Bright orange is a great color for pumpkins but not so much for corn. Nonetheless, that was the prevailing color Brent Judisch reports seeing as he evaluated crops Wednesday morning in northwest Iowa’s Harrison County.
“Our first six or seven samples were terrible with southern rust,” says Judisch, a Pro Farmer Crop Tour scout and Iowa farmer. “We saw three fields in a row that were actually gross. I walked out of them just covered with it. After that, while we’ve seen it all day, it’s been more in the lower leaves and not nearly as drastic.”
Chip Flory, lead scout for the western leg of the tour, says the northwest Iowa crop is the best and worst he’s ever seen.
“In the snapshot that we took of it, and the measurables we saw in the field today, it is the best corn crop,” Flory reported during the tour’s nightly live broadcast.
But the disease pressure in the Iowa crop has Flory spooked.
“Disease pressure is putting a lot of bushels — a huge number of bushels — at risk,” he adds. “You can take 20, 30 bushels off of corn yield with what southern rust can do to the crop, even at this late stage in the game. It’s a dangerous crop that we’re looking at out here right now.”
Can The Iowa Corn Crop Still Hit A Record?
The Iowa corn results were a big shocker on Wednesday, given the amount of disease pressure scouts saw, according to Emily Flory Carolan, Pro Farmer Crop Tour data consultant.
“I would say all three districts were setting new records. They were consistently high in all measurements for corn in ear count, inches long and kernels around,” she says.
Carolan’s summary of the results scouts tallied in Iowa revealed some high yield estimates, despite the disease pressure:
*District 1 was 197.89 bushels, up 12.06% versus 2024 and up 9.89% versus the three-year average.
*District 4 was 207.25 bushels, up 5.82% versus last year and up 14.01% versus the three-year average.
*District 7 came in at 195.03 bushels, up 1.80% versus 2024 and up 6.35% versus the three-year average.
Flory is concerned southern rust will impact standability in the Iowa crop, which he says is starting to dent in areas, and cause some of it to go down.
“I’d want to keep an eye on the stalk condition of this crop, because if this disease pressure continues, farmers are going to want to get out and prioritize fields for harvest before we get there,” he adds.
Illinois Corn Crop Looks Average
Scouts report the Illinois corn crop appears lush from the road, but once they walked out into fields, picked ears and pulled back husks, most described finding an average crop.
“We’ve seen some good corn, we’ve seen some average corn and we’ve some stuff that’s got a long way to go,” tour scout Jake Guse told U.S. Farm Report’s Tyne Morgan on Wednesday morning.
That perspective played out in the total results tallied and shared during the nightly tour meeting. Illinois corn averaged 196.19 bushels per acre, down 2.24% from last year but up 1.72% from the three-year average.
Ninth and final stop 4 miles North of Roseville, IL. Population was very good at 34,000. The yield is 213. Kernel depth is just under a 1/2 inch. Some disease was showing up here including tar spot! Soybeans had 1778 pods in 3X3 area. #oatt #pftour25 pic.twitter.com/xAcDSxJL0q
— Darren Frye (@Frye_WSS) August 20, 2025
USDA-NASS estimates released August 12 project the Illinois corn crop will come in averaging 221 bu. per acre for the state, up 4 bushels over 2024.
That’s outside what Guse’s expectations are for the state.
“As you’re driving along the road, you can see ears that are already tipped over. I just don’t see it reaching [USDA’s projection],” he says.
Lane Akre, Pro Farmer economist and host for the eastern leg of the tour, agrees with Guse. He reports pulling several samples of corn that exceeded 200-bu. per acre as well as one that only hit 143 bushels.
“The Illinois crop just wasn’t what we’d hoped,” Akre says. “USDA is anticipating a 1.7% jump from a year ago, and we’re actually down 2.2%.”
Akre’s leg of the tour went through three Illinois counties that are typically heavy hitters for corn yields: Bureau County, Henry County and Rock Island County.
“There’s really good dirt through that area, and the farmers there are very good at actively managing their crops and what they do with fertilizer, herbicide and fungicide,” Akre notes. “We saw some poor emergence and that might’ve weighed on the samples we took.”
Soybeans Could Be the Star of the Season
Soybeans offered a better yield picture for Illinois farmers than the corn crop, Akre notes.
“We didn’t have a single sample in the state that was south of 1,300 pods in a 3’x3' square. We saw a lot of pods and a lot of potential out there,” he says.
The average counts Illinois scouts recorded was even higher than what Akre found, with an average of 1,479.22 pods in a 3’x3' square area. That is up 4.24% versus 2024 and up 12.65% versus the three-year average.
Iowa soybean results across the three districts were equally impressive.
“This year’s crop is better than last year by far,” Greg Lehenbauer, Pro Farmer crop scout, told AgDay’s Michelle Rook. “They’ve had adequate rain across this part of Iowa almost all summer long.”
#pftour25 Day 3. Stop 2 Plymouth Co. IA. #Soybean pod count 816. @AgDayTV @FarmJournal @USFarmReport pic.twitter.com/GgmulwJ8UI
— Michelle Rook (@michellerookag) August 20, 2025
Carolan’s data confirmed the excellent soybeans that crop scouts found on Wednesday in all three districts:
*District 1 soybeans: 1,279.25 pods, up 15.38% versus 2024 and up 15.05% versus the three-year average.
*District 4 soybeans: 1,376.15 pods, up 9.73% versus 2024 and up 13.63% versus the three-year average.
*District 7 soybeans: 1,562.54 pods, up 14.37% versus 2024, and up 24.66% versus the three-year average.
While Flory is cautiously optimistic about the Iowa soybean crop, he says stem rot and sudden death syndrome is taking root in more fields and threatening yield outcomes.
“Some of the routes through southern and west-central Iowa have seen a tremendous amount of disease issue on the soybeans, so I’ve got a feeling it’s going to look a lot different in a week than what it does right now,” he predicts. “Now, if it was September 10, that’d be one thing. But it’s August 20, and there’s still time for those bean diseases to take some yield away.”
Flory’s sentiment about what fields revealed in Iowa was shared by scout Brent Judisch.
“What it’s going to come down to here in the corn and the beans is, does the crop mature faster than the disease moves, or will disease outpace the crop?” Judisch says. “We won’t know for sure for another two or three weeks.”
Watch On-Demand: Pro Farmer Crop Tour Day 3 Results from Illinois and Iowa
Watch On-Demand: Pro Farmer Crop Tour Day 2 Results from Indiana and Nebraska
Watch On-Demand: Pro Farmer Crop Tour Day 1 Results from Ohio and South Dakota
About the Pro Farmer Crop Tour
The Pro Farmer Crop Tour is taking place Aug. 18-21, 2025. Simultaneously, the tour follows an eastern and western route, with the two culminating in Rochester, Minn. Nightly meetings in each location review daily results, scouting observations and historical comparison data. Attend nightly meetings in person or watch the nightly broadcast online at AgWeb.com/croptour.
