Good Weather – Variable Results
The 2025 harvest progressed smoothly. As of this writing in late October 2025, all the soybeans have been combined, and over 2/3 of the corn is done. In what seems like a yearly trend, warm and dry weather in September and October sped maturity of the crops, allowing for an early start to harvest again this year.
Soybean yields were expected to be good this year, given ample rainfall through mid-August. On many farms these expectations were met, and in some cases exceeded, with some farms having record yields. In most cases, however, top end was limited, most likely from too much moisture in late July.
In the wettest areas, drown out spots were visual evidence of this, but watching combine yield monitors was instructive, with the heavier soils not doing as well as adjacent lighter soils. The adage “soybeans don’t like wet feet” still applies.
Another factor capping yields was the rapid dry down of the crops. Ideal moisture to harvest soybeans is 12-14%, but with warm, dry days, the beans rapidly dropped below this level, and harvesting at 8-10% moisture leaves a few bushels/acre behind.
Corn Yields – The Year of Southern Rust
Corn yields have been more variable than soybeans with the widest variance in results within a local area that we can remember. The main reason – Southern Rust. This fungus moves up from the south and thrives on warm, moist conditions.
Our record wet July provided the perfect environment for a rapid influx of rust. While a good share of our crops are treated with fungicide in mid to late July, the rust infestation had such ideal conditions to proliferate into mid-August that most plants had rust evident on upper leaves the last few weeks of the growing season.
Too much leaf damage leads to reduced sunlight absorption, and poor ear fill. This has resulted in lower than expected yield results in many fields.
The damage done by rust was by no means uniform. Differences in yield due to seed variety, number of fungicide applications, timing and product, planting date and fertility are all factors that made a difference and will be a learning experience that we can hopefully tap if the same environmental circumstances happen again.
As in soybeans, there are farms with record corn yields this year, but in the same neighborhood there can be fields with well below average results. In general, we feel the top end of what looked like an overall record crop has been lost to rust this year.
Also, as in soybeans, corn has dried down rapidly. This is due to weather but in some cases exacerbated by premature death of the plant where rust was excessive. A plus to this is that drying costs will be low this year, but a downside is overly dry corn loses yield from foregone water weight and extra harvest loss.
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