206 bushels per acre! That was the average yield for Indiana’s corn crop in 2025 according to USDA. However, one of Purdue’s top agronomists disagrees with that number.
“It’s the same sentiment I’ve had all year. I’ve always thought that the number for Indiana is too high. 206 bushels an acre would be a state record, and again, if it is the state record, then I must be missing something,” says Dan “Corn” Quinn, Corn Specialist with Purdue Extension.
On the latest episode of the Purdue Crop Chat Podcast, he tells Hoosier Ag Today that we saw too much drought stress and disease pressure throughout the past year for Indiana’s average corn yield to hit a record high.
“We do trials all across the state, so we get the opportunity to travel around the state. There are some farmers I’ve talked to that have said this is one of their better years, but it’s not the majority,” according to Quinn. “Among our trials, in general, I don’t know of a single location anywhere in the state where our trial yields were where they were the last couple of years—and some are significantly lower.”
Meanwhile, “Soybean” Shaun Casteel, Purdue Extension’s Soybean Specialist, says that USDA’s soybean yield projections are much closer to his original projections.
“My number—and it hasn’t changed—was 58.5 bushels an acre. The November USDA report for Indiana was 59 bushels an acre, so it’s what I was anticipating,” according to Casteel.
“We had areas that did yield well trial-wise and had good yields. I broke 90 and 100 bushels an acre on a couple spots, but not in large amounts. Then, there are a lot of that same fields that had those kinds of yields, but they didn’t have the water. Those yields were around 70, so water was a big deal—either too much or too little,” says Casteel.
Overall, what was the biggest factor impacting this year’s corn and soybean yields?
“Probably, the more widespread issue was getting started this past year,” says Quinn. “Planting was really tough. There was a lot of June-planted corn, so we just got off to a tough start—and then the faucet shut off as well and it got dry towards the end of the season, so kind of a perfect storm.”
Casteel agrees that the shortened planted season may have put a cap on soybean yields.
“When you have a compressed growing season, that’s hard. It’s also hard to really maximize that yield, and so a late start and an early finish—that’s not the combination for bin-busting yields,” says Casteel.
Dan and Shaun dive deeper into the 2025 crop season on the latest episode of the Purdue Crop Chat Podcast, which is available at Hoosier Ag Today’s YouTube Channel.
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