New MU Soybean Growth and Yield Report Available

Jun 11, 2026

By Linda Geist

The University of Missouri Extension Soybean Growth Monitoring biweekly report for 2026 is now available.

The report, in its third year of publication, provides soybean farmers information on the progress of the Missouri soybean crop every two weeks.

This tool uses crop growth models to simulate soybean development and yield across different regions of Missouri, using both current and historical weather data, and validates its results with the Soybean Farming Systems field experiments network.

Its main goal is to help farmers understand how weather is influencing crop development and attainable yield. For example, the reports indicate if the season is trending above or below average, allowing farmers to anticipate yield outcomes well before harvest. These forecasts support in-season decision-making by providing timely insights into crop performance, says MU Extension soybean farming systems specialist Andre Reis.

Reis and his team compile the report. The first report of the 2026 season focuses on biomass accumulations as a proxy for crop growth and performance. Future reports will include yield predictions.

Heavy and uneven rainfall in Missouri has slowed soybean planting in the past week. USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service reported that 20% of the state’s 2026 soybean crop remains to be planted, only slightly more than the 18% mark for the same period in 2025.

“Early-season wetness continues to create challenges for soybean emergence, stand establishment and vegetative development,” said Reis.

Recent warm weather should support improved soybean growth, although more rainfall may continue to limit access to fields, he said. Prolonged wetness also can reduce nodulation and early nitrogen fixation, so monitor fields for plant vigor and overall health, he said.

In the report, he urges farmers to carefully consider whether they should replant and to weigh the yield penalty associated with late planting.

“Soybean vegetative growth appears to be lagging in many regions of the state,” Reis said. “We expect vegetative growth to recover between now and the onset of seed filling.”

Source : missouri.edu

Video: Western Canadian Agriculture: Hard Times Made the World's Best Farmers

Western Canadian agriculture produced the most advanced farmers in the world not through abundance but through adversity. The crow rate fell. The wheat price went nowhere. The brown envelopes stopped.

When the subsidies disappeared, the bad farmers left and the good ones stayed. And the ones who stayed could not just grow wheat anymore. They started growing lentils and canola and peas and flax and faba beans. They built crop rotation. They got serious about agronomy because there was no government backstop. That process produced the Western Canadian agriculture Dennis Bulani describes in this clip: the most advanced, most educated farming culture in the world.

His contrast with Iowa corn and soybean farmers is sharp. At a DeKalb farmer meeting in Okoboji, Iowa, he asked what crop rotation they ran. Beans on corn stubble, corn on bean stubble. How do you fertilize? The co-op agronomist handles it. Have you considered other crops? No need. We make so much money on corn and soybeans. Western Canadian agriculture was never allowed that comfort. And now those Iowa farmers are watching soybean markets lock up with China and corn prices slide, and they do not have the agronomy knowledge or the research base to pivot. Western Canadian farmers adapted on a dime because they had done it before.

Dennis also makes the case that Western Canadian agriculture keeps adapting in real time. Low commodity prices over the past year have pushed growers to look seriously at precision spot-spray technology. He knows a neighbor who bought a sprayer with the seeing-eye system and sprayed only 80 out of 320 acres. As a chemical retailer Dennis acknowledges that will affect his sales. He supports it anyway, because if it advances Canadian agriculture and makes farmers money, that is a good outcome.

The lesson Dennis draws from the tale of two farms: continuous improvement is the only durable strategy. When canola was $22 a bushel some growers went to Arizona instead of the Crop Production Show. When the price came down those same growers came back to the research and the discipline. Products do not go on Rack Petroleum's shelves unless they pass a replicated trial first. That is what Western Canadian agriculture built through hard times: farmers who do the work whether the times demand it or not.

Dennis Bulani is CEO of Rack Petroleum and Ultimate Yield in Biggar, Saskatchewan. Dan Aberhart hosts GTF Productions, Western Canadian Agriculture's foremost live briefing platform and its foremost AI training platform for ag operators