Corn harvest in Jones County, Iowa. Photo: Bill Whittaker (user Billwhittaker), CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Iowa is on track for record corn and soybean yields this year, and the national numbers USDA released Tuesday gave grain prices something to work with. The question for Wright County farmers still running combines is how much of that shows up at the elevator.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s November Crop Production report, based on conditions as of Nov. 1, holds Iowa’s corn yield at 219 bushels an acre, the same as its October forecast and up from 210 bushels last year. On 12.8 million harvested acres, that works out to about 2.8 billion bushels, slightly more than Iowa grew in 2025 even with about 350,000 fewer acres.
The soybean estimate went up. USDA now puts Iowa’s soybean yield at 65 bushels an acre, up two bushels from October and 1.5 bushels above last year. With 9.73 million acres in beans, the state would raise about 632 million bushels, up from 596 million in 2025.
If those numbers hold, both would be record yields for Iowa, according to the report.
The national picture moved the other way on corn
Iowa’s steady corn number stood out against a national cut. USDA lowered the U.S. corn yield to 179.6 bushels an acre, down 1.6 bushels from October and 6.9 bushels below last year’s record. National production fell about 141 million bushels to 15.89 billion, which would still be the second-largest corn crop on record. Illinois, the No. 2 corn state, dropped eight bushels to 200 an acre.
Soybeans went the other direction nationally too, up slightly to a record 4.57 billion bushels on a record average yield of 53.3 bushels an acre.
In the companion World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates, USDA trimmed expected corn ending stocks for the 2026-27 marketing year to 1.758 billion bushels from 1.849 billion. It also cut projected corn exports and feed use. Soybean ending stocks were lowered by 15 million bushels to 300 million as USDA raised its export forecast to 1.72 billion bushels.
DTN lead analyst Rhett Montgomery called the U.S. ending stocks numbers bullish for both corn and soybeans, DTN reported.
What it means for prices
USDA’s season-average farm price estimates moved in opposite directions. The corn price for the 2026-27 crop was lowered 10 cents to $4.60 a bushel. The soybean price was raised 10 cents to $12.10.
Those are national averages for the full marketing year, not a bid at the local co-op, and they don’t account for basis in north-central Iowa. But they shape the futures market that local bids are built on. A tighter corn carryout tends to give prices some support, and that matters more in a year when Iowa farmers have a big crop to market.
Harvest is running late
The report also shows why harvest has dragged across Iowa this fall. Frequent rain slowed harvest across the upper Midwest in October. As of Nov. 1, Iowa’s corn harvest was 66% done, more than 10 percentage points behind the five-year average, according to USDA. Nationally, 74% of corn acres were harvested, three points behind normal.
Soybean harvest was in better shape nationally, with 88% of acres harvested by Nov. 1, four points ahead of the average pace.
USDA cautioned that the November forecasts were built from information collected before harvest was finished, so final numbers can change. Based on 20 years of results, the agency said there is a 90% chance final U.S. corn production will land between 15.5 billion and 16.3 billion bushels. USDA’s final 2026 crop estimates come out in January.
For Wright County, a big crop comes at a tense time for the local farm economy. Deere’s decision to close the Hagie Manufacturing sprayer plant in Clarion by 2029 has county and city leaders working on a jobs response. Grain prices and yields won’t change that, but a strong harvest helps the farm businesses, elevators and equipment dealers that make up the rest of the county’s economy.
Dale Brekke writes for Clarion News Online.