Jul 13 | Closing Market Report

cmr260713

The July 13, 2026, edition of the Closing Market Report covered critical updates in domestic agricultural production, global energy markets, and shifting weather patterns impacting the U.S. corn belt. Curt Kimmel of AgMarket.net analyzed the day's sharp rise in crude oil and grain futures, tying the market's upward momentum to localized heat stress in the western corn belt, declining crop condition ratings, and sudden escalations in Middle East war tensions. Expanding on these geopolitical developments, North Dakota State University Extension Economist Frayne Olson discussed the severe impact of a newly announced U.S. military escort fee for transiting the Strait of Hormuz, alongside the logistics disruption caused by Ukrainian drone attacks near the Sea of Azov. Olson noted that while these conflicts introduce a supportive risk premium for U.S. grain exports, their long-term effects will primarily filter through volatile international energy markets. Finally, meteorologist Mark Russo of EverStream Analytics provided a near-term weather outlook, reporting that while threatening pollination heat will temporarily persist in the northwest Midwest, a retrogressing ridge of high pressure will bring cooler temperatures by the weekend. However, Russo warned that an impending shift toward a suppressed, northwest flow jet stream pattern could signal a prolonged dry spell moving into critical pod-development stages for soybeans in early August.

01:11 Ag Markets with Curt Kimmel, AgMarket.net
06:53 Commodity Market Discussion with Frayne Olson, NDSU
18:46 Ag Weather with Mark Russo, EverStream Analytics

---

Todd Gleason: From the Land Grant University in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, this is the Closing Market Report. It is the 13th day of July 2026. I’m Extension’s Todd Gleason. Coming up, we’ll talk about the commodity markets with Curt Kimmel; he is at AgMarket.net out of Normal, Illinois. We’ll be joined too by Frayne Olson. I talked with him this morning, he’s North Dakota State University Extension Agricultural Economist, after the announcement was made by the president that there will be a 20% charge payable to the United States to transit the Strait of Hormuz. We’ll take that up, last week’s WASDE report, how things changed between Friday and Monday because of those two things, as well as what’s been happening in Ukraine and Russia and with the Sea of Azov. And then we’ll turn our attention to the weather forecast. We’ll do that with Mark Russo; he’s at EverStream Analytics. All on this Monday edition of the Closing Market Report from Illinois Public Media. It is public radio for the farming world.

announce: Todd Gleason’s services are made available to WILL by University of Illinois Extension.

01:11 Ag Markets with Curt Kimmel, AgMarket.net

Todd Gleason: We’ll start with the crude oil prices today. They’re up $7.00 to $7.50 as we speak. We’ll hear more about that in a moment. The corn futures finished around a penny and a half to two and three-quarters higher for the day. Soybeans were up four to five cents on the day. Curt Kimmel is now here. He is with AgMarket.net to discuss a very busy Monday. Curt, where do you want to start?

Curt Kimmel: Oh boy, it’s a lot of moving parts here, but yeah, we had some giddy up on the word go last night from the standpoint we’re looking at some triple digits, particularly in the western corn belt. So fundamentally, it could be a little stress put on the crop. For the most part, most areas have ample moisture going into this, so we’ll see how that crop unfolds. As of this afternoon on crop conditions as a nation, they’re looking at 67% good to excellent, the same as last week. But a year ago, we were at 74%. Soybeans are expected to drop maybe 1% as a nation, at 63% versus 64% last week and 70% a year ago. Then wheat harvest is scooting right along at 69% complete. So, weather was part of the factor. Then the other part of the equation here was that we saw increased trading of rocket fire in the Middle East there, so war tensions escalated. We saw the crude oil market firm, and as we’re recording this, crude oil is up by $6.00 here, so we’re putting some risk back on. Too, I don’t keep up to the minute, to the second on social media, but there are ideas that Trump’s interviews or tweets have indicated that we have a blockade in effect now through the strait. There is some wordage, I don’t have confirmation of it, that there’s going to be a collection of 20% fees on freight passing through the strait. Now the question is, is that on the U.S. or on the Iranian side? So, a lot of uncertainty, and so a lot of chaos taking place here as we kind of wrap up Monday’s trade here, Todd.

Todd Gleason: What should producers do at this point as they look at a crop, at least in our part of the world, that may be a little rain-drenched, but looks really pretty good?

Curt Kimmel: Yeah, this is a tough one. It reminds me of 1983. For the most part, we were wet late getting in, that was the PIK year, we were down on acres, but we had ample moisture and it just turned stifling hot. I know hybrids are much better today and can withstand a lot of heat stress, but that’s the thing. Humid, it’s been humid, staying humid, so ideas are that could take the edge off. But too, disease pressure, so there’s a lot of things to consider. But looking at your back door, it is highly variable. I mean, there’s some areas still too dry, there’s areas too wet. So, we just continue to use the strategy of using price floors and kind of keep your upside open. For corn, $4.75 on the December futures is about a 62% back up to the May high of $5.05, up in that area there. Then on the soybeans, we traded above $12.00, we failed $12.00 as kind of a resistance point. So, we use those two benchmarks to make some additional sales or at least get some price floors or raise price floors in case the market rolls the other way. The market’s doing a good job of running it up getting everybody bullish, and then running down getting everybody bearish, but for the most part, we’re going to have a crop. How big, how small? That’s going to be debated for probably over a year.

Todd Gleason: Probably. In the soybeans, did I see that the Chinese were back into the marketplace again?

Curt Kimmel: Yeah, we saw a sale, a confirmation of 136,000 tons, so not a huge amount. We like to see million metric ton sales announced now, but those are being flashed up there, but there’s quite a bit of bean business flying under the radar too. So, it’s encouraging to see this business take place. The main thing is new crop sales need to be on the books from the standpoint we have to have the logistics lined up and have this bean or whatever they buy shipped out of the country here this winter, because the South American crop will come online here next spring.

Todd Gleason: Hey, thank you much. We appreciate it. We’ll talk with you again next week.

Curt Kimmel: You bet. Take care, Todd.

Todd Gleason: You too. That’s Curt Kimmel, he is with AgMarket.net, joined us on this Monday edition of the Closing Market Report. You can always find and listen to him again on our website at willag.org or search the Closing Market Report out by name in your favorite podcast applications. The theme music for our program is written, performed, produced, and courtesy of Logan County, Illinois farmer Tim Gleason.

06:53 Commodity Market Discussion with Frayne Olson, NDSU

Todd Gleason: I’m University of Illinois Extension’s Todd Gleason. We’re now joined by Frayne Olson, Agricultural Economist at North Dakota State University and with extension there. Hello, Frayne. Thank you much for being with us. We have a lot of ground to cover. Let’s start with last Friday, and it seems at this moment that that was a very long time ago, that USDA released the world ag supply and demand estimates and the crop production report related to wheat. What did you make of those numbers?

Frayne Olson: Yeah, the wheat numbers, you know from a pricing standpoint, were positive. We got some adjustments on the production side, we got some adjustments on the consumption side. When you look at the balance sheets, most of the adjustments, actually for all the grains, wheat and corn in particular, was really the old crop numbers that were adjusted. We saw a little bit of adjustment on the new crop as a result also. But, at the end of the day, when you look at what the trade was expecting to see versus the numbers we actually got, I would say “supportive” was the term that I would use. There wasn’t a lot of shock in it. I don’t know that July WASDE tends to be pretty quiet anyway; August is usually when we start to get some more sparks and some more excitement. So, we’re readjusting, we’re compensating for the information we got at the end of June with the acreage report, as well as the quarterly stocks reports. My assessment was most of the adjustments the USDA made in the WASDE was as a result of those two numbers. So, I think they’re just kind of trimming things up and making sure when we come into August that we’ve got some baseline numbers that we can work with.

Todd Gleason: USDA for the new crop years did not change the season’s average cash grain price for any of the three commodities. I suppose that’s important just to note in the back of your mind as we move through the summer months.

Frayne Olson: Yeah, and again just to remind everybody, what the USDA forecast, price forecast is really for the season-long or the marketing year average price received by farmers. Okay? So we tend not to see big jumps from month to month, because we’re looking at the average for the entire marketing year. Now, for new crop, we don’t have a lot of new crop sales, and they know that and recognize that. So, as we look forward, of course if there’s going to be adjustments, the new crop price forecasts will likely be a little more sensitive than obviously old crop, because we’re much, much longer into the season. So, yep, I guess my view is that we tweaked the numbers, we hit the reset button, we’re set up for the information we’re going to get in August.

Todd Gleason: You mentioned August a couple of times. USDA has historically updated acreage in October, though last year they told us the FSA numbers were in quickly enough and they made an adjustment in the month of August. Is that one of the things you’re watching?

Frayne Olson: It is, it is. And that’s one of the, I guess from a data standpoint, one of the adjustments and one of the kind of upgrades that we’ve gotten now is the reporting timeline from FSA has been shortened. So the connection between what FSA is looking at and what the information coming into the WASDE has been tightened up a bit, which is really good, because then we can get some a little more accurate information. So that is one of them. There is also, we start getting some yield forecasts in August, if there’s going to be some updates. Again, I’m not putting a lot of weight on that because it’s still pretty early in the season. The acreage numbers, we might see some tweaks to that. Again, a lot can happen between now and then. So those are the two things that we tend to talk about, people tend to focus a lot on really on the production side of the ledger.

Todd Gleason: Here are the two things that make last Friday seem like it was a long time ago. This morning the president announced that the United States will begin to charge, I assume for escort service but he doesn’t quite say that, military escort service, a 20% fee for moving through the Strait of Hormuz on any of those vessels that might be transiting it. That seems really important. And then we need to talk about Ukraine as well and what’s happening there. How do you put those two on the scale?

Frayne Olson: Yeah, this is obviously evolving at a very rapid pace. So the re-escalation of the war between the United States and Iran is stressful for everybody. A lot of the main response for the grain markets is going to be through the energy markets. So I know that farmers are concerned about fertilizer prices, and potentially diesel fuel prices, and maybe even some natural gas or propane prices come fall if we have to do some drying. So on the energy side, it’s not something that farmers need to ignore, it is something to pay attention to. We’re looking forward, and there’s a time delay from when things are ordered to when they actually arrive and farmers can use them. So we have to keep that in mind. Coming back to the commodities, in particular the grain markets, there is this connection between the energy markets and what happens that spills over into the grain markets. When the war first began, and we started to see this larger rally that we got in the futures market, a lot of that was because of the investment community. As stock markets fell and financial instruments fell, they moved into the commodity indices primarily going after the energy markets. But those indexes are pre-packaged, which means that when you purchase those indexes, you automatically get a small amount of corn, soybeans, wheat, and even some of the meat complex. So there’s the fundamental connection between energy and grains, for example through biofuels, but then there’s this investment connection. And a lot of that rally and then the corresponding drop that we saw in futures market prices was because of this investment flux. So we’ll have to wait and see what happens in the stock markets and whether we see a repeat of that or not. Now, so far that hasn’t happened. We’re looking at crude oil prices, West Texas Intermediate crude, in the mid–70s. It was well into the 90s and almost $100 as we saw the peak of the pricing earlier this year. So we’ll wait to see, some of this will start playing out. In my opinion, the easiest way to try and trace what the market’s thinking and what that might do to grain prices is just to watch the crude oil prices. If you start to see crude oil starting to rise, and rise fairly quickly, you know that something’s going on and something’s happening. Will this 20% fee, is that going to be enough, is that going to be low enough to get products through the strait? I don’t know what that’s going to do to any potential insurance rates, because the major carriers carry insurance for those vessels and the products that are carried on the vessels. Is this 20% fee really going to effectively choke off that supply chain, or are they going to be willing to pay it and get product through the strait? Nobody really knows at this stage.

Shifting into the other war that we’re concerned about is between Russia and Ukraine. What’s happening now is the Ukrainians are getting a bit more aggressive. They have been able to make some drone attacks onto some port facilities. There’s a canal or a river that runs between the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea, and that route is one of the major ways that Russia is able to get some of their wheat products, as well as some sunflowers, some oil seeds, from the Azov Sea into the Black Sea, and then from the Black Sea it goes into the Mediterranean. And those facilities that have been damaged now, some of those are grain facilities, and it is restricting the flow, or expected to restrict the flow, of wheat. And that’s important not only for wheat prices, but also when you look at Europe. Europe has had this really, really hot weather. The wheat crop in Europe is far enough along, there is some damage but it’s pretty minimal. But the corn crop in some of the European states has really been hammered. And of course, corn and corn supplies, as well as feed wheat for some of their livestock, could be important. So there might be even some spillover into the corn market. We’ll have to wait to see how that plays out. But we essentially have two wars going on simultaneously geographically. They’re in about the same areas, and so there can also be some corresponding issues with transportation and logistics coming out of both of those regions at the same time. So again, a lot of things to try and follow and watch. We’re just going to have to play this every day, one day at a time.

Todd Gleason: Do you think that the indications from these two would be for a move higher or a move lower in the grains?

Frayne Olson: My take on it is, I think it will be supportive, because as we start adding some of the risk premium into the marketplace, just concerns about the availability of product coming out of that region in general. Whenever you start to restrict supply, at least in the short term, when you start restricting supply that puts the product that is available for shipping at a little higher premium. So I do think we’re going to see a risk premium start to build. Combine that with possibly some weather issues, because we’re still just in the middle of July right now, so there’s still plenty of weather to be talking about. So I think it’ll be supportive overall from a geopolitical standpoint, I think this will be short-term supportive.

Todd Gleason: Did that assessment change between Friday WASDE and today?

Frayne Olson: Yes, it did. To be very blunt, it did. It seems to me, and I guess what I’m looking at, is the escalation in tensions between the U.S. and Iran. Yes, technically they’re still negotiating, but it just doesn’t seem like when you look at the actions of both parties like they’re willing to sit down at the table and negotiate. I think this is going to re-escalate. That will put some pressure on energy prices, upward pressure on energy prices, which again I do think will pull some of the grains with that, and just the uncertainty that goes into supply chains. I think we’re going to start to see some buyers coming in and saying, “We better book something to make sure we have it in our supply chain.” So I would not be surprised if we see some additional export sales coming up in the next few weeks just for protection, if you will, for risk protection for some of the international traders. And again, the U.S. I think is one of those suppliers that is pretty reliable, and obviously we don’t have the supply chain issues that you would coming out of either Europe or that Black Sea or even the Persian Gulf region.

Todd Gleason: Thank you very much, Frayne.

Frayne Olson: Always a pleasure visiting, always something new!

Todd Gleason: There is, it’s always interesting. That of course is Frayne Olson, he is an Agricultural Economist at North Dakota State University and with extension. Hey, do check out our website at willag.org, scroll down to the calendar, there are many events between now and the month of October you’ll want to attend.

18:46 Ag Weather with Mark Russo, EverStream Analytics

Todd Gleason: Let’s check in on the weather forecast with Mark Russo. He’s at EverStream Analytics. Hello, Mark. Thanks for being with us again on a Monday.

Mark Russo: Hello there, Todd. Thanks for having me.

Todd Gleason: Tell me about the weather forecast. We were worried going into the weekend that this week might be really hot. I’ve been watching the numbers, and it appears to me that North Dakota is really the only place that suffered a lot of heat over the weekend, and that it might not be quite as hot this week as expected. Am I wrong?

Mark Russo: Well, for the core of the Midwest, it’s going to be a warmer than average to a hot week. The hottest conditions, though, will be across the northern Midwest, and the area that will have threatening heat for corn pollination, that’s really confined to areas such as the Dakotas, a little bit of Nebraska, a little bit of Minnesota as well, and into northwest Iowa. But it’s that northwest part of the belt that will see threatening heat, and already have in the past couple of days, with maximum temperatures into the upper 90s and lower 100s, minimum temperatures above 75 degrees, which are those threshold temperatures for declining yield potential for pollinating corn.

Todd Gleason: So we’ll have to watch this afternoon’s crop progress report to see how far along that crop was in that area to kind of get an idea how much of an issue that would have been for pollination there. Looking forward, what do you see over the next 5 to 10 days?

Mark Russo: Yeah, this heat’s going to continue here for the next four to five days, and again it’s that northwest part of the belt that will continue to see most of the threatening heat here. However, as we get into the weekend and next week, then the ridge of high pressure which is responsible for producing this heat is going to shift out west and be over the Rockies, and it looks to stay that way then all of next week and even into the following week as well. So as that ridge shifts west, or what we call retrogresses, that’s going to take all the heat with it, and that will allow temperatures to cool off across not only the northwest Midwest, but really the entire Midwest as we go through the upcoming weekend and next week.

Todd Gleason: What would be really good is if there was a ring of fire type shower system with that that would catch a lot of the corn belt through pollination. Might that be the case?

Mark Russo: That’s a bit more debatable here, Todd. The way that the pattern looks set up with this ridge of high pressure now influencing the corn belt but then shifting westward, that places much of the Midwest in a northwest flow jet stream pattern, and that suppresses rainfall. So for the next two weeks, most of the Midwest will be drier than normal. This is not a major item of concern right now since current soil moisture is in pretty good shape following recent rains. But, if the dry pattern then persists into the last week of the month and into early August as well, then that’s something that could become more of a negative here, especially for soybeans which will start going through the beginning of pod development at that time.

Todd Gleason: Any indication of which way that month will go?

Mark Russo: Right now, basically what we see, we are expecting rainfall to eventually improve across the Midwest. There’s debate though on the timing of it, and again for late July it’s not looking that great. The next opportunity would likely be that first week of August. That is definitely going to be the main timeframe to watch here and is going to be pretty critical given this recent trend of a recent turn to below-normal rainfall and then combined with heat here, and how that impacts crop development.

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

Mark Russo: You’re welcome, Todd.

Todd Gleason: That of course is Mark Russo. He is with EverStream Analytics, joined us on this Monday edition of the Closing Market Report, came to you from Illinois Public Media. It is public radio for the farming world online on demand at willag.org. I’m University of Illinois Extension’s Todd Gleason.