2025 Corn Yield Forecast for Ohio as of August 26

By the end of August 2025, the USDA Crop Progress & Condition report indicated that about 90% of Ohio's corn acreage had reached the dough stage (R4), about 50% was dented (R5), and <10% was mature (R6). All three indicators rank ahead or slightly ahead of 2024 and behind or slightly behind the 5-year average for this time of the year. For most of the 2025 season, about 50% of Ohio’s corn has been ranked as good and about 10% as excellent (for the remaining, about 30% ranked as fair and 10% as either poor or very poor).

A new simulation of the 2025 end-of-season corn yield potential and crop staging was completed on August 26. This work uses the UNL Hybrid-Maize crop model in collaboration with researchers, agronomists, and extension educators across the Corn Belt. The approach uses local crop data, soil types, and real-time weather as input variables. These forecasts can assist researchers, educators, growers, and stakeholders in making management, logistics, and marketing decisions in the crop season.

The forecast covers 43 locations across the Corn Belt region, including Custar (Northwest), South Charleston (Western), and Wooster (Northeast), Ohio. Table 1 and Figure 1 summarize the projections available as of Aug 26, 2025.

Table 1. Simulations of 2025 end-of-season corn yield potential (Yp) and crop stage on August 26, Ohio.

Based on the current forecast, projections show (Figure 1):

• A 90% probability (+/-) of below average yields for Custar, OH.
• A 97% probability (+/-) of near average yields for South Charleston, OH.
• A 32% probability (+/-) of above average yields for Wooster, OH.

Summary
The projected results for Ohio show some optimism for Wooster in the Northeast, neutral for South Charleston in the Western region, and lower yields for Custar in the Northwest region. These projections align with the recently dry conditions affecting many areas in the state, especially the Northwest region. Recent precipitation in the Northwest region should help alleviate these conditions (at least some).

By September 4, 84% of the state of Ohio was abnormally dry or worse. Corn begins to scale down its water use after silking (see Crop Water Use in Corn). With most of Ohio’s acreage at dent stages now, we can expect a smaller effect of drought on grain yields relative to if drought had come in earlier in the season (like silking/pollination time). Given the faster crop progress and dry conditions this season, we can expect the corn harvest to approach sooner this year.

Adequate solar radiation, temperatures, and precipitation during the remaining grain fill period will determine final yield outputs this year. These forecasts do not consider other yield-limiting factors such as stand issues, storm damage, replanting, disease, or nutrient losses. Likewise, results would deviate with varying planting dates and/or hybrid maturities. Yield forecasts are not field-specific and represent an average yield estimate for a given location and its surrounding region. More forecasts will be made available as they come; this article summarizes the approach used for this work.

References

Grassini, P., Andrade, J., Aramburu, F., Yang, H., Brhel, J., Coulter, J., Licht, M., Archontoulis, S., Singh, M., Ortez, O., Quinn, D., & Carcedo, A. (2025a). 2025 Corn Yield Forecasts as of Aug. 26. UNL Nebraska CropWatch. Available from: https://cropwatch.unl.edu/2025-corn-yield-forecasts-aug-26/  

Grassini, P., Andrade, J., Aramburu, F., Yang, H., Brhel, J., Coulter, J., Licht, M., Archontoulis, S., Singh, M., Ortez, O., Quinn, D., & Carcedo, A. (2025b). 2025 Corn Yield Forecasts: Approach and Interpretation of Results. UNL Nebraska CropWatch. Available from: https://cropwatch.unl.edu/2025-corn-yield-forecasts-approach-and-interpretation-results/