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- Drew Lerner, WorldWeather.cc
From the Land Grant University in Urbana Champaign, Illinois. This is the closing market report. It is the 2nd day of April 2025. I'm extension's Todd Gleason. Coming up, we'll talk about the commodity markets with Greg Johnson.
Todd Gleason: 00:13He's at TGM. That's totalgrainmarketing.com. The elevator right here in Champaign County owned by FS, and then we'll turn our attention to the weather forecast with Drew Lerner at World Weather Incorporated in Kansas City. We'll stay mostly in The US today, although it will be an extensive view of what's happening in the middle of the country. Stay with us here on this Wednesday edition of the closing market report from Illinois Public Media.
Todd Gleason: 00:41It is public radio for the farming world online on demand anytime you'd like to listen to us at willag.0rg. Todd Gleason's services are made available to WILL by University of Illinois Extension. Well, ahead of president Trump's tariff announcements, which are due out at the top of the hour, 03:00 central time, corn in Chicago finished four lower at $4.57 and 3 quarters. The July at $4.65 a quarter on its settlement price down three, and new crop December 3 quarters lowered $4.48 and 3 quarters. May beans at $10.29 and a half down four and three quarters.
Todd Gleason: 01:20July at $10.45, 4 and a quarter lower, and new crop November at $10.37 and a quarter finished two lower for the day. Soybean meal at $2.94 60 down four fifty. The bean oil at $48.50, a dollar and 6¢ higher. Soft red winter wheat in the July at $5.52 and 3 quarters down a penny. The hard red July, '3 higher at $5.79 and 3 quarters of a cent.
Todd Gleason: 01:47Live cattle futures were up a buck 97 and a half, feeder 77 and a half cents higher, and lean hogs down 50¢ for a hundred pounds on this Wednesday afternoon. Greg Johnson now joins us. He's from TGM. That's totalgrainmarketing.com. Hello, Greg.
Todd Gleason: 02:05Thanks for being with us again today.
Greg Johnson: 02:06Good to be with you, Todd.
Todd Gleason: 02:08Well, tell me about the marketplace on, this first day that the president will be announcing, a large number, we believe, of tariffs against, if, he is correct in the promotion, all countries across the globe.
Greg Johnson: 02:26Yeah, well, so far we dodged one bullet this week with the quarterly stocks report and the planning intentions report. The markets finished higher on both corn and soybeans for a couple of days. We're giving back some of that today, but for the week we're still higher. So that's one roadblock that we've kind of sidestepped for the time being. Now the other one will be the, not just the announcement of the tariffs this afternoon, but probably more importantly of the reaction of the other countries to to those tariffs.
Greg Johnson: 02:59You know, will they just kinda wait and see? Will they acquiesce and or will they impose tariffs of their own? That seems to be the the question, you know, is is what will the retaliatory measures be? Obviously, tariffs in and of themselves will increase the prices of goods that we import. But from an ag perspective, we really need to find out what the other countries are gonna do because will that affect the amount that we export to those other countries?
Greg Johnson: 03:26And that's the concern, and, you know, we'll see what the trade, comes up with. But, those announcements won't come until after the market close today. So until then, we're just kinda treading water. Corn and beans are both slightly lower, but like I said, for the week, we're still higher. So, so far so good.
Todd Gleason: 03:43I suppose if we look back, and it might be important to do that even at this time before we know exactly what, this trade war might look like, there are some things we can learn from the twenty eighteen trade war with just China and what that country did. Now there were extenuating circumstances there with their hog herd, but China simply did not purchase US soybeans in the fall of twenty eighteen and through 2019, and it gave Brazil an upper hand at that point as well. Do we see a reconfiguration of agricultural trade across the planet? Do you think that will be the case, possibly could be the case this time around?
Greg Johnson: 04:28I think ever since 2018, China has come to depend on, South America as their first source of of, soybean supply. And then, obviously, they can't produce enough for China, so China has to finish, their their demand from The United States, but we're obviously the seller of last resort. And I think '18. So if a country has other options and we impose tariffs, they and they impose tariffs, they're gonna try to buy it from, you know, whatever country they can the cheapest. And, you know, now if there's no other corn, for example, to buy, we may be able to get by with that.
Greg Johnson: 05:06But, you know, even with the if if a country puts tariffs on, those those importers may need to pay the higher price and pass that cost along to their consumers. But if they've got a choice, there's no doubt that given what happened in 2018, we saw that soybean demand shifted South to South America, and we certainly hope that doesn't happen again with either corn or soybeans.
Todd Gleason: 05:30Yeah. As you mentioned, the futures market is, marking time mostly at this point. So not really speculating on what might take place or the retaliatory tariffs could be in put into place, whether they're on ag products or other things. There are other items in the news that we probably should discuss. The oil industry and the agricultural ethanol production and biofuels industry has been sitting down trying to work out details of how EPA can manage the RFS.
Todd Gleason: 06:03What do we know about those discussions and if they will be, supportive to the marketplace?
Greg Johnson: 06:11Farm industry and the and the oil industry, representatives that have sat down together. President Trump basically said, you guys sit down, work it out amongst yourselves, and present a proposal to the EPA, and then we'll what we wanna do. And so that's exactly what's been going on. Big Oil and Big Farm have been talking and it sounds like they've kinda come to some kind of an agreement on the renewable biodiesel, increasing the mandate from 3,350,000,000 gallons to somewhere around five to five and a half billion gallons. So that obviously, if the EPA would approve that, would be very friendly for demand for anything like renewable biodiesel, which includes soybean oil.
Greg Johnson: 06:54And if you look at a soybean oil chart, they it's just exploded. So that's very good and that's spilled over to some support for soybeans. But what people have to remember is that it's very hard to crush soybeans just for the oil. You get about 11 pounds of oil out of every 60 pound soybeans. That means the other 48 pounds, 49 pounds goes to soybean meal.
Greg Johnson: 07:16So you really crush the beans for the meal. You have to have a outlet for the soybean meal. You can run up prices a little bit based on soybean oil prices, but in the in the long run, you have to have a home for that soybean meal. And so we've seen a little bit of a pickup here in, soybean prices, as the oil market has helped support soybeans, but, there's probably a limit as to how much, soybean prices can go up based on this, the renewable biodiesel mandate changes.
Todd Gleason: 07:45The cynic in me tells me that the oil industry has already invested in renewable diesel and the plants, and been building those out. And that so that the push for renewable diesel, the farm and ag industry will be very happy about that, kinda leaves them holding the bag with the meal. We'll see how that plays out. And then, yeah, in return, I guess, I think I saw this that to this point, it appears that they only are talking about 15,000,000,000 gallons of of ethanol to continue to be used in The US gasoline supply. The industry asked for what, 15 and a quarter, and I guess they didn't get that.
Greg Johnson: 08:31Yeah. The the cynic in me would say that the oil industry doesn't as many ethanol plants as they do.
Todd Gleason: 08:39Oh, so true. Well, with with the exception of Marathon possibly and and Valera.
Greg Johnson: 08:45Right. Right.
Todd Gleason: 08:47We'll see how that continues to play out. What what else are we we watching at this time? I and I if, and it we probably should check-in on that that crop in South America too, particularly the the the soprano or second crop corn there simply because it will be pretty important, I would think, if tariffs and trade and retaliatory tariffs go into place. It needs to be in good shape. It has been.
Todd Gleason: 09:14We're into the last now twenty days or so of their rainy season. What do you see there for prospects?
Greg Johnson: 09:22They have gotten some rain over the last week to ten days. They went in dry. They have gotten some nice rains the week last week or ten days, but they're gonna need more rain. And as you said, we're approaching the dry season. And if you look, pull up a map, where most of the double crop corn, the safrinha corn is grown, there's a pretty good drought area just to the east.
Greg Johnson: 09:43Now will that move, into the corn growing area or will it stay east of the corn growing area? That seems to be the the question. This week everybody's fine, but, they're gonna need more rain. And, so I think the jury's still out on on the size of the safrinha corn crop down there. So that's one potentially friendly thing for the corn market.
Greg Johnson: 10:04And that's we're we're definitely gonna keep an eye on that. And and then the other thing that is probably in in the back of traders' minds is the fund position. The funds have really bailed out of their corn position. They were long 1,800,000,000 bushels about a month ago, and now they're basically even. They might be long, oh, two or 300,000,000 bushels, but certainly not not to the extent that they were four to five weeks ago.
Greg Johnson: 10:30Beans, they've got a short position on, slightly short. So basically call it even. So if we have any weather problems, the funds could very easily get back in. On the other hand, if we don't have weather problems, if you start doing some math based on the USDA's planning intentions report, ninety five point three million acres of corn works out to about a 15.8, 15 point nine billion bushel corn crop. And we only use 15.2, so that would get our carryout over 2,000,000,000 bushels again.
Greg Johnson: 11:01Now chances are we probably won't plant all those acres. We might get, let's say, 95, and we may I know the government will use a 181, one hundred 80 two yield to start, but we've never had that kind of a yield. So if you use something more realistic like last year's 01/1979, that gives you a 15,500,000,000 bushel production. And with a demand of 15.2, that would add to the carryout by 300,000,000, and so you go from 1.5 to 1.8, which is not burdensome at all. So weather will be a big issue as we progress, and it looks like we're going be wet for a couple of weeks, and then then we'll see what happens after that, what kind of start we can get off to.
Todd Gleason: 11:39We'll talk with you again next week. Thanks so much.
Greg Johnson: 11:42Thank you, Todd.
Todd Gleason: 11:43Greg Johnson is with TGM, that's totalgrainmarketing.com, joined us here on the closing market report for this Wednesday afternoon. Find us online, listen to our programs anytime you'd like at willag.org. Here are some things I think you'll find of interest about the Closing Market Report and Commodity Week, the AG programming, the WILL. Our Commodity Week and Closing Market Report podcast both started in 02/2005, the Closing Market Report in June and Commodity Week in October. And the wilag.org designation for our website came up in February.
Todd Gleason: 12:24Currently, I took a quick look to see what our pod track numbers are for the downloads of the closing market report. They're just under a hundred thousand a year or about 8,000 downloads a month. Quite incredible for a program that is about agriculture. Let's turn our attention now to the weather forecast here in The United States as the growing season is upon us. We're joined by Drew Lerner.
Todd Gleason: 13:08He's at World Weather Incorporated in Kansas City. Hi, Drew. Thank you for being with us.
Drew Lerner: 13:13Indeed. Indeed. It's a beautiful spring day here on this side of the fence.
Todd Gleason: 13:17Well, it's a little gray, and we have some rainfall here. And I think that's where we need to start. Tell me about the rainfall we've had, where it will be, and what issues it creates.
Drew Lerner: 13:29Yeah. Absolutely. You know, the the grayness that you've got there is symptomatic of storms that are likely to develop as we go forward through the day to day. We've already had them out this way in the Kansas City area. They were very relatively brief and light, weren't very impactful.
Drew Lerner: 13:47But, boy, there there's a quite a contrast in air mass characteristics setting up across the Midwest, and that is going to create a really ripe environment for a severe weather event. In fact, it may linger for two or three days, and we may see multiple waves of strong to severe thunder storms as well as a cumulative rainfall problem producing floods. So the focus of this afternoon's wild weather is going to be mostly running from the West Side Of The Delta up into Illinois and on into the Great Lakes region. By this evening, we will be pushing that through Indiana into Western Ohio and going across Western Kentucky and Tennessee. Some pretty wild thunderstorms are going to occur.
Drew Lerner: 14:40We're going to see some hail of large size. We're going to have tornadoes across these areas, and it's gonna be a wild night. That that's for sure. Those storms will die out during the morning tomorrow, maybe before dawn in some cases. And we'll look for a relatively quieter day tomorrow.
Drew Lerner: 15:00But as we get into tomorrow evening and tomorrow night, we may see a few more thunderstorms flare up with the potential for some severe weather. Not quite the risk we've got today, though. And we'll see multiple waves of disturbances moving along a quasi stationary frontal system. So that frontal system will lie across the Ohio River Basin, parts of the Northern Delta and into a portion of Oklahoma and Texas. And so for Friday and probably Saturday, we're going to have a couple of other rounds of wild weather, more strong to severe thunderstorms and training thunderstorms that will produce an incredible amount of rainfall.
Drew Lerner: 15:43The region from Arkansas into the heart of Kentucky and including some immediate neighboring areas in Southern Illinois, Southern Indiana, Southwestern Ohio. And portions of the Western Tennessee River Basin will end up with four to 10 inches of rain easily, And there's probably going to be a band of 10 to maybe 14 inches of rain by the time we do the end of this period, which will be Saturday evening or Saturday night. So it's a real problem. We will see flooding of significance, probably from Northeastern Arkansas into Kentucky. And, you know, of course, we're we have that risk of property damage and all kinds of issues coming from the severe thunderstorms, especially those that come today and tonight.
Todd Gleason: 16:35From the Northern Plains through the Upper Great Lakes, they've had quite a bit of snow, really wintery mixes and winter storms. Can you tell me about those and what impact they've had?
Drew Lerner: 16:46Actually, the same storm center that's responsible for our severe weather outbreak across the Midwest today is also generating a a notable snow event in the Eastern Dakotas and Minnesota. The snow accumulation through midmorning today, we're in the range of three to eight inches. But we've got another twelve hours of snow to go and maybe a little bit longer than that in a few areas. So we will add another three to eight inches into that region. So there's going to be a few areas that'll have a foot of snow on the ground by the time we're done with this.
Drew Lerner: 17:21The moisture totals will run easily three quarters of an inch to an inch and a half in general. And there will be a few spots, probably Northeastern parts of South Dakota and Southeastern North Dakota into, probably West Central and Northeastern Minnesota that will end up with some two inch amounts of moisture. That area is in a drought, so this is going to be helpful in that sense. But the travel issue, of course, is is tremendous for today. They won't be moving around much, and it looks like livestock in the region will certainly be stressed for the next twelve to twenty four hours, and then we'll start seeing conditions beginning to improve there.
Drew Lerner: 18:02But, you know, the moisture boost up that way is probably really important for them. They they really need to have more moisture before we get into the heart of this planting season.
Todd Gleason: 18:11What do you see for next week in temperatures, I I suppose, across the whole of the growing region in the Middle part of The United States? And you may start in, the Oklahoma, Kansas area or anywhere else that is of my top of mind for you.
Drew Lerner: 18:26Yeah. You know, I I mentioned these training storms that would occur across the the Lower Midwest and the Northern Delta. Part of the reason for those storms over these next several days is that upper level trough of low pressure that's coming in from the Southwest United States and it will pass over parts of West Texas and they maybe Western Oklahoma and a small part of Southwestern. So those areas will get a nice little drink of water. One of the few they've seen in quite some time.
Drew Lerner: 18:54They'll probably pick up on maybe a half to one and a half inches of rain out that way. And right after that, there may be some wet snow in the area, but it will get colder. And we do expect to see on Sunday broad based freezing temperatures from West Texas and Eastern New Mexico running on up to the Canada border. So all of hard red winter wheat or most of it will likely be subjected to temperatures in the twenties. Now we've had a lot of 80 and even a few 90 degree days in some of this region recently.
Drew Lerner: 19:28It's been dry. And so the crop is not as far along as you might imagine, that it's certainly a stressed and the freezes is not going to help situation any at all. But the freezes will hurt and maybe damage some of the more advanced irrigated wheat in the area. There's also some early canola that's produced in Oklahoma and that crop will be vulnerable to damage too. So there may be a little bit of impact from the freezes that come up here Sunday into Monday.
Drew Lerner: 19:58That cold air that impacts the Great Plains, those two days will shift into the Midwest as we go Monday into Wednesday of next week. Probably the Midwest, we'll see a little frost down into the Tennessee River Basin and maybe as far south as North Carolina along the East Coast. Freezes of greater significance will be North Of The Ohio River as we go into the early part of next week. And I think most of the wheat crop in the eastern part of the country, at least the Midwest, is not nearly as far advanced as some of those areas out you know, the Southwest Plains. So the impact is probably not going to be that great there.
Drew Lerner: 20:37We do think, by the way, that some of the wheat will get drowned out in parts of Kentucky and some of those areas are gonna really get all that excessive rain. So it'll probably be more damage from the flooding than it would be from any of the freezes that occur next week.
Todd Gleason: 20:52What a wild start to April. Do things change very much by the time we get to mid to late next week?
Drew Lerner: 20:59Well, actually, yeah, I do. Part of the reason for the big cold surge is an incredibly strong ridge of high pressure that's going to be building up over Western North America this weekend into early next week, and it reaches all the way up into Alaska and parts of the Arctic. And that's why all this cold air comes down into the eastern part of the country. And that ridge is gonna be progressive, at least as far as getting into the Great Plains. And so as we finish out the week next week, we will bring on the heat.
Drew Lerner: 21:31We will certainly clear out the skies. The humidity will plunge downward, and we'll likely see an increase in wind speeds. And we will be seeing temperatures back into the eighties again across a fair amount of the Great Plains, probably Nebraska southward, and maybe even a few 90 degree days will be possible in Southwestern Part Of The Plains where it's the driest. All that is, you know, at least a week, probably eight or nine days away. But that is the next step.
Drew Lerner: 22:00And those areas that don't get a lot of moisture this week, which would include Kansas, parts of Colorado and maybe a few areas nearby, you know, they'll be vulnerable to some pretty substantial drying by the time we're done with the heat wave, in that second week of the outlook.
Todd Gleason: 22:17And very quickly, just a short blurb on South America.
Drew Lerner: 22:20Yeah. Everything right now looks pretty good in Brazil. They're getting alternating periods of rain and sunshine. That's perfect. But, you know, down the road, we need to have that ground saturated before the monsoon ends, which is expected somewhere around mid month.
Drew Lerner: 22:35And if they don't have that ground totally saturated, that's that late planted supreme corn crop will certainly be at risk of lower yields when we get into May.
Todd Gleason: 22:43We'll ask you about that again next week. Thank you much. I appreciate it.
Drew Lerner: 22:47You betcha. Be safe.
Todd Gleason: 22:48You too. That's Drew Lerner. He's with World Weather Incorporated in Kansas City. Helped us to wrap up this Wednesday edition of the closing market report that came to you from Illinois Public Media. It's public radio for the farming world online on demand at willag.0rg.
Todd Gleason: 23:04That's willag.org. I'm extensions, Todd Gleason.