Jamestown farmer plants soybeans in Stutsman County with son learning the ropes

Brandon Dale was planting soybeans in Stutsman County with his son at his side, turning a Jamestown field into a lesson in timing, weather and farm economics as the 2026 season got moving. For Dale, a local farmer and director with the North Dakota Soybean Growers Association, the work was as much about passing along judgment as it was about putting seed in the ground.

The decisions around him were the same ones that shape soybean acres across North Dakota every spring. Soil conditions had to be right. Wind could dry out a field fast. Moisture mattered, but so did the forecast, because early planting can help yield and still exposes a crop to frost risk. North Dakota State University Extension says that tradeoff is part of the calculus every year, with the long-term average last frost day in spring and first frost day in fall serving as key markers for growers trying to protect yield.

That risk sits inside a crop that remains one of North Dakota’s biggest. The North Dakota Soybean Council says it serves more than 10,000 soybean farmers in the state, with growers contributing one-half of 1 percent of the bushel price at first sale to the soy checkoff. In 2025, soybeans covered 6.55 million planted acres in North Dakota, with 6.49 million harvested, producing 223.9 million bushels at an average yield of 34.5 bushels per acre, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service.

Stutsman County gives that scale a local setting. Organized in 1873, the county covers 2,298 square miles and had a population of 21,593 in the county government description, with Jamestown as the county seat. Soybeans also have a growing processing market nearby. ADM announced a $350 million soybean crushing plant in Spiritwood, and Green Bison Soy Processing later said its facility could produce up to 600 million pounds of refined soybean oil a year and nearly 1.3 million tons of soybean meal. Green Bison began accepting soybeans on Sept. 18, 2023.

The calendar makes the spring move even tighter. A 2026 North Dakota planting-dates map lists April 30 as the earliest soybean planting date and June 10 as the final planting date, a window that leaves little room for delay when weather turns. NDSU also uses projected crop budgets for the South Valley region, which includes southeastern counties, to help show why a few days in the spring can affect both risk and profit. For Dale and his son, the field work was a practical lesson in how those numbers play out row by row.