LINCOLN, Neb. (DTN) -- After the 2026 growing season started very dry across large swaths of Nebraska with concerns about late crop emergence, many areas received adequate moisture while others continued to struggle mightily this summer.

The DTN Digital Yield Tour forecasts Nebraska's state average corn yield to fall 6 bushels per acre (bpa) below the five-year USDA Risk Management Agency (RMA) average for the state.

The DTN yield models forecast corn yields of 200 bushels or higher in 25 of 93 Nebraska counties, including Adams, Antelope, Boone, Buffalo, Burt, Butler, Cass, Cuming, Dakota, Dawson, Dodge, Fillmore, Greeley, Hall, Hamilton, Kearney, Phelps, Platte, Polk, Sarpy, Saunders, Seward, Thurston, Wayne and York. The number of counties above 200 is down from 30 during 2025's tour and 41 in 2024.

On the soybean side, Nebraska yields also are forecast below both last year and the RMA five-year average. Yields range from 66.1 bpa in Polk County to 35.4 bpa in Boyd County.

CORN YIELD ESTIMATES:

-- DTN 2026: 176.3 bushels per acre (bpa)

-- DTN 2025: 187.8 bpa

-- USDA RMA 5-YEAR AVERAGE: 182.3 bpa

SOYBEAN YIELD ESTIMATES:

-- DTN 2026: 55.9 bpa

-- DTN 2025: 57.6 bpa

-- USDA RMA 5-YEAR AVERAGE: 58.7 bpa

While the DTN Digital Yield Tour is in its ninth season, this is the third year that it employs DTN's proprietary crop yield models. The tour estimates reported here are based on yield models as of Aug. 1. The models update every two weeks and do not incorporate weather forecasts.

For more about how those models work and what makes them unique, please see: https://www.dtnpf.com/….

Results for all states covered by the tour can be found here: https://www.dtnpf.com/….

Updated yield model results will be shared in early September on DTN's online products. You can view a Reporter's Notebook that previewed the Digital Yield Tour at https://www.dtnpf.com/…. On Aug. 14, you can find the post-tour Reporter's Notebook video at https://www.dtnpf.com/…. Also, later in August you can hear a Field Posts Podcast about the tour results at https://www.dtnpf.com/….

WEATHER COMMENTARY

At the beginning of the year, Nebraska was a state that many were worried about, said DTN Ag Meteorologist John Baranick. Drought was widespread at the beginning of March. The weather pattern frequently missed the state in the spring; instead, the Northern Plains got good moisture and systems moved across Kansas and Oklahoma and off to the east.

"Those systems bypassing the state led to quickly growing drought this spring, and summertime rainfall is rarely heavy enough to combat the hotter conditions that the state experiences in a normal summer," Baranick said. "However, fronts that frequently moved through the Northern Plains stalled in the state in June and especially July. Being on the edge of a heat dome in late June and early July allowed for some widespread rainfall to bring some much-needed moisture to the western half of the state."

Eastern areas were notably drier, especially the northeast, Baranick noted, through much of the late spring and summer with falling crop conditions through the end of July. Heat was much more frequent in July as the state regularly found itself in the 90s and up near 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

"However, a big system that developed during the last couple of days of July brought through some very widespread rainfall and much cooler temperatures that will be tough to capture on our models," he said.

MARKET COMMENTARY

"There is little arguing it has been a challenging growing season for my native Cornhusker state," said DTN Lead Analyst Rhett Montgomery. "While drought has been alleviated to some degree relative to the situation in the late spring, most of the state's crop area likely lacked meaningful soil moisture reserves to bolster yield potential through hot and dry stretches in July."

Because of this, Montgomery said it's no surprise to find the DTN Digital Yield Tour initial forecast in 2026 comes in 11.5 bpa lower than the initial run in 2025.

"For comparison, USDA NASS pegged the Nebraska average corn yield at 183 bpa in this week's Crop Production report, suggesting the DTN model finds a lower bias than the government estimate moving forward through the late growing stages," he said.

Soybean yield potential is trending in a similar fashion to corn in Nebraska for 2026, Montgomery noted.

"However, there's perhaps some reason for optimism with a wet forecast ahead for mid- to late-August," he said. Nebraska's soybean crop was rated 62% good to excellent in the most recent USDA Crop Progress report, down 11 points from the same period in 2025. "This suggests that DTN's initial model run showing soybeans 1.7 bpa lower than in the 2025 Tour -- and 5% below the previous five-year average -- as reasonable ahead of critical rainfall chances through August."

OBSERVATIONS

-- John Oehlerking, Cass and Otoe counties, Nebraska:

John Oehlerking raises corn, soybeans and cattle on his 1,600-acre farm that straddles Cass and Otoe counties in southeast Nebraska, about 15 miles east of Lincoln and 30 miles south of Omaha. At the start of the 2026 growing season, he said conditions were dry and cool, and he planted into "exceptionally dry" soil, leading to uneven emergence issues.

"We had some stuff in the ground a lot longer than we would have liked before it ever emerged," Oehlerking said. "In fact, I was thinking of replanting some corn. We finally got some rain, and it emerged. I would say it was in the ground probably 20 days before it emerged, a little longer. That was disturbing to me. But it was just that dry spot. So, we got that rain, we got everything up going. Things look really good right now from the road."

DTN's Digital Yield Tour forecasts 202.2 bpa corn in Cass County, above the five-year average of 191.4 bpa. The tour forecasts a yield of 183.3 bpa in Otoe County, also above the five-year average of 175.5 bpa.

Oehlerking said so far, his corn fields don't appear to have much disease, and he has been waiting and watching for the right time to spray fungicides.

"Normally, I would have had it done by this time of the year in other years, but I've been holding off just a little bit," he said, "One, because of economics; two, just because stuff looks really clean. You can see some of that uneven emergence and some of the issues that caused with ear size. There are some pollination issues."

Oehlerking said he's been following the movement of southern rust that he said has been "creeping in" around nearby counties. In addition, he has been monitoring for tar spot as reports of it popped up in Cass County, as well as gray leaf spot.

When it comes to soybeans, Oehlerking said it has the makings of a top-notch crop. His farm began to see solid rain chances late in July and was hopeful.

"The beans look really phenomenal," he said. "They look really lush. They've grown well. They had lots of blooms earlier. I've not walked a bean field lately, but I've driven by plenty of them." He said they got 2 1/2 inches of rain on July 28. "I think beans, with that rain and if we catch a little tonight (July 30), are probably going to be really, probably, pretty spectacular."

The DTN Digital Yield Tour forecasts a soybean yield of 53.3 bpa in Cass County -- below the five-year average of 58.7 bpa. Otoe County yields are forecast at 48.9 bpa, also below the five-year average of 53.2 bpa.

Oehlerking said he has been seeing soybean gall midge and stem borer issues again this season.

"Four, five, six years ago, we had a real problem with the gall midge," he said. "It just did a lot of damage, and that's kind of been tapering off. I'd say we still have it."

In addition, Oehlerking said weed pressure from waterhemp is another factor he expects is weighing on yields.

"Some of those first residuals that we put down didn't work real well," he said. "I don't know how much it's going to affect yield."

Overall, he said while the crops look good "color-wise" compared to last season at this time, there are lingering concerns about emergence issues and pollination during hot weather.

"I have some of the early corn that I planted that is getting near finishing, and I think this rain is really going to fill that out," Oehlerking said. "These later varieties that I had that were planted later, I think it's going to give them an opportunity to fill out well. It's probably the mid-range stuff that I'm more concerned about that might have caught the heat when it was pollinating."

-- Nicholas Hoffman, FIRST Manager, Nebraska:

Throughout the season, field managers for Farmers' Independent Research of Seed Technologies (FIRST) coordinate unbiased, head-to-head field trials for commercial corn and soybean seed products.

FIRST Manager Nicholas Hoffman told DTN there is a contrast in crop conditions between northeast and southeast Nebraska. Hoffman also covers southeast Nebraska for FIRST.

The U.S. Drought Monitor from Aug. 4 showed a pocket of extreme drought conditions in parts of four northeast Nebraska counties, including Boyd, Knox, Cedar and Dixon. Hoffman said farmers in the region faced a bit of planting delay on corn followed by hot and dry conditions.

Even then, the DTN Digital Yield Tour forecasts corn yields above the five-year average in Cedar and Dixon counties and below the average in Boyd and Knox. Boyd County is forecast to have the lowest average soybean yield in the state at 35.4 bpa, nearly 6 bpa less than the five-year average.

"When corn did go in, dry conditions took over immediately, putting some early season stress, especially on the dryland acres," Hoffman said. "We got brief, spotty relief around the Fourth of July, but July returned with extreme heat indices right when the corn was pollinating. Irrigated acres are holding up, but dryland corn took a real hit during that critical stage."

Soybeans are moving into the R3, R4 pod setting stages in the last week of July, he said. Disease risk has been minimal, although there has been some frogeye leaf spot and white mold.

"I think we need to be very aware of what we're doing and why we're doing it when it comes to fungicide, so we don't develop some kind of resistance to some of the stuff," he said.

"I think it's important that people are applying fungicide if they have high potential for white mold, especially on 15-inch rows, irrigated 15-inch rows," Hoffman said. "But generally, for soybeans, irrigated again looks good, but without moisture during the kernel fill and pod development, the dryland yield potential will drop sharply if we don't get more rain here. We did just get a little bit of rain, but it's not going to fix the deeper issue here. The subsoil moisture is heavily depleted on dryland acres."

He noted that soybeans are sitting at a crossroads. "I guess timely August rains during this pod fill will help," he added.

The cost of irrigation is likely to reduce net profit margins.

"The pivots have run continuously to keep up with July's heat, even on my farm," he said. "So, that's going to add a lot of cost to having a decent crop. With input costs being so high, too, I think the profitability of some of these irrigated acres are going to be a shock."

Southeast Nebraska faced the same late-April cold snap that slowed corn planting, Hoffman said. But once planting wrapped up, regular rain events recharged topsoil and provided a good early season jump.

That part of the state has seen some severe weather such as isolated hail and wind events, but "nothing completely catastrophic" like derechos or other severe weather.

Much of southeast Nebraska shows abnormally dry to no drought conditions in the latest U.S. Drought Monitor map. (https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/…)

The DTN Digital Yield Tour forecasts above 200-bushel corn in many counties in the southeast with Polk County seeing the third-highest yields in the state at 222.4 bpa. On the soybean side, Polk County also is forecast to see the highest yield in the state at 66.1 bpa.

"I would say pretty strong optimism heading into grain fill in southeast Nebraska," Hoffman said. "There's been solid moisture reserves compared to the other parts of the state. And again, as long as we get good and timely finishing rains, that regional outlook is very positive, both irrigated and dryland."

-- Joel Grams, Kearney and Franklin counties:

Joel Grams grows both corn and soybeans on his ground in Kearney and Franklin counties in south-central Nebraska.

Grams told DTN that planting season went smoothly, although it was "really dry" and saw little to no moisture during winter. Early on, he ran pivots on his farm near Minden and then the rains came.

Overall, he said his farm hasn't seen damaging storms to any degree, although dryland acres may yield below average.

"We usually try to shoot for 250 (bushels per acre) on (irrigated) corn," Grams said. "If we do that, we're happy and some of the last year was right about there. And then beans, we kind of go marketing-wise; we go with 70, 75 bushels. It's pretty hard. You know, I hear a lot of guys raising 90-bushel beans. Never seen it in my life, and I probably never will. I mean, I raised 80 a few times, but it's mostly mid-70s, upper 70s."

On his dryland acres, Grams said he expects the corn to come it around 150 bpa and between 50 to 60 bpa on beans.

"This year might be a little better with the rain," Grams said. "We sprayed everything with fungicide, and I guess we had some western bean cutworm, too. So, when we spray fungicide, we just throw in an insecticide with it and usually (that) takes care of our problem there."

The DTN Digital Yield Tour forecasts reasons for optimism for Grams and other producers in the region. Kearney County is forecast at 216.7 bpa on corn, just slightly below the five-year average. Franklin County's corn yield is forecast at 184.7 bpa, also just slightly off the average.

On soybeans, Kearney County yields are forecast at 62.8 bpa, below the five-year average of 69.3 bpa. Franklin County soybeans are also forecast below the five-year average of 61.9 bpa, at 57.1 bpa.

Grams said he's seen some tar spot, which is out of the ordinary for his farm.

"On soybeans, we've been dealing with white mold in the last few years. We went to 15-inch row beans because of weed pressure. Now you go to 15-inch row beans, and then you get white mold on occasion," he said. "It's looking pretty good. I think any dryland soybeans, what rain we've got here recently, should make a good crop out of those. On the irrigated (soybeans), we haven't watered a lot on them. We just started the week before last (third week of July), when it was so dang hot and dry."

Todd Neeley can be reached at todd.neeley@dtn.com

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