Expectations were high among scouts as they headed out on Day Three of the Pro Farmer Crop Tour Wednesday in Illinois and Western Iowa. Doug Miller from Northeast Iowa is in his 21st year of scouting on the Eastern Leg of Tour.
“Ear counts have been, I would say, probably a little on the low side. I mean, normally anymore in order to get yield, you have to have your ear counts up there. And there were gaps in the corn, so I’m telling you that it didn’t emerge right or there was something wrong there.”
Which showed in the numbers, with the Illinois Corn Yield estimate at 184.19 bushels an acre, the lowest since 2019.
“We got our boots, our feet muddy, and we got into the corn. I mean, they’ve got good corn, but there’s more tip back, and I think they’ve had a few issues during the summertime with this crop. But it’s going to be a good crop, but I don’t think it’s going to be a record crop.”
The findings were a bit better on beans, with over 1,400 pods in a three-by-three-foot square. That’s down just over three percent from 2025 but is about three percent above the three-year average. The Western Leg covered Western Iowa yesterday:
“The first two pulls were rather underwhelming. This last stop that we just had is, I think, the biggest corn yield estimate I’ve seen. Stand is good. Population is good. Ear count’s consistently over 100 on the two 30-foot rows combined.”
Scout Ted Siefried says the soybeans appear to be the better of the crops, which the Crop Tour results showed. Pro Farmer releases yield estimates for the three westernmost of Iowa’s nine crop-reporting districts. All three soybean pod counts were a touch lower than 2026, yet quite a bit above the three-year average, while corn was three-to-eight percent less than a year ago and around the three-year average.
Pro Farmer Data Analyst Emily Carolan says she has one big question heading into today’s final day of scouting.
“It’s good Iowa corn, right? It is. But is it as good to pull this average yield across the nation up the way that we had the expectations towards?
The rest of the Iowa projections along with the Minnesota numbers will be out later today.