The National Wheat Yield Contest Celebrates 10th Anniversary and Announces 2025 National Winners

November 5, 2025

This week the National Wheat Foundation (NWF) announced the 28 winners in the 10th Annual National Wheat Yield Contest. While the number of first-time winners grew, four wheat growers who had previously earned the title of "Bin Buster" did so again in 2025 by topping the contest's main categories.

Rylee Reynolds of Twin Falls, Idaho, bested all entries this year and earned Bin Buster honors with his irrigated soft white winter wheat that yielded 228.13 bushels per acre (bpa). It's the second-highest yield recorded in the contest's 10-year history and Reynolds' second time atop the category. He set the overall contest record in 2022 when he raised irrigated soft white winter wheat that yielded 231.37 bpa.

For the second consecutive year, the dryland winter wheat Bin Buster was Steve VanGrunsven of Forest Grove, Oregon, who grew soft white winter wheat that averaged 198.32 bpa -- nearly 28 bushels more than his winning entry from the previous year. The dryland spring wheat category also produced a repeat Bin Buster award winner. Nick Pfaff of Bismarck, North Dakota, took the honor with his entry of hard red spring wheat yielding 147.81 bpa, which was more than 30 bushels greater than his 2024 effort. Derek Friehe of Moses Lake, Washington, was named the irrigated spring wheat Bin Buster with hard red spring wheat yielding 204.83 bpa. It's the farmer's third time to earn distinction as a Bin Buster in the contest.

Since its inception in 2016, the National Wheat Yield Contest has encouraged wheat growers to strive for exceptional yields, high quality and stronger profitability while trying new and innovative management strategies that drive productivity and marketability. DTN/Progressive Farmer is the official media outlet of the competition.

This year's contest garnered 465 entries, the second-most during its 10 years of existence. Of the 28 national award winners, 11 earned the distinction for the first time, including farmers from states that previously had not produced national winners.

"We are pleased to see winners from new states such as Wisconsin and Indiana as well as the traditional large wheat states such as my home state," said Gary Broyles, NWF chairman and farmer from Rapelje, Montana. "Congratulations to everyone who entered and completed the contest. It takes extra work and time, but it pays off in what is learned that can be applied to raise productivity of the whole farm's wheat acres."

Anne Osborne, NWF executive director, noted when speaking to the first-time national winners, many have shared they've added wheat back to their crop rotations for the first time in decades.

"When I spoke to Blake Anthis of Wheatland, Indiana, who is the first farmer from that state to place nationally in the contest, he talked about the benefits that wheat had brought to their family farm," she said. "Adding it to the rotation has helped break up pest cycles and allowed them to use different herbicides to help clean up fields while also spreading out some of the workload on the farm. These are some of the same benefits that we as a foundation promote."

In addition to the awards presented to farmers for their overall yield accomplishments, national awards were given to dryland wheat growers who raised a crop that excelled when compared to others in the county where it was produced. Entries were judged based on their percentage above their five-year Olympic county average, a figure published annually by USDA. This levels the playing field and provides a means of recognizing growers who succeed at producing wheat in lower-yielding areas.

This year, Shawn Kimbrell of Sunray, Texas, produced dryland hard red winter wheat that yielded 70.04 bpa -- 448.48% above his county average of 12.77 bpa. In Hettinger, North Dakota, Jordan Christman raised dryland hard red spring wheat that yielded 101.27 bpa, which was 157.04% above his county average of 39.4 bpa.

The 24 national winners in the contest's four traditional categories hail from 12 states. Their entries' yield average was 147.01 bpa, an increase from 145.05 bpa last year. Two contest categories produced record-high averages: The winners in dryland winter wheat averaged 172.51 bpa while those in irrigated spring wheat averaged 187.94 bpa.

For the second year, NWF offered a pilot contest category, Digital Yield. Available to dryland spring wheat growers in Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota in 2024, the category was expanded to include farmers raising dryland winter wheat in Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas and Wyoming this year. Using digital technologies such as John Deere Operations Center, Climate FieldView or Bushel -- along with data from their calibrated grain cart scales -- growers could submit their yield to the contest from a 20-acre selected area from a previously entered field.

This year's digital high yield dryland winter wheat winner was Alec Horton of Leoti, Kansas, with an entry of 138 bpa. Daniel Edmonds of Morris, Oklahoma, won the dryland winter wheat digital yield award for highest percentage above county average with a yield of 99 bpa, which was 67.88% above his county average of 58.97 bpa.

In dryland spring wheat, Isaac Hendrickson of Agate, North Dakota, took honors as the digital high yield winner, submitting an entry that yielded 119 bpa. Brad Disrud of Rolla, North Dakota, earned the dryland spring wheat digital yield award for highest percentage above county average with a yield of 103 bpa, which was 85.19% above his county average of 55.62 bpa.

WEATHER WINS AND WOES FOR WHEAT

Both winter and spring wheat growers faced their share of weather challenges while producing this year's crop. DTN Ag Meteorologist John Baranick noted much of the winter wheat crop was planted into some dry conditions in fall 2024.

"But then we saw an extremely active November that really moistened soils," he said. "It got a lot of areas into good shape by the time the plants went dormant."

As 2025 began, some drought had built up over the Plains, and in some cases, such as South Dakota and Nebraska, it was severe. However, a more active storm track started up in April, and many areas outside of Nebraska received rain at a relatively frequent pace.

"Unfortunately, for those in the Delta and Midwest, those rains were extremely heavy," Baranick said. "Early April saw some areas receive more than 10 inches of rain in a three-day period, and the rains seemingly didn't stop until mid-July in many cases. Ponding and flooding were frequent problems for the winter wheat crop in these areas, especially near and just south of the Ohio River as Kentucky got hit the hardest. Severe weather in the spring was not as widespread as it usually is, and hail was a less-frequent concern this year than normal."

In the Pacific Northwest, La Nina failed to bring excessive snowfall to the mountains during the winter, but it was not particularly dry, either. Baranick said the front-half of the spring generally was favorable, but drier conditions in May and into June could have played an issue with how the crop finished -- even if the dryness didn't really show up much on the U.S. Drought Monitor.

For spring wheat regions, snowpack in the Northern Plains underperformed for the second year in a row. While that meant it was easier to work the soil in early spring and allow for early planting in some areas, it also meant that soil moisture was tenuous in the region.

"They really had to rely on good spring and summer rains," Baranick said. "Cold air that moved back into the region in May wasn't helpful for those who didn't plant early, leaving the planting window wider than usual. In the Dakotas, the spring and summer rains were close to average, though some areas still had issues.

"Yet, for much of Montana and western North Dakota, the dryness developed into long-standing drought that didn't seem to want to ease up until harvest started," he continued. "Montana had some of the worst wheat ratings on record."

MORE WHEAT WINNERS

In addition to the national winners, NWF named 70 state yield contest winners from 22 states. Their yield average across all categories was 140.41 bpa, up from 133.09 bpa in 2024.

Though contest winners are selected based on yield, emphasis is also placed on the production of high-quality grain. The 28 national winners are required to submit a 10-pound sample that will be analyzed for milling and baking qualities. The soft wheat samples will be tested at the Wheat Marketing Center in Portland, Oregon; the hard wheat samples will be sent to Great Plains Analytical Laboratory in Kansas City, Missouri. A panel of experts will rank the wheat samples by quality, and the winners will be announced in mid-January 2026.

National winners are awarded a trip to the Commodity Classic, which will be held in February 2026 in San Antonio where they will be recognized at the NWF Winner's Reception on Feb. 25, 2026.

Partnering sponsors for the 2025 National Wheat Yield Contest include: John Deere, WestBred, BASF, Dyna-Gro, AgXplore, Croplan, Limagrain, U.S. Wheat Associates, The McGregor Companies, AgriMaxx, Anheuser-Busch, Ardent Mills, BNSF, Corteva, Eastman, Mennel Milling, Siemer Milling, UPL, Bushel, Climate FieldView, Grain Craft, Miller Milling, Nachurs, PlainsGold, Idaho Wheat, Kansas Wheat, Kansas Wheat Alliance, Kentucky Small Grain Growers, Michigan Wheat, Montana Grain Growers, North Carolina Small Grain Growers, Ohio Corn & Wheat and Texas Wheat.

The full list winners can be found Here. For more details on the National Wheat Yield Contest, visit National Wheat Yield Contest - National Wheat Foundation. For questions on partnership in the 2026 contest, contact Anne Osborne aosborne@wheatworld.org. 

Source: DTN