Live Coverage: Pro Farmer Crop Tour sweeps across Iowa and Minnesota
It’s the final day of the Tour, with scouts wrapping up a comprehensive, seven-state sweep of key corn and soybean-producing states.
The four-day Pro Farmer Crop Tour concludes today with an assessment of crops in Minnesota and Iowa. Scouts this week have pulled thousands of samples in the first comprehensive, from-the-field look at corn and soybean crop potential across seven key growing states. Follow reports from the field, market reaction and expert analysis below.
Central and eastern Iowa have a lot of ‘heavy lifting’ to do for state’s corn crop to meet expectations
Corn yields largely across the Tour states so far have failed to impress. Illinois on Wednesday produced an average of 184.19 bushels per acre, down 7.7% from 2025 and 7.5% below the three-year average. USDA last week forecast the yield to fall 0.9% from 2025 to 212 bushels per acre. Pro Farmer Economist Lane Akre, who is leading the eastern leg of the Tour, noted during Wednesday night’s results presentation that the state’s Tour yield was the lowest since 2019. It comes after corn yields in Ohio and Indiana fell from last year’s Tour levels in contrast to USDA expectations as of Aug. 1 for larger yields in both states. The weak showing for the eastern Corn Belt has been a surprise — and a disappointment to expectations the region would make up for drought-stressed corn in the western Corn Belt.
In the west, scouts on Wednesday surveyed three crop districts in western Iowa, finding corn yields and soybean pod counts down from last year but up from the three-year average. Scouts will complete a look at the rest of Iowa on Thursday. Those initial results mean “we need to do a lot of heavy lifting in the center part of the state and the eastern part of the state. And that’s what the expectations are,” said Chip Flory, who is leading the western leg of the Tour. USDA forecast Iowa’s average corn yield to rise to 216 bushels per acre this year from 210 bushels last yer.