Variety Testing provides independent data

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Good corn yields overall and variable soybean yields with minimal insect and disease pressure were the general theme across the University of Illinois Variety Testing fields.

“The corn yields this year were shocking to me. We really didn’t have a lot of rain this summer. It was a fairly dry year, but the yields were very good overall,” said Clay Harper, U of I senior research specialist. “Soybean yields were a lot more variable than the corn.”

Results of the unbiased, third-party corn and soybean trials are featured in this issue of AgriNews, including yield data, nutrient and pest management practices, soybean protein and oil content, and other details across the state’s diverse geography.

Trials were conducted near Belleville, DeKalb, Freeport, Goodfield, Monmouth, Perry, St. Peter and Urbana.

This year’s trials featured 40 different corn hybrids from six companies and 77 soybean varieties from 13 companies.

While Harper didn’t see a lot of disease or insect pressure, there was a few instance of lodging.

“I think the lodging was mainly hybrid specific. It wasn’t necessarily across a whole location. There was some lodging of different hybrids at different locations. Lodging wasn’t specifically worse north to south or anything like that. It was just how it worked out,” Harper said.

“The southern location yields were maybe lagging a little bit, and that was mainly because they were late planted because it was so wet down there this spring. I believe that’s the whole reason that the fields down there were slightly lagging, and I’m just saying slightly because they weren’t that far behind.”

Corn planting in Regions 1, 2 and 3 was from late April through mid-May. However, rains in southern Illinois pushed both corn and soybean plantings to May 20 at Belleville and June 2 at St. Peter.

The St. Peter area site had 8.7 inches of rain in April and 4.2 inches in May. Belleville had 6.8 inches in April and 4.5 in May.

The Urbana site in Region 3 was driest with a total of 11.7 inches during the growing season, 3.2 and 2.8 of that in April and May, respectively.

Average corn yields across all maturities by locations were: Region 1 — DeKalb and Freeport, 259.5; Region 2 — Monmouth and Goodfield, 260.1; Region 3 — Perry and Urbana, 231; and Region 4 — St. Peter and Belleville, 164.4.

Soybeans

Soybeans weren’t as resilient as corn across Illinois in the 2025 growing season’s weather swings.

“I didn’t see a lot of disease in soybeans. We didn’t get a lot of rain, but we also didn’t get the rain when the grain-fill was happening. So, yields were a little more lagging in the soybeans than what I was expecting, but they weren’t bad,” Harper said.

“We lost our Freeport location for soybeans this year due to some unforeseen issues with herbicide application. Some herbicide got misapplied around our field that wasn’t Roundup resistant. So, we didn’t harvest any of the soybean trials at Freeport and none of that is in the published data.”

The average soybean yield across all maturities were: Region 1, 86.35; Region 2, 71.25; Region 3, 72.75, and Region 4, 59.3.

Looking Ahead

“Our entries were roughly half of what we were last year for total varieties and hybrids. This year we dropped the corn-following-corn trial. You won’t see any of that data for that this year because we only had like three entries in that trial and for statistical reasons you just wouldn’t get a good trial, so we just dropped that,” Harper said.

“I don’t think we’re going to offer that going forward unless we get companies that say they really want to do it. We need more entries in the corn-following-corn trials in order to justify doing it.

“One thing that we are contemplating offering for 2026 in corn is a stand-alone short-stature corn trial. We’ve got to have enough entries or enough interest in order to make it worthwhile to do it. We could do that essentially at every location since it doesn’t require a setup like the corn following corn does. We’ll just offer that as corn following soybeans. It’ll just be kind of a separate block in our location.”

Encourage Participation

Harper added that if farmers feel that the variety trials are a valuable resource for them, “they need to talk to their seed companies and tell them they need to enter their hybrids and varieties in the program.”

“Entries just keep falling year after year. I can’t tell you what the threshold would be that the program would no longer exist, but 77 varieties of soybeans and 40 corn hybrids is not a lot,” he said.

“Our entries are just way down. We don’t have any of the really big-name companies in there. The farmers are the driving force behind the entries. If they want to see seed companies enter into it, they’ve got to tell seed companies that they want to see them enter into this program.

“We don’t have DeKalb for corn or Beck’s or Asgrow or Pioneer, any of the big name companies for corn and soybeans out there that are entered in this. I’ve talked to several farmers that they would like to see those, but I keep saying, ‘you guys have to tell to seed companies that you want it included in the program.’”