The results from the first day of Pro-Farmer’s annual Midwest Crop Tour are down from last year. About a thousand scouts — including our own Andy Petersen — hit the road to corn and soybean fields across the Midwest on Monday to objectively determine the final forecasts. Tour leader for the eastern leg and Pro Farmer editor Brian Grete said they took multiple samples of over 200 bushels in Ohio.

Overall, Ohio experts found that corn yield estimates were the same as last year at 183.3 bushels per acre, just four-tenths of a percent less than 2023. Ohio’s soybean crop was also slightly lower, with pods in a three-by-three-acre area down 1.8 percent.

On the Western Leg, Brent Judisch is in his 12th year as a scout. Judisch said South Dakota has some problems, but Nebraska is looking good.

South Dakota’s results were similar to Eastern Leg’s for corn, at 156.6 bushels per acre – about half a percent less. Soybean pod count was 1,026, which is just over one percent higher than 2023.