were able to get planted in a timely fashion with no rain. Stands suffered some once the rain began again in late May as cool conditions came to the area. This caused some uneven stands and yellow corn.

Cooksley said warmer weather in June and July finally pushed the crop along, and the rain has so far continued into August.

"Currently we are sitting good on moisture, but we have had a solid week of overcast, cool and cloudy weather," Cooksley told DTN. "Pollination has been a concern along with tip back and the lack of sunlight."

Farmers' focus right now is monitoring crops for diseases, including tar spot, southern rust and northern corn leaf blight, which has been spreading recently.

Cooksley said growers in his area have become proactive with their fungicide treatments for both corn and soybeans. Hopefully, a second fungicide application will not be needed due to high input costs with lower commodity prices, he said.

As for yields farmers could see in the region, Cooksley said he is not sure what to expect.

The five-year average for Custer County irrigated corn yields, according to USDA's Risk Management Agency, is 222.7 bpa with yields last season at 218.7 bpa.

For irrigated soybeans, the five-year average in the county is 67.5 bpa.

Irrigated yields could be slightly lower because of the various issues the crop has faced this growing season, while dryland yields might be higher thanks to the recent rains.

"In the past few years, a lot of our yield has been decided in late August and September when we have some severe heat and drought stress," he said. "The guys that stay ahead on water and also put on later applications of nitrogen are rewarded for doing so in bushels and crop conditions at harvest."

-- Scott McPheeters, Dawson County, Nebraska:

The 2025 growing season started off extremely dry in Dawson County in west-central Nebraska, according to fifth-generation corn and soybean farmer Scott McPheeters. But it's since seen a major turnaround in moisture.

He said it was "discouragingly dry" until Memorial Day weekend.

"We started out just incredibly dry and then kind of planted into drier conditions. Some people even had to pre-water with their pivots, especially if you had a cover crop," he said. "But it looked kind of dismal, and then over Memorial Day weekend it started to rain and we got 10 inches of rain in 10 days, which is half of our annual rainfall almost."

Many farmers in the Gothenburg, Nebraska, area haven't even run their pivots since that 10-day stretch. As of the latest U.S. Drought Monitor, just the southeast corner of the county was abnormally dry.

Though McPheeters' corn crop is "far from made," the timely rains have made it so "we're just pretty close to about as ideal as you can get."

Hitting the 200-bpa range on corn shouldn't be too difficult, he said.

Last season, the average yield for Dawson County irrigated corn came in at 205.8 bpa with the five-year average at 221.8 bpa, according to USDA's Risk Management Agency.

McPheeters said his corn crop is a little late and is just finishing pollination.

On the soybean side, he said it's just too soon to tell. The five-year average for Dawson County is 69.4 bpa on irrigated beans, according to the RMA.

"I would say there's nothing that looks bad," McPheeters said. "A good bean yield here is 70, and if you really ring the bell, you get 80, but it seems like it ought to be 70 anyway."

-- Daren Niemeyer, Webster County, Nebraska:

Daren Niemeyer farms near Bladen, Nebraska, growing both irrigated and dryland corn and soybeans in Webster County in the south-central part of the state.

Like much of Nebraska this spring, he too had extremely dry field conditions, planted in a timely fashion and began to irrigate his fields.

The rain came in late May and June, and he really has not run his center pivot irrigation systems much because of the regular rains.

Niemeyer said he watered crops to actively apply herbicides and some fertilizer through the pivot, but the regular rains have limited the need to run the pivots.

"It just seems like we have had a chance of rain every two or three days, and we have gotten just enough most of the time to keep the crops going," Niemeyer told DTN.

The interesting thing about all the moisture this summer in his region, he said, is that there have been very few severe storms. In recent years, many areas of the state have seen a lot of crop damage from hailstorms. This year not so much.

Niemeyer said another interesting weather aspect of the 2025 growing season has been the high level of humidity.

The high humidity is not good for human comfort, but it is good news for crops with high levels of moisture. The downside to more moisture in the environment is that the level of diseases is higher, Niemeyer said.

He applied fungicides to all of corn acres but decided not to apply the product to his soybean acres, Niemeyer said. With the high cost of inputs and lower commodity prices, he said he chose to limit fungicide applications.

As for the yield potential of his crops, Niemeyer said he believes they could yield above average depending on how the growing season wraps up.

Irrigated corn in Webster County has a five-year average yield of 216.6 bpa, while non-irrigated corn's five-year average is 119.8 bpa, according to the RMA. Irrigated soybeans have a five-year average of 67.9 bpa in the county while non-irrigated averaged 40.3 bpa.

He said his corn is pretty much made, minus some test weight, but soybeans yields could still be affected by weather conditions in August and September.

"Things can change really fast with beans, especially out here; but I'm pretty happy with where our crops are right now," Niemeyer said.

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Editor's note: DTN will make its proprietary crop yield predictions available to members for the 2026 growing season, in an interactive experience. Members will be able to see bi-weekly updates on yield at the state, county and field level. The yield data will be found exclusively on DTN's new site that will launch in early 2026. This site will include DTN's agriculture news, markets commentary, weather forecasting and a number of farm operation features, such as yield predictions, agronomic models and transactional tools. If you'd like to receive updates on the new platform and get early access, you can sign up here: https://dtn.link/….

Todd Neeley can be reached at todd.neeley@dtn.com

Follow him on social platform X @DTNeeley

Russ Quinn can be reached at russ.quinn@dtn.com

Follow him on social platform X @RussQuinnDTN

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