You could not plan for the 2025 growing season. Farmers across Iowa saw everything from once-in-a-decade disease pressure to long stretches of uncooperative weather, along with a planting window that turned upside down more than once. Brad Gibson of Channel Seeds works primarily in Missouri, but the challenges his growers faced mirrored what Iowa producers battled all season long. That gave him a front row view of how this crop behaved and what we can take away from it.
Gibson says the story of 2025 begins far earlier than most would expect. Soybeans went into the ground in March across a wide portion of the Midwest, and by April tenth, roughly seventy-five percent of the crop in his region was planted. When the weather turned favorable, growers moved quickly into corn. Stands were strong even after heavy rains, setting the tone for what looked like a healthy and balanced start to the season.
By the time June arrived, the setup for tar spot could not have been clearer. Moisture, cool temperatures, and dense canopies gave the disease everything it needed, and many growers applied fungicide at brown silk to stay ahead of the pressure. Then the year made its first major turn. Heat returned. The fields dried out. Disease progression shifted again. And just when growers thought they understood where the year was heading, August delivered something few in Iowa had ever seen.
Southern rust swept through the region and reached deeper into the northern Corn Belt than Gibson had ever witnessed in his twenty-six years working in agronomy. It showed up late, it showed up strong, and it forced growers to rethink how they handled harvest priorities. Many farmers allowed soybeans to stand longer than normal to protect corn fields that were more vulnerable to rapid decline.
Despite those challenges, the story of 2025 refused to follow the script. Gibson says corn yields finished well above average. Soybeans came in average to slightly above average. A season that looked like it was lining up to disappoint turned out to be surprisingly strong, and that outcome highlighted one of the biggest lessons of the entire year. The growers who pivoted, reacted, and adapted to the conditions in front of them tended to come out ahead.
Gibson says the year underscored something he and many agronomists have been emphasizing for years. The old playbook is not wrong, but you do not always have to follow it step by step. When the crop tells you something has changed, you adjust. When Mother Nature throws something new at you, you pivot. The tools and genetics available today give growers more room to adapt than ever before, and 2025 proved how important that mindset has become.
