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Allendale survey shows lower 2026 corn, soybean yields

2026 corn and soybean production could end up being highly regional.

Rich Nelson, chief strategist for Allendale Inc., tells Brownfield the results of their annual yield survey generally show the impact of widespread dry weather in parts of the Western Corn Belt, with two states standing out for corn, “We did have South Dakota down about 15% in yield. Kansas also seeing some pretty tough news, 14% below last year’s number.”

And also standing out for soybeans, “For Kansas, for instance, our survey suggested 24% below last year yields, with South Dakota down 15%.”

For Eastern Corn Belt corn, Nelson says that while there were weather issues, they weren’t quite to the same degree as some areas further west, “We did some moderate problems with the Eastern Corn Belt, we didn’t enough to really have a large impact on numbers.”

And in the Eastern Corn Belt for beans, weather also didn’t have quite as big of an effect as it did out west, “Illinois, 4% above last year’s yields, USDA was up 7% on that prior August report. So as a whole though, we didn’t find that much of a change.”

Allendale sees U.S. corn yield at 178.7 bushels per acre, down 4% from 2025, with soybeans at 52.6 bushels per acre, 1% lower. Using the USDA’s most recent harvested area estimates, that works out to a corn crop of 15.833 million bushels and a soybean crop of 4.515 billion bushels, a 7% decline and a slight decrease, respectively, year-over-year.

Allendale surveyed farmers in 25 states.

The USDA’s updated production projections are out September 11^th.