Todd Gleason: 00:00

From the Land Grant University in Urbana Champaign, Illinois, this is the closing market reported is the February 2025. I'm extensions Tuglisky. Have you purchased your tickets yet? Registered for the all day I got looked that's a week and a day away next Tuesday at the Beef House in Covington, Indiana. If not, I hope you will soon at willag.org, w I l l a g 0 r g, or on the FarmDoc website at farmdocdaily.illinois.edu.

Todd Gleason: 00:32

Coming up today, we'll talk about the commodity markets with Kirk Kimmel from agmarket.net. We'll hear from ag economist, Chad Hart at Iowa State University, and Mark Russo will be here from Everstream Analytics to talk about the weather forecast on this Monday edition of the Closing Market Report from Illinois Public Media. It is public radio for the farming world. One other note about the event at the Beef House next week in Covington, Indiana. You know the FARMdoc team will be there.

Todd Gleason: 01:02

The Will Ag analyst will be there. We'll talk with the director of the Center for Digital Ag here on campus about autonomous agriculture and the impact he sees in the future on your farm, but we'll also have three authors on hand: Scott Erwin, Jonathan Koppas, and Neil Dahlstrom. You can find the links to their books in the agenda at farmdocdaily or at willag.org and order them. There's a 40% discount, by the way, for Jonathan's books. Bring them with you, and they will sign them.

Todd Gleason: 01:36

It should be a great event. I hope to see you there. Todd Gleason services are made available to WIL by University of Illinois Extension. March corn for the day settled at $4.82 and a half, down eight and three quarters. The May had $4.97, 8 cents lower.

Todd Gleason: 01:52

New crop December, '4 and a quarter lower at $4.70 and 3 quarters. March soybeans $10.29, down 10. The May down nine and three quarters at $10.47 and a half, and November at $10.51 and 3 quarters down 8¢. Bean meal, $3 lower. The bean oil for the day, down a dollar and 11¢.

Todd Gleason: 02:12

Wheat futures soft red, 11 lower at $5.79. In the March, the hard red March, down twelve and three quarters at $5.96 and a half. Live cattle futures in Chicago at $195.10, up a dollar 15. Feeders up $4.47 and a half at $2.72 and 2 and a half cents. And the lean hogs at $87.40 per hundred pounds, down 27 and a half cents.

Todd Gleason: 02:37

Crude oil about 21¢ higher. The price of gasoline just about a penny and a half lower for the day. And the Dow Jones Industrial Average are up around 220 points at this hour. Let's turn our attention to Kurt Kimmel. He's at agmarket dot net to discuss the beginning of the trading week with us.

Todd Gleason: 02:56

Hi, Kurt. Thanks for taking some time with us. What happened in the commodity markets Friday and today?

Curt Kimmel: 03:04

Well, we saw a little bit of selling interest. Just over the weekend here, we saw quite a bit of interest in the world events, particularly. There was talk that, Chinese vessels. Vessels built in China would have a surcharge coming into US ports. And so the, you know, that added a little fuel to the fire on US, Chinese relations.

Curt Kimmel: 03:30

Also too, we saw some weather forecast here. A little bit of a warmer situation where, the polar vortex is kinda history now, hopefully. We were we had some colder weather longer term in our forecast. Then all of a sudden, we saw, some warmer tendencies. Natural gas really took it on the chin there.

Curt Kimmel: 03:54

And so the wheat market, sold off on better US weather and world weather. World weather too, we saw some better forecast of rain in the Southern Hemisphere in Argentina, a little drier forecast, for, Brazil there. So we're starting to see that, harvest, continue to march along and through here. And we're seeing Brazil about 38 complete versus, 27% last week, 37% last year, and 34% average. Second crop corn, 54% in the ground versus 40% last week, 57%, last week, and 90 39% average.

Curt Kimmel: 04:41

So they're making some fairly good headway. You know, ideas continue to be if we do see some buyers here down the road that, it'll be shifting to the Southern Hemisphere. So that coupled with all the others here just put everything in the navy negative posture here is, kinda testing some support, levels technically here, Todd.

Todd Gleason: 05:06

Is this a pause in profit taking in the rally that corn has had since October, or is it the beginning of something different?

Curt Kimmel: 05:14

Well, we we we feel we've priced a lot of bullishness in the or uncertainty into marketplace over the near term here. We've had a significant rally off to December lows. Producers have been pretty well sold up or or catching the move up, moving some cash grain into the marketplace. The marketplace is actually full. You go out West, the base is seventy, eighty under on corn.

Curt Kimmel: 05:40

You you talk to guys here in the East. They're having some logistics issues, you know, trying to get grain moves. So I think the producer is pretty well sold up in through here. And now, we're seeing a situation where the funds have been buying this rally and through here now is the question whether that commodity fund position can't hold hold on long enough here or if they continue to try to liquidate. We do have month end here at the end of the week.

Curt Kimmel: 06:09

Probably, showed some liquidation. Plus two, we had March op and expiration last Friday. We lost about a hundred thousand contracts out of March. Corn, about 35,000 contracts out of March. Soybeans has the puts and calls and features all kinda, lined up, together there.

Curt Kimmel: 06:29

The key probably as we move through the week here is to see what our outlook for meeting has to show here as we move towards the the end of the week there on Thursday and Friday.

Todd Gleason: 06:43

What are you expecting from them? Is that 94,000,000 acre corn number going to come out?

Curt Kimmel: 06:53

Well, that's the big discussion. If it's not 94, it'll be boys. But, yeah, acreage just get an idea on acreage. The March 31 would be more dialed in, but the average trade guess, for, what acreage number will come out is 93.5. It's about 2,900,000 bushels more not bushels acres more than a year ago.

Curt Kimmel: 07:17

The high gas is 95. Right? Some higher gases than that. We pretty well covered some different locations, different ideas, you know, the the South, switching to corn. Morgum sorghum, and Milo Beds are just not there, so Kansas might have some more corn.

Curt Kimmel: 07:36

And there's just some areas just can't really feed, so I'd be shocked if the number is below 95,000,000 acres. But we'll see what what to come up with, but the name will be in March. Soybeans, 84.4. That's down 2,700,000 acres. And cotton average, I guess, is 10,000,000 acres.

Curt Kimmel: 07:56

That's down 1.2. But that's kind of a benchmark to go through, look at, and we'll kinda go from there.

Todd Gleason: 08:04

Hey. Thank you, Munch.

Curt Kimmel: 08:05

You bet. Take care, Todd.

Todd Gleason: 08:06

Kurt Kimmel is with AGMarket.net. Joined us here on this Monday edition of the closing market report. Pick up your tickets for the all day outlook. It's at the Beef House not tomorrow, but next Tuesday. They're just $40 at willag.0rg.

Todd Gleason: 08:25

I'm University of Illinois Extension's Todd Gleeson. We're now joined by Chad Hart, agricultural economist at Iowa State University Extension. He's traveling that state today. He's in the Northwestern Part of Iowa. I'd asked where you are, but I'm not sure you really know.

Chad Hart: 08:42

Nope. I'm I'm on a dirt road somewhere north of Remsen, Iowa, which is yeah. I'm somewhere, you know, close to either Sioux County or Plymouth County as you look at that that Iowa, yeah, up in that far Northwest

Todd Gleason: 08:54

corner. You were talking, I suppose, to producers and others in that part of the world. I asked you to check a couple of things for me, and I suspect you already knew some of this. But, there is some worry that there are dry conditions in the Western Corn Belt. Is that the case in the Northwestern Part Of Iowa?

Chad Hart: 09:13

Oh, yeah. No. In this case, you know, we're definitely seeing drought conditions up here. One of the big things that, you know, farmers talked about here today is really the lack of snow cover we saw throughout the winter up here in Northwest Iowa. As I'm traveling around right now, typically, we would have a still a good base level of snow on the ground that is almost completely gone right now.

Chad Hart: 09:37

And in fact, when I stepped out today to go do the talk, I was in, you know, short sleeve shirt. It it shows that it's been not only, you know, drier than normal, it's it's warmer than normal up here as well.

Todd Gleason: 09:51

And I suppose producers are concerned. The question is, when they ask you that part as it's related to drought conditions early in the calendar year, how much of a difference does it make for you as it's related to the market

Chad Hart: 10:06

place? Well, in this case, I would say it's, it's mattering less as the years have gone on. And I I sort of go back to when I think about, you know, when my marketing talks over the past five years. Almost every time now, I include the drought monitor in that discussion because we've been dealing with these drought conditions somewhere across the country since 2020. Yet despite the those droughty conditions moving around the countryside here, when you look at corn and soybean yields across the nation, they have been incredibly consistent.

Chad Hart: 10:40

North of one seventy for corn since 2020, north of 48 bushels on the soybean side since 2020. And so we've seen really strong crop production despite the drought conditions.

Todd Gleason: 10:53

What does that tell you about marketing? And I think it may tell you that there's a lot of volatility, but that earlier can be better than later. I'm not certain what it's telling you about what how farmers should think about marketing a crop.

Chad Hart: 11:09

Well, you're right. It it does bring in more volatility. It means that, you know, when we typically think about weather premiums that would build in, those have are are taking a little longer to build in than they used to in past just because we've had, you know, these early drought conditions. We had them again. If you think back to last year at this time, we were in a very similar situation.

Chad Hart: 11:32

Yet, you know, when we stared at the crop at the end of the year, it turned out to be the best yielding crop, at least on the corn side that the country's ever seen. So it does bring some challenges up there. I think for a lot of producers, they're just trying to look and see you know, in this case, we know we're droughty early. They're wanting to know more about will this be sort of like last year where we saw enough timely rains in the middle to make it matter, or will we continue to struggle through this drought deeper into the year and maybe pull those prices higher the further out we look? Now I also know

Todd Gleason: 12:07

that they probably have asked with somewhat of a knowing smile on their face about the 1,550,000,000 bushel carryout, which is down $700,000,000 from what the first projections of USDA might have been, at this time last year for the twenty twenty four calendar year crop. Do you have good news or bad news for them when when they look at you that way?

Chad Hart: 12:30

Well, typically, they've been happy to see those stocks shrink. And we talk about what's been going on there and how when you're looking at, you know, the changes in usage year over year are basically all concentrated in the export line. When you think about feed demand, that feed and residual has remained fairly consistent year over year. Same thing with ethanol. Same thing with food, seed, and other on the corn sweetener side.

Chad Hart: 12:55

So that change has really been watching, you know, on the demand side exports. And on the supply side, yeah, taking off a few bushels there, shrinking this crop below 15,000,000 bushels.

Todd Gleason: 13:07

What does it tell you about 2425 marketing?

Chad Hart: 13:11

Well, as we're looking, you know, at at 2425, we have definitely seen a rebound on the corn side as, you know, this crop has tightened up and those stocks did lower down here. And when I'm looking at the 2526, I tell farmers it's one of these deals of, okay. Will that export may demand, be allowed to continue to grow, or how will government policy shift that as we're looking forward? Because if you're looking for prices to continue to improve, we either need stocks to be shrinking again or we'll need a boost in that usage. And right now, the only boost on the usage side is coming from exports.

Todd Gleason: 13:51

Do producers think there will be a boost in exports?

Chad Hart: 13:55

Well, right now, they're seeing one. I mean, if you look at the data, year over year, corn exports are up now nearly 30. Soybean export sales are actually up around 12 to 13%. So if you're looking at the international demand compared to last year, yep, we are, markedly better than we were. That has been and still continues to be, an area for growth in the markets.

Todd Gleason: 14:21

And the caveats?

Chad Hart: 14:23

The caveats are exports. I'm sorry, tariffs. If you're thinking about, you know, the threats of the tariffs that president Trump has talked about on Canada, on Mexico, on Colombia, and especially the idea of those, blanket or reciprocal tariff across the board, that does give farmers pause as far as thinking that this export train has, you know, a lot further to go or whether it could be cut off rather soon. What do you

Todd Gleason: 14:51

see on the soybean side of the supply and demand tables?

Chad Hart: 14:54

It's very similar actually, yeah, if you think about it. The idea is that, the only difference there is that soybean crush demand has continued to be very strong. But the growth rate we expect there, we expect that to slow as we're looking forward. So, again, if I'm looking for growth for 2526, I probably needed to come from the export line there as

Todd Gleason: 15:16

well. So you're looking forward cautiously?

Chad Hart: 15:21

Cautiously. Yes. And so especially when I'm looking at pricing right now, one of the things I'm seeing is with the rally that we've had in the corn market over the past few months, we have probably pushed those 25, 20 six futures up into levels which can cover, cost for a fair number of our producers. We're not there with soybeans right now. Soybeans is definitely lagging behind and, leading to more of a challenge there, which is gonna show up not only in terms of how farmers market the crop, but I think it's still influencing the acres we'll see planted this spring.

Todd Gleason: 15:55

Natural rotation for farmers in Iowa suggest more corn acres this year?

Chad Hart: 16:00

It does. And so the idea is that we would naturally be moving towards corn, but right now you're getting that natural rotation impact combined with just the sheer economics also pushing farmers towards corn.

Todd Gleason: 16:13

Got a number in mind?

Chad Hart: 16:15

My own number in my head right now is probably nationwide, 94,000,000 acres.

Todd Gleason: 16:19

Thank you much. I appreciate it, Chad.

Chad Hart: 16:21

Thank you, sir.

Todd Gleason: 16:22

That's Chad Hart. He's an agricultural economist at Iowa State University extension based in Ames. You're listening to the closing market report from Illinois Public Media. Our theme music is written, performed, and produced by Logan County, Illinois Farmer, Tim Gleason. Our program is forty years old, more than that now, and has some 10,000 episodes.

Todd Gleason: 16:45

We're celebrating that this year, and the thirty fifth annual all day outlook tomb. We'll do both of those things next Tuesday at the Beef House in Covington, Indiana. Sure would love to have you over there with us. Be sure to check out the agenda and to register today. The cost is just $40.

Todd Gleason: 17:03

You can do that online at willag.org or on the FarmDoc website at at farmdocdaily.illinois.edu. Let's check now the weather forecast for the growing regions across the planet. We'll hear from Mark Russo. He's at Everestream Analytics. Hi, Mark.

Todd Gleason: 17:31

Thanks for being with us again on a Monday.

Mark Russo: 17:33

Hello there, Todd.

Todd Gleason: 17:34

Let's begin with South America, Argentina. It's a crop we've been watching closely. What do you think of it today?

Mark Russo: 17:42

Things are improving in Argentina, more so for soybeans versus corn, and soybeans are more precipitation dependent versus, heat sensitive. But what we've seen here recently is the pattern turned more active with rain activity in Argentina here in February. And looking out over the next two weeks, Argentina is going to receive above normal rainfall with frequent rain development, including some heavy rain development. So that will continue to boost soil moisture and be very timely, especially for soybeans going through pod development.

Todd Gleason: 18:15

So backing up just as a bit because you said, not as heat sensitive as corn. The pollination period, while had some while having rainfall was hot, I take it, in a large part of Argentina for corn.

Mark Russo: 18:29

Yeah. In recent weeks here. But if you go back to January, January is which is primarily the main window for corn pollination. That was both dry and hot and that likely hit corn the most here. So even with the rain activity improving this month, there was still some additional heat this month too.

Mark Russo: 18:49

And overall, we feel things have kinda stabilized, but it's not turning around the situation here.

Todd Gleason: 18:55

Yeah. It makes it much more difficult to try to figure out what the crop size is. You have to wait and make some counts in the field in order to understand what the nick was like and pollen how pollination went. So we'll continue to watch that move northward across Paraguay, Southern Brazil, and then into the Center West.

Mark Russo: 19:14

Yeah. We're we're watching here Rio Grande do Sul, which got good rains a week ago to boost soil moisture for late developing soybeans. But since then, it's turned drier. It's turned hotter, it looks to stay that way over the next two weeks. In fact, things have trended even drier for Rio Grande do Sul.

Mark Russo: 19:32

So that could again cause some late development stress here for soybeans just in Rio Grande do Sul. The rest of Brazil is also on the drier side, and that's favorable now for harvesting of soybeans as well as Safrina planting in Madagrosso.

Todd Gleason: 19:50

In The United States, what are you watching in the Southwestern part of our world for the particularly in Kansas and the Great Plains for the hard red winter wheat areas?

Mark Russo: 20:00

Yeah. We're watching now what's been a transition to unseasonably warm temperatures similar to what's happened here in recent days across the Midwest. And specifically in the Plains, this warmer than normal pattern will persist during the next two weeks. Also with that will be a lack of any kind of big precipitation. And for the Southern Plains harder to winter wheat belt, that's been the driest acreage all winter and no sign of any major precip events here coming up.

Mark Russo: 20:31

And as a crop begins to go through spring growth starting later on in March, then, crop moisture needs will begin to rapidly increase.

Todd Gleason: 20:41

Just before our conversation with you, we were talking with Chad Hart. He's traveling through the Northwestern Part of Iowa, ag economist with Iowa State University, was on a dirt road, actually, just waiting to talk with us today. I did ask him because I knew that he would be in that part of the world, whether farmers' tiles were running and what dry conditions were like. And of course, it is dry there. Can you tell me if you have concerns for the Northwestern Corn Belt or for Nebraska or other places as it's related to this spring and the dry conditions they have had?

Mark Russo: 21:16

Yeah. No immediate concerns as there's still plenty of time for soil moisture to improve here over the next several months. And, one thing that we think is, more noteworthy right now or at least a leading indicator here is that from a, the Upper Midwest has seen a snow deficit here this winter and as a result, the snow water content is basically, very minimal. And so with that, it's that now that's something that can't really change over the next couple of months. So that points away to points away from any kind of, you know, big flooding issues, like what happened in 02/2019 where you had abundant and late season snowpack.

Mark Russo: 22:01

This is this is totally different. So this is reducing the risk of, extreme, planting delays due to wetness and, you know, flooding issues up across the Red River Valley.

Todd Gleason: 22:13

Thank you very much. That helps to put it all back together as, the ag economist told us that they were concerned in that area mostly that they did not have snow cover. In fact, very little snow cover where he was today too. Thank you. I appreciate that.

Todd Gleason: 22:26

You have a great week. We'll talk with you next Monday.

Mark Russo: 22:28

You're welcome, Todd. You too.

Todd Gleason: 22:30

That's Mark Russo from Everstream Analytics joined us on this Monday edition of the closing market report that comes to you from Illinois Public Media. You may listen to it anytime you'd like. Search it out in your favorite podcast application or listen to it on demand at willag.org, w I l l a g 0 r g, where you can today buy your tickets for the all day I got look. It's just a week and a day away. It's next Tuesday, not tomorrow, but next Tuesday in Covington, Indiana.

Todd Gleason: 22:56

The cost is $40 through Friday, $60 after that. We hope to see you there, but you need to pick your ticket up as soon as possible. I'm Illinois Extensions, Todd Gleeson.