ROCHESTER, Minnesota, Aug 22 (Reuters) - U.S. farmers will harvest a record corn crop in 2025 after ideal weather across much of the Midwest this summer, but the bounty will fall short of the U.S. government’s lofty outlook as pockets of plant disease and heat stress dented yields in spots across the farm belt, crop consultancy Pro Farmer said on Friday.
Growers are also expected to reap a bumper soybean crop, although dry conditions in parts of the eastern Midwest and pockets of disease pressure in Iowa may limit yield potential, Pro Farmer said after its annual four-day tour across seven top-producing states this week.
The United States is the world’s top corn exporter and No. 2 soybean exporter, and favorable weather in most of the main growing states supported crops but pushed futures prices to recent multi-year lows.
The warm and wet conditions that fueled crop growth also fostered fungal diseases such as tar spot, southern rust and northern blight in corn, and sudden death syndrome in soybeans.
“Each day we’ve noted the disease pressure in corn. Tar spot, southern rust more widespread than we’ve ever seen before. Those are going to be some real yield robbers,” said Lane Akre, Pro Farmer economist and one of the leaders of the tour’s eastern leg.
Pro Farmer projected 2025 U.S. corn production at a record 16.204 billion bushels, with an average yield of 182.7 bushels per acre, and soybean production at 4.246 billion bushels, with an average yield of 53.0 bpa.
The outlook is below the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s latest forecast for corn production at a record 16.742 billion bushels with yields averaging 188.8 bpa, and soybean production at 4.292 billion bushels with record average yields of 53.6 bpa.
Disease in fields
Crop scouts on the Pro Farmer tour saw more disease-hit fields than normal across the Midwest farm belt this week, although it is not yet clear whether these diseases will blow up into significant yield loss.
At one stop in northwest Illinois, the corn field appeared healthy and green from the roadside, but 30 to 40 steps in, leaves were streaked with rust, leaving crop scouts covered in color. Overhead, bright yellow crop dusters banked low as they sprayed wide white plumes of fungicide.
Jake Guse, a Minnesota row crop farmer and crop scout on the eastern leg of the tour, said disease levels were the worst and most widespread that many crop scouts had ever seen on the tour.
“As we traveled across Indiana, we started seeing more (disease). In Illinois, started getting bad — and it was all over Iowa,” Guse said of three of the largest producing states.
However, crop scouts also found exceptional yield prospects that could help cushion any disease-related yield decline.
The strong production prospects may not be welcome news to farmers, who are facing a third straight year of declining corn prices due to excess supplies and only a modest improvement in soybean prices, according to USDA data.
Production costs remain high while trade tensions with key markets like China, the top soybean importer, have left demand uncertain.
While the USDA is forecasting that the nation’s farm economy will improve in 2025, that boost will largely come from a massive influx of federal funding the Trump administration plans to send to rural America, according to USDA data.
Corn and soybean futures on the Chicago Board of Trade firmed this week as reports from the crop tour suggested that recent USDA harvest forecasts may be too high.
The benchmark CBOT December corn contract CZ25 ended the week up 1.5%, its first weekly gain in a week in five weeks, while November soybeans SX25 also rose 1.5% and hit a one-month high.
