With the completion of the Pro Farmer tour, and analysts’ forecast for a 49.3-bushel soybean yield this year, talk emerged about the possibility of the national yield hitting 50 bushels per acre by the end. While that’s not an impossibility, the odds of reaching that this year may be a little more remote than you might believe.

We’ve long argued soybean yield increases don’t come in a linear fashion over a long period of time. Instead, ...