About Pro Farmer Crop Tour

2024 Crop Tour Schedule  |  Frequently Asked Questions.   

The Pro Farmer Crop Tour’s primary goal is to provide the industry with accurate growing season information about likely corn and soybean yields at the state and regional levels during the upcoming harvest season.

Crop Tour's data-gathering methods are disciplined and produce consistent results. Results from the Tour have a big impact on Pro Farmer Newsletter’s annual crop production estimate released at week’s end. But observations gathered during the Tour can be just as important as the data itself.

“We pull enough samples to provide us with accurate data for a large geographic area. The Pro Farmer Crop Tour does not attempt to predict actual yields for individual fields or even a county, but we do want to have a good handle on likely yields for each of the seven states we survey,” says Pro Farmer Editor Brian Grete.

Pro Farmer releases 2023 national corn and soybean estimates
Pro Farmer releases 2023 national corn and soybean estimates

Pro Farmer estimates the U.S. corn crop at 14.960 billion bu. with an average yield of 172.0 bu. per acre. We estimate the U.S. soybean crop at 4.110 billion bu. with an average yield of 49.7 bu. per acre.

2023 Crop Tour results: Minnesota
2023 Crop Tour results: Minnesota

Scouts measured average corn yield potential of 181.34 bu. per acre. Pod counts in a 3’x3’ square averaged 984.39.

2023 Crop Tour results: Iowa
2023 Crop Tour results: Iowa

Scouts measured average corn yield potential of 182.80 bu. per acre. Pod counts in a 3’x3’ square averaged 1,190.41.

2023 Crop Tour results: Illinois
2023 Crop Tour results: Illinois

Day 3--Scouts measured average corn yield potential of 193.72 bu. per acre for Illinois. Pod counts in a 3’x3’ square averaged 1,270.61.

2023 Crop Tour results: western Iowa
2023 Crop Tour results: western Iowa

Day 3--Scouts took samples from Iowa districts 1, 4 and 7. Iowa's full results will be posted at the end of day 4.