The 2025 10th Annual Great Ontario Yield Tour took place from August 11th – 22nd, 2025. After 10 years of boots on the ground insight, 2025 was one for the record books with dead corn and soybean crops from very dry weather with some farmers in eastern Ontario seeing 0 to 1 inch of rain in 3 -months! Houston, Ontario has a problem! The 3 worst counties were Norfolk, Central Ontario (Peterborough, Kawartha Lakes) and North & South Dundas including counties of SD&G and Ottawa.

Top observations included soybean pods that were flat, very rare 4 beans in a pod, a lower plant population and pods per plant were down 18% vs. last year. Corn kernel length was down 5.1% and plant population fell below 30,000 down 4.9% vs. last year record high of 30,768. Southwestern Ontario is blessed with above average crops, but they are not exceptional, and the drought starts from Highway 19 in Ingersoll east, south and west with regions and hot spots. The dry weather, heat and lack of moisture caused stress in corn with pollination issues and tip backs.

The silver lining is that the crops were clean with no disease or weed pressure. Moisture was below average for the east down 50%. Central -33% and Chatham down 5% vs. the 30-year normal while GDD’s were above or slightly below the 30-year normal for all regions. The 2025 Ontario corn yield is 178.93 bpa below the Agricorp 10-year average at 186 bpa with a range of 177.14 – 180.72, while the 2025 Ontario soybean yield is at 46.61 bpa with a range of 45.67 – 47.54 bpa. A cold wet/spring followed by a hot/dry summer for some took a toll on the 2025 corn and soybean crops in Ontario!