Nelson Zandbergen
Farmers Forum
WOODSTOCK — The sizzling hot and dry summer is expected to push Ontario’s 2025 corn and soybean crop yields below the 10-year average, according to the Great Ontario Yield Tour. But Southwestern Ontario largely avoided the worst of the damage that has dragged down this year’s provincial performance.
The 10th annual tour, which counted kernels and pods at farms across the province Aug. 11-22, found stark regional disparities. While the southwest fared better — with some counties even looking at near record yields — the province’s central and eastern regions faced historic lows.
“That’s the story of the year, right? East of Toronto it gets a lot tougher,” Maizex agronomist Henry Prinzen said as he presented the tour results Aug. 28 in Woodstock.
“Central Ontario is just a disaster to be honest. There’s not much else to say,” Prinzen also observed.
Overall, this year’s tour projects an average Ontario corn yield of 178.93 bu/ac, down from the 10-year average of 186 bu/ac. Soybeans are projected to yield an average 46.61 bu/ac, falling short of the 10-year benchmark of 48 bu/ac.
Southwestern counties like Chatham-Kent and Elgin are predicted to have near-record yields, while central and eastern regions, including Peterborough, Prince Edward County, Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry and the Ottawa Valley suffered heavy losses with less than an inch of rain received over the previous three months.
“There is a lot of bad crop in Ontario, but when it comes to production, the southwest is saving all of Ontario,” he said.
As a group, Ontario’s farthest southwestern counties (Essex, Kent, Middlesex and Elgin) are projected to have corn and soybean yields of 200.18 and 55 bu/ac, which is better than last year’s late-August prediction of almost 194 and 53.7 bu/ac.
“Chatham and Kent, they got a good turn in the sun,” Prinzen said. “They got really good yields in Lambton this year.”
The southwest didn’t go unscathed, however, with Norfolk County counted among the driest in the province this growing season.
The ‘southeastern Ontario’ counties tucked between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario — Oxford, Brant, Haldimand-Norfolk, Wentworth and Niagara — are projected to have corn and soybean yields of 166 and 45 bu/ac, which is down substantially from last year’s prediction of almost 205 bu/ac and 58 bu/ac.
Prinzen remarked on this year’s variability and recounted a striking example in Eastern Ontario where one spot in a corn field was on track for 212 bu/ac. But just down the lane, the yield dropped to nothing. “Uh-oh, that part of the field is legitimately zero,” he recalled. “There’s no ears there. There’s no tassels there. There’s no corn there.’”
It was the first time in a decade that some farmers on the crop tour “zeroed out” corn and soybean fields not expected to yield anything, he said.
The tour highlighted other challenges in hard-hit areas, including lower plant populations and poor pollination due to hot nighttime temperatures. Soybean pod counts were down by about 20 % and “not very plump” in drought-stricken areas, according to Prinzen.
Regional and county projections (bu/ac):
