Apr 02 | Closing Market Report

cmr260402

Todd Gleason: From the land grant university in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, this is the closing market report. It is the second day of April 2026. I'm Illinois Extension's Todd Gleason. Coming up, we'll talk about the commodity markets with Matt Bennett. He's at agmarket.net. We'll hear a new song called "Iron Track Run." It's a collaboration between myself and artificial intelligence. Then, we'll turn our attention to next week's April 7 webinar that the PCM crew, Gary Schnitkey and Laura Gentry, will put on. You can attend that, by the way, by registering for free at farmdocdaily.illinois.edu. And we'll close out our time together, of course, by discussing the weather forecast today with Mike Tannura. He's at T-Storm Weather in Naperville, Illinois. All on this Thursday edition of the closing market report from Illinois Public Media. It is public radio for the farming world, online and on-demand at willag.org.

Todd Gleason: Todd Gleason services are made available to WILL by University of Illinois Extension. Just a reminder that this is the last trading day of the week as the CME Group will observe the Easter holiday tomorrow, and the markets will trade again for the Monday sessions.

Todd Gleason: May corn for this Thursday and the final trading day of the week at $4.52 and a quarter, settled two cents lower. July at $4.63 and a quarter, down a penny and three-quarters, and December unchanged today at $4.81 and a quarter. May beans, $11.63 and a half, down a nickel. July, four and a half lower at $11.80, and November soybeans at $11.54, down a penny and a half. Bean meal futures, three bucks lower at $315.20. The bean oil at $68.94, $1.83 higher for the day. Wheat futures in the soft red, July at $6.09 and a half, three-quarters of a cent higher, and the hard red at $6.31, finished two and three-quarters of a cent higher for the day.

Todd Gleason: Taking a look at some of the other markets, live cattle futures in Chicago finished at $246.32 and a half, $1.97 and a half higher. Feeders up $2.62 and a half. 400 pounds are trading $370.62 and a half, and lean hogs, 70 cents lower at $104.47 and a half. Crude oil for the day on West Texas, that's WTI, at $112.00, up $11.84 after the president's address last night. And the crude oil Brent at $108.75, $7.59 higher. The wholesale price of gasoline, 18 and a half cents higher at $3.27 and seven-tenths of a cent.

02:49 Ag Markets with Matt Bennett

Todd Gleason: Now joining us to take a look at the marketplace and talk about these numbers is Matt Bennett. He is at agmarket.net. Good afternoon to you, Matt. Thank you so much for being with us. Let's talk about that crude oil spread because usually the WTI does not outpace the Brent. What happened there today, do you know?

Matt Bennett: It's tough to say. There's no doubt that you've had a lot of disparity there. In fact, a lot of energy prices around the world you've seen disparity, but the bottom line as far as the spread between the two, I don't have a great explanation for it. I feel like this week you've seen a little more strength than what you would think whenever there was a lot of talk about scaling down. But we've actually seen WTI kind of lagging recently, so energy prices around the world and other places actually were a little more impressive than what we saw. So, quite an interesting trade here. I thought it was very interesting the difference with corn, actually. Not being able to follow along. Typically, whenever you see energy prices that strong, especially recently, you've seen corn kind of follow along. It tried to at the start, but I think there was probably just too much hedge pressure here today.

Todd Gleason: So where did that hedge pressure come from in your opinion? Is that old crop sales moving into the marketplace? And we probably should explain that it follows along because ethanol is a component of gasoline supply, and the WTI is the primary source where we trade or track what the base price of crude oil in the United States might be. So why is it, again, that corn wasn't able to follow along in your opinion?

Matt Bennett: You make a good point. Since the ethanol phase, if you will, started twenty-some years ago, basically we've seen crude and corn get to about a 15.5 to 1 ratio. That is where it likes to kind of reside. And of course, we're a long ways from that right now with crude vastly outpacing corn. But I would assume that it was hedge pressure on old crop. When you look to the overnight market and you were trading four, five, six cents higher at one time, I've got to think there was a fair amount of offers that got filled. You started the day session, it just flat out couldn't maintain anything. You were trying to trade up three, four cents there at the start, and then the next thing you know we were lower on the day. I've got to think that there was a fair amount of growers that after they saw the numbers on Tuesday were a little bit concerned that this thing was going to fall apart, especially with talk that the war might be dying down. While most people would want to see that, they understand what the relationship would be between corn and crude oil prices. So I think that some of those growers probably felt like, hey, this is another chance to get some corn sold, and a fair amount of it hit the market here today.

Todd Gleason: There was also weakness in the soybeans. This continues after the "buy the rumor, sell the fact" event last week for the renewable volume obligations that dramatically increased what will and should be crushed this second half of this year and into next year for bean oil into biomass-based fuels. Why do you suppose it is not following along upward?

Matt Bennett: The thing with soybeans, you know that you've got this massive crop in South America and it just continues to hang over the head of the market. I've got to think whenever Tuesday rolled around, we saw wheat acres so much lower, it certainly was supportive really towards corn and soybeans. Bean acres a little bit lower than what people thought, but at the same time, it sure looks like disappearance wasn't quite as good as what the trade was expecting. So you've got to expect whenever we come out here with the WASDE report next week, probably a decent chance that you'll actually increase the carryout a little bit. Exports have certainly lagged. Crush is fantastic, but I just don't think there's a whole lot of upward momentum, if you will, for crush to increase, given the fact that we're running pretty much on all cylinders right now. So, build out of the crush industry is going to take a little bit of time. Each month we post new records, but I think getting above and beyond some of those levels is going to be a really hard thing to do.

Todd Gleason: And a quick 35 to 40 seconds on livestock, cattle in particular.

Matt Bennett: What you've seen here over the last several days, we've been up I believe about six sessions in a row. At the same time, of course, the corn market had fallen off just somewhat, and I've got to think that correlation was actually pretty strong. Typically, especially feeders are going to go higher whenever feed costs move a little bit lower. We know the demand story, it's an old story. Funds appear that they want to continue to stay in this long position, which they've been on forever. So, you've got to be wary there if at some point they lose interest.

Todd Gleason: Thank you much. I appreciate it.

Matt Bennett: Absolutely. Thank you.

Todd Gleason: That's Matt Bennett. He is with agmarket.net, joined us on this Thursday edition of the closing market report. It is the last trading day of the week as the CME Group will observe the Easter holiday tomorrow. Matt, by the way, will be back for our Commodity Week program recorded later today and posted to our website at willag.org tonight.

08:17 I had A.I. write a song about Corn

Todd Gleason: Up next, something completely different. And I mean really, just different. You know, I'm a techie. If you walk into my house and you ask it to do something, it probably will. It'll turn on lights and adjust the thermostats in most rooms just by voice. But in those same rooms, you can simply flip the light switch or adjust the thermostat manually. Either way, it just works. It's all about ease of use and efficiency and just how technology can be deployed. At work, I've done the same thing over the decades as well. For instance, in 1994, I transitioned my radio studio from analog, meaning using tape, to digital, meaning using a computer. And that was a tough one. I had to learn a whole new operating system. I went from a PC to a Mac. I looked at that Macintosh, by the way, for about four months before I had the nerve to put it in the studio. So on a Friday afternoon, I ripped every piece of analog equipment out of that studio to force myself to use it digitally. It took about three months, just three months, to become more efficient at using the computer to produce audio and radio stories than I had been using analog equipment.

Todd Gleason: In the late 1990s, early 2000s, I transitioned to delivering programming to radio stations digitally. By 2005, we'd begun both the closing market report and Commodity Week podcasts. Then there was this long period, maybe a decade and a half, of just simply incremental updates that were worthwhile for sure, but the real advances, well, they just weren't coming. And from about 2015 to now, it's been really boring in that realm. I had been on the bleeding edge for a couple of decades, and people had finally caught up. It wasn't until last year when I started experimenting with AI, artificial intelligence, that things really enthused me again. And I found that bleeding edge, and I use it as a tool quite a bit in my daily work.

Todd Gleason: Earlier this week, I asked if I wanted it to create a song, and I thought, well, sure, let's try something. So I pulled that harmonica riff that used to be in the closing market report. If you've been listening long enough, you know which one. And gave it to the AI and said, make this a longer song. And it did, but it actually made it a song with vocals, which surprised me. And then I gave it some direction and said, okay, take the song you've written and change the lyrics for it, and make them focused on corn and feedlots out west, exports in New Orleans, and ethanol production. And it did it again. The name of the song is "Iron Track Run." It's a collaboration between myself and artificial intelligence. One of the directions I had given it for the lyrics included the word "refinery," and it took me a bit to get it to pronounce that word correctly. It wanted to pronounce it "ra-finery." The original harmonica by the way was a blues riff, and so the song is focused on trains.

(Song plays)

Silos full on a country road
Hopper cars take the yellow load
I heard the heavy diesel cry
beneath the wide and endless sky
The engine pulls when the shift begins
The harvest humming deep within
Oh let the iron track run
Out to the feedlots neath the western sun
Rolling south to the delta sand
New Orleans exports from the heartland
Let the air horn blow and the crossing ring
Hear the song that the freight trains sing
Ree-fine-er-reeze pumping where the highways cross
Turning the grain into octane gloss
The ethanol flows where the asphalt gleams
Powering the routes and the interstate dreams
Golden grain rising keep on rolling
Yeah rolling
Yeah whoa

13:22 PCM Date Shows Farmer Production Practice Consistency

Todd Gleason: Hey, you know, last night I was at Riggs Beer for a hops and cover crops event. I hope you can make those in the future. But for the moment, we'll turn our attention to Laura Gentry. She's the Director of Water Quality Science for the Illinois Corn Growers Association and works closely with Gary Schnitkey, Agricultural Economist here on the University of Illinois on PCM. That's Precision Conservation Management. There's about 10 years worth of farmer data in that program, and Gary and Laura will be going through some of it next Thursday, April the 7th, during a webinar at 11:00 AM Central Time. You can sign up for it on the farmdocdaily website. More on that in just a moment. But first, Laura, if you could take me through the point of the webinar, I'd appreciate it.

Laura Gentry: So we are going to be looking at the way that in the PCM program we see farmers using practices year after year. And the question was, do farmers do things differently year after year on the same fields? Do they do things differently within the field? How much variability is there in farmer practices? is a question that we wanted to get at because it really helps us to better understand how we can help farmers use conservation practices and suggestions we can make that are more realistic for them.

Todd Gleason: My gut feeling tells me no, but you tell me what the data tells you.

Laura Gentry: You are right. There is not as much variability as we had thought. There's a ton of variability between farmers. So much. Farmers from one to the next to the next, whether they're very close to one another, whether their systems are very similar, it doesn't matter. They do things very differently. But each individual farmer does not change things very much from year to year. It's like they get their system worked out, it works well for them, and there's a lot of consistency from year to year.

Todd Gleason: Is that consistency good or bad? Do you draw any conclusions?

Laura Gentry: What it means is that when you ask a farmer to do something differently, you better have a good reason to ask them to do it. You better be able to prove to them that it could be a good management change for them. And asking them to do this all the time, we say, "Well, just try this on one field." For especially nitrogen management, that is a very unlikely thing. It seems they aren't very likely to do that.

Todd Gleason: What are they likely to do? Have you pegged that?

Laura Gentry: They will look at cover crops from field to field. Where we might not say, "Try this on one field for nitrogen management," we could say it for cover crops and they would be more likely to try that. Also with tillage, they may consider doing tillage differently on a single field. That is not as likely as cover crops, though.

Todd Gleason: I suspect that we'll have a whole lot more in an hour than we do in four minutes. What will you cover?

Laura Gentry: We are also going to take a look at nitrogen prices and the way farmers are applying nitrogen fertilizer. So important right now.

Todd Gleason: Thank you much, Laura.

Laura Gentry: Thank you, Todd.

Todd Gleason: Laura Gentry is a Water Quality Specialist. She's with the Illinois Corn Growers Association. You may join Laura and Gary Schnitkey for the webinar on the 7th day of April. That's next Thursday at 11:00 AM Central Time. Visit the farmdocdaily website to find a way to register. It is absolutely free: farmdocdaily.illinois.edu. Then look under webinars and events, and upcoming.

17:02 Ag Weather with Mike Tannura

Todd Gleason: Let's turn our attention now to the global growing regions. We'll talk with Mike Tannura at T-Storm Weather. That's tstorm.net online. He's the President and CEO there. Hi, Mike. Thanks for being with us.

Mike Tannura: Hey, Todd. Thanks for having me.

Todd Gleason: Well, as our listeners have heard already, last night I was at a hops and cover crops event. We had just finished up talking with Laura Gentry. She's with the Illinois Corn Growers Association about an April 7 webinar that's coming up. During that event, I happened to sit down with Lloyd Wax, a retired weed scientist from the U of I, who has a farming interest in wheat country in Oklahoma. In fact, he said that the weather there has just been really difficult over the last six months or so. Let's start with that. What kinds of things have you been watching?

Mike Tannura: Well, it's been incredible to look at the temperatures. They basically turned warmer than normal in the heart of the plains back in September, and it's been way warmer than normal ever since. The seven-month period of September through March will clearly rank as the warmest in more than 130 years across the three-state region of Kansas, Nebraska, and Oklahoma. And this is looking at it in two different ways. You can just look at the actual air temperature, and we completely obliterated the previous record looking at it in that manner. But you also can look at it in another way, which is where you account for how much warmer it is now versus 100 to 125 years ago. And when you flatten out the line that basically shows a steady increase in temperature over that period of time, we still smash the record by about two degrees. Which is pretty incredible for the seven-month period. So, there's no doubt that this is the warmest start to a growing season in more than 130 years of record.

Todd Gleason: What about rainfall in the area?

Mike Tannura: Well, it's been very dry. We've been looking at this in a number of different ways, and if you look at it over the last 30 days, our proprietary data essentially shows that about half of this crop received less than a quarter inch of rain over that period of time. And it's about 30% over the last 60 days. And that's probably the biggest one to be concerned about. Basically telling us that 30% of this crop has not had any rain in the spring. Yes, we did see some storms over the last 12 to 24 hours, but those have now exited and they mostly missed the really dry wheat. And there's no rain really in the forecast over the next five to seven days. There's a small chance for storms tomorrow, but most of those will more than likely end up further to the east. And then we have to wait all the way until the end of next week for the next potential system. Now, Todd, one to two weeks out, we think there will be a little bit of rain because we have that initial system and then there might be one behind it. But these rain chances look pretty similar to what we just went through, which is where most of the rain ends up in the eastern areas, but not in the dry western areas. And if that happens, then it's too late. I mean, you have to get rain at some point in time. You could probably argue it's getting too late right now. But this is it. We need this rain in one to two weeks, and it needs to be a direct strike of heavy totals.

Todd Gleason: Take some time now to assess conditions across the Corn Belt.

Mike Tannura: Well, that's a fascinating story, too, because if we go back about four to six weeks ago, we were talking about how dry it had been for the six months leading into that period. Ever since then, it's been pretty wet. And we're seeing rains today and we're going to see more over the next few days. And it looks like we'll see some pretty decent rains one to two weeks out. We talked about those systems there for hard red winter wheat. Part of the reason we're not so sure if that crop will get the rain is because humidities will be low in the western plains. And that's primarily a function of their high elevation. As you move further east into the Corn Belt and into the Mid-South, the elevation is much lower, and that means that muggy air will be in place, and when these systems pass, it'll make more rain and thunderstorms. So, it looks like two to four inches of rain is on the way for most of the Corn Belt and the Mid-South over the next two weeks. And that would be especially along and west of the Mississippi River. Say Illinois and west to be the safest. And that's not an ideal setup for corn and soybean planting, but as you know, the planting window is long and it extends all the way into the middle and end of May. So, while not ideal, there still is time for dry weather to happen later this month.

Todd Gleason: And then in South America, take a look at crops there.

Mike Tannura: Well, Argentina got some great rains over the last several days, and they had a pretty wet close to the soybean season. Some of these rains came a little bit late, but we still saw some nice totals here over the last few weeks. The second corn crop in Brazil is turning sensitive, and they've seen some okay rains in recent weeks. We'd like to see some more. Some cold fronts are going to keep on moving through Brazil, and because of that we think that near normal totals are likely through the middle of the month. As long as that happens, then that'll take some of the pressure off of that crop, and we'll have to see how the second half of the month works out. But basically, not a lot of concern for second crop corn in Brazil today.

Todd Gleason: Hey, thank you much. I appreciate it.

Mike Tannura: Thanks a lot, Todd. We'll talk soon.

Todd Gleason: Mike Tannura is with T-Storm Weather. That's tstorm.net online. Joined us during this Thursday edition of the closing market report from Illinois Public Media. It is public radio for the farming world online on demand at willag.org. Where later this afternoon, if you visit the website, you'll be able to find our Commodity Week. That's after 6:00 PM tonight. Our panelists this week will include Matt Bennett, Chip Nellinger, and Mike Zuzolo. You'll hear that program tomorrow during the closing market report slot. Many of these radio stations will carry it over the weekend as well. The markets are closed in observance by the way of Good Friday tomorrow. So no update of the commodity markets really until Monday morning. I'm University of Illinois Extension's Todd Gleason.