Simple Management Change Keeps Soybeans Standing

What is the best way to harvest more soybeans next year? Plant fewer seeds.

It sounds backwards, but after watching growers battle severe lodging and leave bushels in the field this harvest, agronomist Lance Tarochione says reducing seeding rates by 20,000 to 30,000 seeds per acre could be your most profitable management decision for soybeans in 2027.

“There’s just a lot of things we can do easily, very economically, to improve soybean standability, but we have to get serious
about reducing seeding rates,” says Tarochione, a DeKalb-Asgrow agronomist in western Illinois, in his latest Ask The Agronomist video.

For many soybean farmers, this year’s harvest has been a slow-moving exercise in frustration. Lodged plants forced combine operators to change harvesting direction, crawl across fields and leave valuable bushels behind.

“I’ve talked to guys that have cut stuff one way. I’ve talked to guys that didn’t cut one way and should have, and left 15 bushels of beans (per acre) in the field, and were understandably upset about that,” Tarochione says.

He considers soybean lodging his No. 1 harvest complaint this season. And while the weather played a significant role in creating the problem, Tarochione says growers shouldn’t simply blame variety selection or accept lodging as an unavoidable harvest expense. He believes management decisions — especially seeding rates — can dramatically improve standability without adding costs or hurting yields.

Why Did Soybeans Lodge This Year?

Understanding lodging this year starts with the weather, Tarochione reports. Approximately 10 inches of rain in August was a primary contributing factor in his area.

“I actually think we had some root systems that were probably not super healthy at that point in time,” Tarochione says. “Wet, saturated soils don’t hold things up.”

But weather isn’t the whole story. He contends that some growers have been conditioned to push for maximum vegetative growth: thick canopies, tall plants, impressive biomass. While this helps suppress weeds, it doesn’t necessarily translate to grain.

“Forty-bushel beans and 80-bushel fodder is one of my favorite (ways to describe the situation),” he says. “We don’t need more vegetative growth from soybeans. We need more reproductive growth from soybeans.”

Lower Populations Stand Better, Yield Similarly

Tarochione conducted a soybean population demonstration trial this year near Monmouth, Ill., using the same variety planted at three rates: 80,000, 120,000 and 160,000 seeds per acre. The May 13 planting received no special management and produced approximately 70-bushel soybeans.

He reports the results for each population:

• 160,000 seeds/acre: Noticeable lodging
• 120,000 seeds/acre: Some lodging
• 80,000 seeds/acre: Standing well
• Yield difference between the seeding rates? Only about 2 bushels per acre.

While the trial wasn’t designed to test lodging under extreme conditions, Tarochione says it reinforces his belief that farmers can reduce lodging and save seed costs without sacrificing yield potential.

He also points to conversations with elite growers, including national soybean record-holder Alex Harrell, who planted just 110,000 seeds per acre in 2024 and produced 218.2856 bushels per acre. While that yield isn’t typical, it does demonstrate what’s possible with lower populations.

“Seeding rate was the No. 1 thing that (Alex) found that would actually keep high-yielding soybeans standing,” Tarochione says.

What Does This Mean for Your Operation?

Research shows farmers can achieve maximum soybean yields with fewer plants per acre when they focus on achieving a uniform stand across fields, according to Seth Naeve, University of Minnesota Extension agronomist.

“We can optimize yields at very low levels” Naeve says. “We have done a ton of research showing where we have yields that are maximized at below 100,000 plants per acre, as long as they’re well distributed.”

For growers producing 80- to 90-bushel soybeans on productive ground, Tarochione says a final stand of 80,000 to 90,000 plants per acre is likely sufficient. With many growers routinely planting 120,000 seeds per acre and seeing lodging, he encourages them to go lower.

“What I facetiously tell guys, and this will burn me someday because I’ll say it to the wrong person, is you go as low as you can stand, and then cut another 10,000 or 20,000,” he says.

Naeve says to use precision placement practices where possible. You can adjust seeding rates upward as needed to address tough areas within fields, higher risk conditions (cold, crusting soils), or if you’re using lower-quality seed.

Match Population to Your Field Conditions

Highly productive soils with good yield potential can often support lower populations, while less productive areas may need more seed to establish an adequate stand.

“Those heavy, higher organic matter, the best-soil-on-God’s-earth parts of your farm, 100,000 is plenty in those spots,” Tarochione says. “If you got a clay knob out there, it probably still needs to be 130,000.”

Another reason to not cut seeding rates is if you have heavy weed pressure, says Matt Duesterhaus.

“If you’re growing organic soybeans or in a constant battle with weeds, I believe lower soybean populations are out of the equation. High populations and quick canopy coverage are a crucial and effective part of your weed management in those scenarios,” he says.

Tarochione says growers should also consider planting conditions before making aggressive population reductions. Poor soil conditions, heavy residue and concerns about seed placement and emergence can make extremely low seeding rates riskier.

Narrow-row planting and drilling, however, don’t automatically require higher populations. In theory, Tarochione says, the optimal population should be similar across row spacings if seed placement and emergence are equally effective.

The Replant Insurance Myth

One common concern is having enough seed in the ground to avoid replanting if emergence suffers. But Tarochione questions whether planting an extra 10,000 or 20,000 seeds provides much protection when a stand failure occurs.

“Generally, what I see is if you have a failure to where replant is likely, you’re not losing 10% or 20% of the seeds you planted. You’re losing half or more,” he says.

In those situations, the additional seed often won’t eliminate the need to replant anyway, he contends.

Don’t Abandon Good Varieties Based on One Year

While reducing seeding rates is Tarochione’s top recommendation to harvest more soybeans, he cautions growers against making sweeping changes based on one unusual growing season.

He believes the combination of heavy August rainfall, saturated soils and field-specific growing conditions made 2026 an extreme lodging year in his area.

Variety selection also still matters. Some soybean genetics are more susceptible to lodging under the “right” conditions, and
Tarochione says seed companies need to identify those differences for their customers.

But he also emphasizes that the same variety can stand well in one field and lodge severely in another. He saw that firsthand in his Monmouth demonstration plot, where some varieties that growers were frustrated with on their farms remained standing.

“This year is showing us that virtually any soybean can severely lodge under the right circumstances,” he says.

That doesn’t mean growers should ignore poor standability. But before dropping a variety from their lineup, he encourages farmers to look at its performance over multiple seasons and talk with their seed suppliers about what happened.

“If something was more lodged than you like, but you’ve had good experiences with it in the past, I would keep planting it,” he says. “But I would get serious ... about reducing your seeding rate.”

He also wants growers to resist the temptation to abandon products simply because they disappointed them in what was an unusual year.

“When you see something you’ve never seen before out of a product that you’ve used for years, it’s the same product you’ve used in the past. It didn’t change. What changed?” he says. “The environment changed.”

For growers frustrated by this year’s harvest, that’s an important distinction. Variety selection deserves attention, but management and weather conditions also influence how well soybeans stand.

What About Other Management Tools?

Tarochione is interested in exploring plant growth regulators (PGRs) as another potential tool to limit excessive vegetative growth. He notes that some high-yield soybean growers already use them. However, he considers that an area for further investigation rather than an established recommendation he wants to make to farmers.

For now, he believes growers have a more immediate opportunity to improve standability without adding another input cost.

“We can go lower,” he says. “Seeding rates are the easiest, cheapest, quickest, simplest fix.”

Hear more from Tarochione on how to address standability in soybeans in his latest Ask The Agronomist YouTube video at the link below: