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The NDSU Extension weekly podcast In the Pod: Soybean Updates delivers timely insights and expert advice on soybean production.
You're listening to In The Pod, soybean updates, a weekly trek into the latest soybean information from NDSU Extension. The 2026 soybean harvest isn't going well for many farmers in The US. Most of the issues aren't related to price or storage, but with the weather. Seth Naeve, University of Minnesota Extension soybean agronomist, has the answers. Seth, what is unique about this season's soybean crop?
Seth Naeve:Yeah. 2026, I think, from a US soybean production standpoint, it's gonna be known for some challenges around the harvest season as one of the main factors. Think we had very unusual weather, and I think right here at the end terminal time, we're experiencing quite a bit of seed quality related issues, physical quality issues related at the farm gate for farmers, and it's really affecting farmers across a really broad range across the Corn Belt. These are issues that we typically get in small areas every year, so it's very unusual for us to have a huge chunk of The US production acreage affected by some of these things.
Bruce Sundeen:How large of an area are you talking about?
Seth Naeve:The most severe issues, I would say, are through Iowa, touching Nebraska, slightly into Minnesota, maybe into Illinois just a bit. And then we've got some lighter levels of it through Indiana into Ohio. And there's quite a bit of quality related stuff going on in Ohio too. So all of the main Corn Belt states are affected to some extent, but I think the worst of it is really in Iowa.
Bruce Sundeen:Did the widespread drought conditions affect this quality issue?
Seth Naeve:I think the drought conditions probably exacerbated this a little bit. In my experience, the worst case that we can have is we can have drought conditions followed by wet, rainy weather, extended period of rainy weather right at maturity time in the soybean. And that certainly did happen some places, and that certainly was where it was the worst. But there's also examples around this year where there was some pretty good garden spots where the soybeans were pretty good, but we still got just too much rain for too long a time right after the plant could really utilize it, but right there as it was starting to mature. And that's just the worst possible timing for that soybean problem.
Bruce Sundeen:Seth, what are the options for soybean farmers?
Seth Naeve:I'm an academic, so, of course, I would like you to identify what the problem is. And there's... That's another really weird part about this is we've got several things that are somewhat coincident. There's two or three fungal diseases that affected the soybeans, and then there's a nonfungal issue that affected soybeans. And the cause of that is somewhat related to the fungal problem. So I'll start with the nonfungal one, and that's what we've come to call soybeans of other colors. And we've tagged it right onto this Enlist trait. This is the E3 24 D resistance trait in soybeans. These varieties, for some reason, have a propensity to pick up this blackening or graying of their seed coats under certain environments. And it's exclusively within the E3 Enlist ecosystem, not caused by the application of the spray, but it's a genetic link to the inserted event. And we get this really kind of dingy, dark, dusty, dirty colored soybean. And this doesn't have any negative quality, physical quality traits per se. It just has a little bit of iron chelates that are compounded in the seed coat. And so it doesn't really affect processing. It doesn't affect anything downstream, but it has a pretty strong aesthetic effect, and that can really affect international markets. And so those can be graded when it's severe and there's over 10% of the seed comes in with that coloration that can be graded as a mixed seed lot. And those mixed seed lots then can be actually completely rejected at the elevator. So farmers have been rejected completely because of the soybeans of other color issue that's unrelated to any kind of fungal infection or anything else that happened out there. Then in addition to the soybeans of other colors, we have two fungal diseases, a purple seed stain and then another white chucky kind of a moldy soybean issue that... That's affecting soybeans as well, and this can really ding us in the marketplace as well.
Bruce Sundeen:Thanks, Seth. Our guest has been Seth Naeve, University of Minnesota Extension soybean agronomist. You're listening to In The Pod, soybean updates, a weekly trek into the latest soybean information from NDSU Extension, supported by the North Dakota Soybean Council.