Pro Farmer Tour 2026: A Smaller Crop, or Just a Tough Route?

Three days into this year's Pro Farmer Crop Tour, one theme keeps repeating: the scouts' samples are coming in below last year almost everywhere they walk. Because the tour runs the same routes every August, that year-over-year comparison is the signal worth watching, and so far it leans lower.

Here is the run so far, tour corn versus last year's tour:

• South Dakota: 149 vs 174, down about 14%, clearly stressed by heat and drought
• Ohio: 180 vs 186, down about 3%, fighting excess moisture and immaturity
• Indiana: 184 vs 194, down about 5%
• Nebraska: 164 vs 180, down about 9%, with low ear counts on dryland acres
• Illinois: 184 vs 200, down about 8%, a notable drop in the No. 2 corn state
• Western Iowa: about 191 vs 200, down from last year but near its three-year average

Soybean pod counts are below last year in every state, though the read versus the three-year average is more mixed: above it in Illinois and western Iowa, below it in Ohio, South Dakota and Indiana.

So the crop is smaller, right? Not so fast, and this is where it gets interesting, because the other yardsticks disagree in places:

• USDA's August report put Indiana and Iowa corn at records and held Ohio and Illinois near their own highs.
• Crop condition ratings are actually up year over year in Ohio (66% good-to-excellent versus 55%) and down only modestly in Indiana and Illinois, two and four points.
• FBN's own state yield model runs near or above the USDA in most of these states, and well above the tour.

The eastern Corn Belt is where this gets loudest. In Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois; the tour is running well below last year, yet the USDA has all three at or near record corn yields, condition ratings hold up far better than the tour implies (Ohio actually up year over year, 66% good-to-excellent versus 55%, with Indiana and Illinois down only two to four points), and our own model runs far above the tour and much closer to the USDA. Illinois is the No. 2 corn state and Indiana a top-five producer, so these are not small samples, and the tour, the government, the ratings and our forecast simply do not line up. One caveat keeps the tour honest: it has come in below the September USDA corn estimate in 18 of the last 24 years, so reading below the government is normal, not a smoking gun on its own. But a gap this wide, in states this big, is worth questioning.

There is another wrinkle worth understanding: where the tour walks. The scouts follow fixed routes, and in Iowa this week the western leg ran through the northwest and western third of the state, the part that stayed dry for much of the season while central and eastern Iowa caught regular rain. Our own county-level yield maps show that split plainly for both corn and soybeans, with northwest and western Iowa down from 2025 while central and eastern Iowa and most of the eastern Belt run flat to higher. So the western-Iowa samples posted Wednesday likely understate the state as a whole, and eastern Iowa, walked today, should read better, with recent rains starting to ease those western deficits. A tour route is a sample, not a census, and the counties it happens to cross can tilt the read.

That sets up a real question for anyone with a combine, and especially for growers in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. Is the tour catching real problems, thin ear counts, immaturity, waterlogged fields, that the September report will confirm? Or is it a low read on tough-looking routes in a year the crop still finishes big?

If you farm the eastern Belt, we especially want to hear from you, since that is where the tour and everything else disagree the most. How does your crop look versus last year, and does the tour's read match what you are seeing on your acres? Drop your state and county and your take in the comments, we will be watching the replies as closely as the tour.

Pro Farmer wraps up today and releases its national estimate Friday afternoon. We will weigh it against the conditions, the USDA numbers, and our own model, the same way we do every morning.

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