Ontario Farmers Share Yield Strategies Amid Drought

Eastern Ontario farmers expect yields to drop significantly compared with last year’s bumper crop

The Great Ontario Yield Tour held an event at Petersen Custom Farming in Osgood, Ontario, on Thursday, August 21, 2025. The farmer panel during lunch was one of the highlights of the event. Farmers and industry experts gathered to discuss yield strategies and the realities of this season’s challenging Ontario growing conditions.

Stephen Denys, Director of Marketing and Product Development at Maizex Seeds, welcomed participants and acknowledged the difficult growing conditions in Ontario this year. Denys, who also farms near Chatham, highlighted the sharp contrast in rainfall across the province - 255 mm at his farm since early June compared with just under 60 mm in Lindsay.

The panel featured event host Ivan Petersen, who farms 2,100 acres of corn, soybeans, and wheat with his family and operates a grain elevator, trucking, and construction business. Chris Ferguson, who runs Chrissa Farms in eastern Ontario with his family, manages over 2,000 acres of corn, soybeans, and wheat alongside a trucking operation.

Rounding out the panel was Henry Prinzen, Market Development Agronomist with Maizex Seeds, who also farms hogs and cash crops on heavy clay soil near Jarvis, ON.

Both Petersen and Ferguson expect yields to drop significantly compared with last year’s bumper crop, forecasting around 160 bushels per acres of corn and 45–50 bushels per acre of soybeans.

They emphasized the need to manage cash flow carefully, lean on business diversification, and tighten marketing strategies to withstand lower margins.

Prinzen added that marketing and diversification-such as integrating livestock-are vital tools for stability.

When asked about yield improvement strategies, the farmers cited hybrid selection, population management, fungicide use, fertility programs, and soil health as key drivers.

Ferguson explained how fine-tuning hybrid placement by soil type has delivered better results, while Prinzen stressed pushing plant populations on clay soils and protecting nitrogen inputs with stabilizers and split applications.

Petersen noted that his intensive approach-including fungicides, fertility passes, and crop boosters-paid off in previous years, even if this season’s drought limited returns.

Denys’ last question was: “If you could invest in one area in the future, what would it be?”

Petersen suggested he is considering investing in irrigation pivots as insurance against recurring droughts. ““My thought is to put in centre pivots if this is a continuing trend with droughts,” said Petersen.

Ferguson pointed to refining tillage practices and adopting variable-rate seeding and fertility. “The lesson, I learned this year, we were cheating a bit on tillage tools, we used quite a bit of high-speed tillage, which I am leaning away from now… probably variable rate populating moving forward.”

Prinzen prioritized drainage improvements, noting his farm continues to invest in tile and water management to maximize yields on expensive land. “Land keeps going up and it not getting any better, but we can make our own land better.”

Tomorrow, the Tour will hold an event in Woodstock where they will reveal the corn and soybean estimates for the province of Ontario.

Watch the video of the Great Ontario Yield Tour Farmer Panel discussion in Osgoode.