JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (DTN) -- One year after U.S. farmers set new all-time national average yields for both corn and soybeans, DTN's proprietary yield models indicate potential for a smaller harvest this season with yields currently falling below USDA trendline projections.

The 2026 DTN Digital Yield Tour kicked off Monday, Aug. 10, with the release of the tour's first-ever national yield estimates. According to yield models as of Aug. 1, DTN predicts a national average corn yield of 178.5 bushels per acre (bpa) and an average soybean yield of 52.1 bpa in 2026.

Last month, in its World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) report, USDA estimated national average corn yield at 183.0 bpa for the season, while national average soybean yield was pegged at 53.0 bpa. These USDA projections are based on a weather-adjusted trend assuming normal planting progress and summer growing season weather. The DTN models update every two weeks and do not incorporate weather forecasts.

While the DTN Digital Yield Tour is in its ninth season, this is the third year that employs DTN's proprietary crop yield models. The DTN team combines the data-driven, view-from-above forecasts with boots-on-the-ground insight from farmers, agronomists and other experts to paint a picture of corn and soybean yield potential as the crops push toward the season's finish line.

ABOUT THE DTN MODEL

DTN's yield models forecast at the field level using a wide array of publicly available data, such as Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) maps, growing degree days, USDA crop condition reports and more. They also include DTN's proprietary weather and soil data, making them unique.

DTN's model methodology is also unique in that the models are trained on USDA Risk Management Agency (RMA) yield data, rather than monthly estimates prepared by the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Survey (NASS). RMA's data is compiled using crop insurance data, while NASS surveys farmers to build its county yield estimates. RMA's county yields tend to be higher than those reported by NASS, but the differences vary by county and region. By using RMA data, DTN can generate countywide forecasts for places with limited crop production.

The DTN data science team rolls its granular forecasts into county, state and national averages. While not released during last year's DTN Digital Yield Tour, the team did construct national average yield estimates based on the model run of Aug. 1, 2025, arriving at yield estimates of 186.8 bpa for corn and 51.5 bpa for soybeans. In its final Crop Production Summary report, USDA placed the 2025 national average yields at 186.5 bpa and 53.0 bpa, respectively, for the two crops.

GROWING SEASON IN REVIEW

According to DTN Ag Meteorologist John Baranick, the weather this growing season has been variable, but that was expected.

"With El Nino building in the Pacific Ocean, that generally leads to a lot of activity across the middle of the U.S.," he said. "But no two El Nino years are the same, and this one certainly was not like any we have seen before."

Drought was a major problem in the spring, Baranick noted. Last year's La Nina produced some significant deficits across much of the territory east of the Rockies, and that meant both spring and summer rainfall patterns were going to be important in making up for the lower soil moisture.

"In some cases, we saw early success; in others, drought persisted. And in yet other places, drought problems came, went and then re-emerged," he said. "Overall, background drought remained a problem in the Plains states on the western end of the Corn Belt. We teetered on both edges of it through the first two months of summer in the Upper Midwest."

The weather pattern was consistent in early spring, Baranick observed, with a storm track that favored Texas through the Great Lakes. That helped to reduce drought there but allowed it to build in other locations -- especially Nebraska and the surrounding areas as well as the Delta and Southeast.

Precipitation events were much more widespread in late spring and early summer. Flooding concerns were noted in many areas, Baranick said, particularly across the southern Corn Belt.

"Severe weather was much more frequent than normal, especially the amount of wind events," he added. "Those seemed to be daily and very widespread, leading to early issues with lodging and greensnap."

The variability also was evident in temperatures. Stretches of warmth were interspersed with periods of cold or cool weather, and early in the season, that led to some interesting planting dates.

"Warmth in March got folks in the South planting early, but those who waited until at least April had to do so when the threat for frosts went away," Baranick said. "It took until mid-May for that to finally leave northern areas, resulting in a widespread planting window -- even across the same state."

The back-and-forth nature of the temperatures continued into the summer, the meteorologist recalled, but it came in longer stretches than expected. Instead of just a few days above normal followed by a few days below normal, spans of five to seven days of heat were split up by five to seven days of mild temperatures.

"That's happened throughout the summer so far but was more stagnantly persistent in July," Baranick said. "In June, that was fine, as enough rain was falling to make up for the heat. And soil moisture remained mostly good. But in July, the precipitation events became fewer and farther between as the corn-weighted July precipitation reached an eight-year low. An event at the very last couple of days of the month saved that from becoming the lowest July precipitation since 2014, but it will be difficult for models to take that into account so soon in early August."

BASIS FOR BEING BULLISH?

Should national average yields materialize as predicted by DTN's models, it could create a bullish situation for markets, said DTN Lead Analyst Rhett Montgomery. Assuming the USDA's harvested acreage estimate of 87.4 million acres is accurate, a 178.5 bpa yield would equate to a 15.6-billion-bushel (bb) corn crop.

"That would be an 8% to 9% year-over-year decline," Montgomery said. "If demand stayed the same as this past year, the market would be looking at corn ending stocks by August 2027 approaching the 1.0 bb mark. Now, it's very likely in this scenario, we would see demand soften as a result of higher corn prices. So, maybe corn ending stocks of 1.4 bb to 1.5 bb would be reasonable.

"That would be a sizeable decrease from this year with a stocks-to-use ratio of 8.6%, historically associated with a corn price more in the $6- to $7-per-bushel range than the $4-to-$5 range we've seen in the past few years with ratios north of 12%," he said.

A bullish scenario could develop for soybeans as well, Montgomery noted, even if the USDA's trendline (and record-tying) national average yield would be realized -- barring an increase in acreage or a falloff in demand.

"As long as demand continues to run strong, anything below the 53.0-bpa USDA forecast would likely have bullish implications for price," he said. "It's really a fascinating situation to be in because using the DTN yield model forecast and assuming USDA acreage, production would be roughly 4.4 bb and still among the largest U.S. soybean crops on record. With USDA's acreage assumptions, a 1.0 bpa drop in the national yield is essentially 84 million bushels of supply off the bottom line if the forecasted recovery in export demand and growth in crush demand is realized.

"My math would put ending stocks by next August falling toward 230 million bushels, or a stocks-to-use ratio of just above 5%," Montgomery continued. "Bear in mind that this would be a tighter stocks situation than in the years immediately following the COVID-19 pandemic, but again a higher soybean price also would likely lead to some demand loss. That being said, the situation in my mind would warrant a higher price through the 2026-27 marketing year, probably closer to $12-$13 per bushel on average compared to the $10.40 farm price average for the season average in 2025-26.

"There are still some wild cards to find out, such as acreage and demand," Montgomery concluded.

YIELD TOUR COVERAGE

Throughout this week, DTN will publish state-specific details about the corn and soybean crops according to this schedule:

-- Monday, Aug. 10: Illinois, Wisconsin

-- Tuesday, Aug. 11: Iowa, Minnesota

-- Wednesday, Aug. 12: North Dakota, South Dakota

-- Thursday, Aug. 13: Indiana, Ohio

-- Friday, Aug. 14: Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri

-- Saturday, Aug. 15: Best of the Rest (Short summaries of Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, Kentucky, Texas)

Results for all states covered by the tour can be found here: https://www.dtnpf.com/…

Jason Jenkins can be reached at jason.jenkins@dtn.com

Follow him on social platform X @JasonJenkinsDTN

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