“Potential” is the word that keeps coming to mind about the 2025 crop after day one. Last year was similar, as we saw dryness across the Corn Belt rather than an especially wet west and dry east. Drought was persistent across the Midwest last year with lack of rain really taking the top end off of crops’ potential. This year is more of a tale of two crops – South Dakota inundated with rain and Ohio being the driest we have seen since 2008, as rated by scouts. The 2025 Crop Tour kicked off as scouts left Dublin, Ohio (a suburb of Columbus). This year’s crop has garnered a lot of attention and scouts were eager to get into the field to see if this year’s crop is able to live up to the hype.
My route took me just north of Columbus and then basically dead west into Indiana, just north of Greenville, Ohio. It started with a lot of variability for both corn and soybeans, with a mid-route update had me quoted as calling the crop “consistently variable” in Monday mornings episode of AgriTalk. Our first stop of the day happened to be the smallest sample while the second was the largest. That inconsistency changed as we entered western Ohio and into Indiana. Yields started to stabilize around 200-220 bu. per acre for the most part. The key we will be looking at tomorrow as we head into the western portion of Indiana is how the crop has held up to some heavier rainfall. Soybeans started similarly, seeing a lot of variability, but as we were deeper into our route the pods really started to show up as we has several samples north of 2,000 pods. That shows the potential of the crop, but rains are needed to realize some of that opportunity.
Last year we saw similar potential in Ohio after day one. The top-end of the crop was taken off after the third week of August and Ohio corn and beans did not live up to our expectations. That is not anticipated again this year as USDA foresees yield rebounding to 196 bu. per acre in corn (2 bu. short of a record but up 19 bu. from a year ago) and 57 bu. per acre in soybeans (1 bu. short of a record but up 7 bu. from a year-ago). Both behind the records set in 2023, which was widely seen as the new “standard” for what Ohio can do. The samples scouts pulled from Ohio topped the previous record set in 2021 for the Tour and was up 1.3% from a year ago. Soybean pods totaled 1287.3 in a 3x3 foot square, up 15.9% from a year ago but still well short of the record set in 2006. Ohio’s long-standing record in pod counts is not uncommon, as the amount of pods is not necessarily indicative of what the crop can yield, but is a better gauge in the size of the “factory” of the area in a sampled field.