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Northwest Iowa farmer says 2025 harvest yields falling short of expectations

The 2025 harvest season is winding down for northwest Iowa farmer Kelly Nieuwenhuis.

“Well, it’s been fast,” he said. “Bean harvest went quickly. We’ve been done with them for about a week. We’re probably not quite half done on corn.”

He tells Brownfield the quality of the crop has been really good, but “The yields have been disappointing. The whole year we’ve been talking about bumper crops. The beans were average. We were thinking they would be great, but they were just good. The corn is running the same way.”

Nieuwenhuis says he believes challenging weather conditions led to the reduction in yields.

“We had that derecho at the end of July and had a little green snap. Then we had 95-degree weather for a week in September with wind. The corn dried down very fast and I think that shrunk it up a little bit.”

Nieuwenhuis is a third-generation farmer who raises his crops on 2700 acres in O’Brien County.