2025 Digital Yield Tour--September

MT. JULIET, Tenn. (DTN) -- Rains continue across the Western Corn Belt, leading DTN's yield models to increase forecasts for corn yields by 4 to 7 bushels in Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota. Corn yield estimates for most of the remaining eight states covered in the Digital Yield Tour held steady or rose slightly. Illinois was the only state that saw yield estimates decline, with a drop of 0.75 bushel.

Soybean yield estimates followed a similar pattern, although Missouri also joined Illinois in the declining category. Western Corn Belt states saw soybean yield estimates climb by 1 to 4 bushels per acre (bpa). A chart of the state-by-state results is below.

"This may be contrary to the chatter on the ground about various diseases and growing conditions that are expected to negatively impact yield," DTN Data Scientist Scott Williams said, adding that the model represents a best-case scenario based on satellite, weather, soil and agronomic data.

Currently, the model doesn't account for factors that aren't visible or measurable, like diseases.

"The model weights all data inputs equally, meaning that early-season conditions have the same value in the model's viewpoint as late-season conditions," he said. "This may bias the model towards a rosier outlook if early-season conditions are especially good, and we recognize the possible need to weight the impact of late-season effects more strongly as they can lead to drastic reductions in the crops' overall yield without hope of recovery."

Erik Oberbroekling, who farms near Garnavillo, Iowa, said that earlier this summer, he thought his farm could beat last year's record of 255 bpa. Now, he thinks it'll probably be the farm's second-highest average yield, closer to 240 bpa.

"I don't think it's out there," he said of DTN's September estimate of 225.5 bpa for the state of Iowa. "We're going to be good, but I don't think we're going to be that good. We've had too many warm nights for too long of a period of time."

Then there's disease. Oberbroekling said it's the first year he's applied two applications of fungicide to combat northern corn leaf blight and southern rust, which is a new disease in his area. "You can tell right down to the row where it didn't get sprayed," he said.

It's worse where his relatives farm in central Iowa. Some of the corn was at 20% moisture and nearly ready for harvest in the last week of August.

"It's going to be hard to have maximum yield on a crop that gave up a month of sunshine," he said.

Disease pressure has been much lighter in soybeans, and he thinks this year's crop could exceed the farm's 67-bpa average. Rainfall has been regular in August, and the farm received another inch this week.

DTN Ag Meteorologist John Baranick described August and early September weather as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

"The western half of the Corn Belt, generally west of the Mississippi River, did just fine. We had several systems move through, and they brought plenty of precipitation, especially from South Dakota down through Kansas. A lot of areas saw above-normal amounts, but it wasn't solid across the region. There were some gaps, like you would typically expect, and Missouri was left much drier," he said.

Temperatures were up and down, with a cool stretch to end the month. While temperatures were similarly variable in the Eastern Corn Belt, rainfall was scarce.

"It was very dry, and some areas saw very little or even no rainfall during the month. What started off as a fairly decent season through July had a very poor end. Yield declines are likely in these areas because of it," Baranick said.

DTN Lead Analyst Rhett Montgomery said the truth about yields won't be known until combines roll. He said that every yield model is trained differently, and this time of year, it may be hard for a model to distinguish between normal crop dry-down and damage or disease pressure.

"That being said, the Western Corn Belt states are hard to argue against, and it may be a tug of war between declining eastern yields and steady-to-improved western yield forecasts as harvest kicks off," he said.

Looking at the corn market, where the national average yield lands is almost an afterthought, Montgomery said if the yield ultimately fell to 180 bpa, but harvested acreage remains at the estimates of 88 million acres, it would still be a record corn crop by around 500 million bushels.

"The same concerns for the Eastern Belt are present, if not higher, for soybeans just due to the geography and prevalence of soybean acres from northeast Arkansas up through Ohio -- all areas that were mighty dry through pod fill," he said, adding that USDA's weekly Crop Progress report showed good-to-excellent ratings drop 5 percentage points in two weeks and below where they were last year.

"Opposite of corn, however, the yield feels to be extremely important this year," he said. "Obviously, we still have a lot to learn about new crop export demand with China on the sidelines, but through my studies, I am still fairly confident of a 1.6-to-1.7-billion-bushel export program. That, with the expected crush demand, leaves very little room for a yield slip, or we will be pushing stocks to the limit by summer 2026. Of course, the Sept. 30 stocks report will be very important as well in solidifying where we are for carry in stocks as well."

Williams explained how the DTN yield models work in a recent Ag Summit Series webinar. You can view that here: https://www.youtube.com/….

DYT Results 2025

CORN (bushels per acre)

STATE	DTN DYTSEPTEMBER	DTN DYTAUGUST	DTN DYT2024	RMA 5-Year Average
Illinois	219.3	220.1	211.8	212.0
Indiana	206.1	206.1	196.0	204.6
Iowa	225.5	223.7	205.0	205.6
Kansas	142.6	138.7	NA	111.4
Minnesota	200.6	199.1	186.7	186.7
Missouri	190.0	187.7	170.1	166.3
Nebraska	194.6	187.8	198.3	176.5
North Dakota	156.2	151.9	NA	140.7
Ohio	195.6	193.7	190.8	192.2
South Dakota	177.1	169.2	166.7	153.8
Wisconsin	195.3	194.3	183.0	180.9

SOYBEANS (bushels per acre)

STATE	DTN DYT SEPTEMBER	DTN DYT AUGUST	DTN DYT2024	RMA 5-Year Average
Illinois	63.9	64.5	61.5	66.0
Indiana	61.3	60.5	58.7	62.0
Iowa	62.4	62.3	59.4	61.0
Kansas	45.4	42.8	NA	37.8
Minnesota	52.7	51.3	51.4	49.0
Missouri	50.1	50.4	49.7	51.0
Nebraska	58.9	57.6	61.8	59.0
North Dakota	37.6	34.7	NA	34.6
Ohio	55.9	52.7	56.4	59.0
South Dakota	47.9	43.8	50.1	47.0
Wisconsin	51.7	51.6	54.4	53.0

Katie Dehlinger can be reached at katie.dehlinger@dtn.com

Follow her on social platform X @KatieD_DTN

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