Episode Number
10395
Episode Show Notes / Description
The July 16, 2026 edition of the Closing Market Report covers commodity markets, soil management research, and regional agricultural weather patterns. Host Todd Gleason opens the program from the National Association of Farm Broadcasting event in Kansas City, sharing first-hand observations of resilient midwestern corn crops despite recent heat waves. Market analyst Matt Bennett of AgMarket.net discusses current wheat and energy price volatility driven by geopolitical factors, noting that while the corn crop is progressing well through pollination, upcoming weather conditions will determine the extent of market premiums. University of Illinois PhD student Blake Link reports from the Orr Research Center on the expanding necessity of sulfur fertilizers across the Corn Belt, explaining the different forms of sulfur applications and their chemical effects on soil acidity. Finally, Mike Tannura of Tstorm Weather provides a global and domestic agricultural weather outlook, highlighting a temperature divide between a hotter northern region and a milder south, the potential for early-season monsoonal rains in August, and the localized atmospheric impacts of seasonal wildfire smoke on crop photosynthesis and daytime temperatures.
01:10 Ag Markets with Matt Bennett, AgMarket.net
08:38 Evaluating the Need for Sulfur Fertilizers in the Corn Belt
16:03 Ag Weather with Mike Tannura, Tstorm.net
01:10 Ag Markets with Matt Bennett, AgMarket.net
08:38 Evaluating the Need for Sulfur Fertilizers in the Corn Belt
16:03 Ag Weather with Mike Tannura, Tstorm.net
Transcript
cmr260716
The July 16, 2026 edition of the Closing Market Report covers commodity markets, soil management research, and regional agricultural weather patterns. Host Todd Gleason opens the program from the National Association of Farm Broadcasting event in Kansas City, sharing first-hand observations of resilient midwestern corn crops despite recent heat waves. Market analyst Matt Bennett of AgMarket.net discusses current wheat and energy price volatility driven by geopolitical factors, noting that while the corn crop is progressing well through pollination, upcoming weather conditions will determine the extent of market premiums. University of Illinois PhD student Blake Link reports from the Orr Research Center on the expanding necessity of sulfur fertilizers across the Corn Belt, explaining the different forms of sulfur applications and their chemical effects on soil acidity. Finally, Mike Tannura of Tstorm Weather provides a global and domestic agricultural weather outlook, highlighting a temperature divide between a hotter northern region and a milder south, the potential for early-season monsoonal rains in August, and the localized atmospheric impacts of seasonal wildfire smoke on crop photosynthesis and daytime temperatures.
01:10 Ag Markets with Matt Bennett, AgMarket.net
08:38 Evaluating the Need for Sulfur Fertilizers in the Corn Belt
16:03 Ag Weather with Mike Tannura, Tstorm.net
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Todd Gleason: From the Land Grant university in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, this is the Closing Market Report. It is the 16th day of July 2026. I’m Illinois Extension’s Todd Gleason, in Kansas City today at the National Association of Farm Broadcasting event. Coming up, we’ll talk about the commodity markets with Matt Bennett. He’s at AgMarket.net. We’ll hear about sulfur fertilizers and the changing needs of the corn crop across the Midwest as it relates to the Clean Air Act. Then, we’ll turn our attention to the weather forecast, too. Mike Tannura will be here from Tstorm Weather, that’s Tstorm.net online. On that sulfur side, he will be discussing some smoke that is in the air again this season. We’ll do all of that right here on 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.
Announce: Todd Gleason’s services are made available to WILL by University of Illinois Extension.
01:10 Ag Markets with Matt Bennett, AgMarket.net
Todd Gleason: Let’s take a look at what’s been happening in the marketplace. Matt Bennett is here. He is with AgMarket.net out of Windsor, Illinois. Hi Matt, thanks for being with us today.
Matt Bennett: Thanks for having me.
Todd Gleason: I want to start by talking about my travels over the last 24 hours or so. Yesterday, I made my way to the Orr Research Center in western Illinois on the west side of Jacksonville. The trip from Champaign, through Decatur, Springfield, and to Jacksonville on the interstate surprised me a bit because the corn looked better than I suspected it should, and probably did. I pulled off at Jacksonville and used two-lane roads to the Baylis Orr Research Center, and then all the way to Hannibal, Missouri. The two-lane roads run through the hills, hollows, trees, and farm fields, and that too looked really good. Finally, across the top of Missouri on Highway 36. I made that trip on June 1st and back on June 4th or 5th, all the way to Junction City, Kansas. The crop on that date looked way better than what we had in Illinois, mostly because it had been planted much earlier. We had two-leaf corn in Illinois on that route, and the corn in Missouri and Kansas was hip-high and looked really good. I will say this time around that it clearly has pollinated, and it appears to have been suffering from the heat. It was a bit spindly against the heat of the day, 91 yesterday coming across there. I’m wondering, when you talk to producers, Matt, what they’re telling you about the condition of the crop today, and the condition of your crop there in Windsor, about an hour south of Champaign-Urbana?
Matt Bennett: Our crop looks pretty good overall. The pattern-tiled stuff has the chance to be pretty special if we can get the right rainfall over the next two or three weeks on corn and maybe the next month to five weeks on soybeans. The growers I talk to—if we’re fair about it, guys that have a great crop are usually pretty tight-lipped; they don’t want to tell anybody. But we’re hearing from a few guys, especially in the Dakotas this week, talking about hot conditions, way too much wind, and they’re not very happy with how their crops are holding up through this type of heat. It all boils down to taking some heat as long as we don’t have super hot nights, and as long as we have enough moisture. Right now in central Illinois, anyway, it looks like pollination is going to go off pretty much without a hitch.
Todd Gleason: For the moment, are you willing to mostly discount risk premium in the marketplace?
Matt Bennett: I don’t think the corn market would have been nearly as strong there on Wednesday if we wouldn’t have had Kansas City red wheat up 40 cents and Chicago soft red wheat up in the mid–30s. There’s no doubt that lent some support over toward corn and soybeans. At this point in the game, the trade is well aware that we need that 183-type yield to keep from drawing stocks down significantly year over year. Obviously, having lower acres necessitates an awfully big crop. Right now, on the good-to-excellent ratings, we’re running 6% below where we were at this time last year. So, I think the trade is aware that weather needs to really cooperate here over the next three to four weeks. I don’t know that there’s a ton of weather premium in this market by any means. I think it has as much to do with outside influences as anything.
Todd Gleason: Let’s talk about some of those outside influences. They are primarily weather-related to France, but I think they’re primarily due to both the war in Ukraine and Russia, and how wheat may or may not be able to move out of the Black Sea, and oil out of the Strait of Hormuz. How do you view those two?
Matt Bennett: The thing about the wheat situation is that there’s no doubt, with some of those bombs flying back and forth, what that’s doing is elevating wheat prices. The people engaged in that definitely have something to gain on the back end of that. I don’t know if this stops and a bunch of wheat gets dumped on the world market. I don’t know how this thing plays out, but there’s no doubt it’s a very interesting situation, and that’s where a bulk of the exportable supplies out of the world come right out of that region. That’s one thing that could make the wheat market very volatile. Like we’ve tried to tell people here over the last day or so, taking advantage of that for someone that has maybe put wheat in the bin and saw it go up 50 cents to a dollar is not a bad idea to maybe take advantage of that. That obviously spilled over into corn and soybeans. As far as the Strait of Hormuz, the oil market has not skyrocketed back closer to the highs, fluttering around the $80 mark. With that being the case, it tells you that a large part of the trade feels comfortable this is all going to iron itself out sooner or later, and that the relief we’ve seen in energy prices is something that will maybe come back to us. That’s just kind of the way I’m looking at both of those situations as of today.
Todd Gleason: So how do you see corn, soybean, and wheat playing out over the next month or month and a half, particularly as we close in on the end of July, if a weather premium doesn’t come back into this marketplace?
Matt Bennett: If weather premium doesn’t come back into the marketplace, there’s no doubt you’re going to be in a position where you’re going to probably take December corn back under the $4.50 level again. If you don’t get weather issues to come in, I don’t know that we fall precipitously. I don’t think there’s a lot of incentive for the grower to sell down at that $4.30 and below level. So your natural seller is probably going to be absent. At the same time, I think it’s going to be really hard to rally if you don’t get a weather issue. As far as soybeans go, they’ve just been resilient, Todd, as you know. It’s been such a resilient market, but it’s also shown it doesn’t feel real comfortable being above $12. A person has to understand if they’re in a spot where they know they can make money at this type of level right now, they better be paying attention and at least putting in a worst-case scenario.
Todd Gleason: Thank you much. I appreciate it, Matt.
Matt Bennett: Absolutely. Thank you, Todd.
Todd Gleason: Matt Bennett is with AgMarket.net, joining us on this Thursday edition of the Closing Market Report from Illinois Public Media. By the way, I’ll be traveling back from Kansas tomorrow, so instead of the Closing Market Report, you’ll hear the Commodity Week program that I’ll record this afternoon in person with Arlan Suderman and Mike Zuzolo.
08:38 Evaluating the Need for Sulfur Fertilizers in the Corn Belt
Todd Gleason: Sulfur has historically played a secondary role in Midwest soil fertility plans, largely supplemented by atmospheric deposition. However, as clean air regulations continue to reduce that free supply, corn producers are reevaluating their nutrient management strategies. Yesterday, during Agronomy Day at the Orr Center in western Illinois, University of Illinois researcher Blake Link addressed these shifting dynamics. I asked Link about the relationship between corn and sulfur.
Blake Link: Sulfur in terms of a fertilizer source that farmers require comes in multiple forms, the most important of which is sulfate, because that’s what plants are taking up. So, when we talk about sulfur materials in terms of fertilizers, we’re talking about things that contain sulfate itself, think like ammonium sulfate. We’re talking about things that contain thiosulfate, think ammonium thiosulfate in a liquid form. And elemental sulfur, think Tiger 90 or some sort of pelletized elemental sulfur. Thiosulfate and elemental sulfur require oxidation to become sulfate. That process produces acidity, which farmers need to keep in mind in terms of lime requirements, but over time they do become sulfate. That time period does depend on the amount of elemental sulfur; thiosulfate generally becomes sulfate quicker. But all three of those sources are viable sources for farmers to use as sulfur fertilizers.
Todd Gleason: So as a fertilizer, sulfur has sort of been in the background. Once in a while you hear about it, but it seems today that there is much more discussion about sulfur and its need within the corn production process. I’m wondering whether you think widely across the Corn Belt sulfur is in short supply within the soils and that it really needs to be added to them.
Blake Link: We can begin that discussion by talking about some soil test levels. We do a soil test survey across the Midwest, and our 2025 data is in. In Illinois, we’re seeing over 50% of soil samples routinely run coming in below seven parts per million, which would fall into the very low category according to the Agronomy Handbook. That does provide some background for us. I would also say, as many people probably know listening to presentations on sulfur, that with the Clean Air Act and cleaning up of coal-fired power plants, we’re getting less sulfur deposited with rain. So the need is growing a little bit. Whether that translates to a farmer getting a return on his investment for purchasing and applying sulfur fertilizer is relatively unclear in Illinois. There’s been some more extensive research done in Indiana and other states, but at least for the confines of Illinois, we’ve seen inconsistent results, and we really need some more time to accumulate a little bit more data to be able to give farmers a better understanding of that question.
Todd Gleason: Are there parts of the state or soil types in particular that are more likely to be in need, should you see on a soil test that it is short of sulfur?
Blake Link: Absolutely. Sulfur in many ways is analogous to nitrogen, Todd. I think what’s important about that is organic matter, as it mineralizes, produces sulfur for farmers and their crops. Situations where farmers have low organic matter levels, think about coarse-textured soils or loamy soils, leaching would be an issue there. Those are places where both the supply of sulfur is low and the losses of sulfur through crop uptake but also leaching is relatively high. In that case, those might be areas to keep an extra close eye on for possible sulfur deficiencies.
Todd Gleason: What do you tell farmers when you come to an Agronomy Day like this one about how they should assess the need?
Blake Link: It’s difficult to give a good answer to farmers at this point, Todd, about whether they should or shouldn’t use sulfur. Unfortunately, we just don’t have good statewide data to influence that. What I would say is that it’s relatively low risk for a farmer in fields where he suspects a sulfur deficiency might be to do some trials of his own, or perhaps contact the Illinois State Fertility Lab or Illinois Extension to coordinate some on-farm trials to test whether sulfur is first of all going to influence yield at all, and second of all going to return the farmer’s investment for such a sulfur purchase.
Todd Gleason: As we began our conversation, you suggested that producers need to watch the acidity in this process. How so, and how do they test for that?
Blake Link: It’s not so that acidity is some scary thing that we need to be afraid of and so we shouldn’t use sulfur. It’s more so that it’s just an artifact of using thiosulfate or elemental sulfur fertilizers, just the same as we use ammoniacal fertilizers like anhydrous ammonia. Those are also acid-producing. There’s sort of an old rule of thumb that for every pound of anhydrous ammonia we apply, we need to think about putting down four pounds of pure calcium carbonate or its equivalent in limestone. In sulfur, a general rule might be three pounds of calcium carbonate or its equivalent. Although that certainly depends, and we should definitely rely on regular soil testing to evaluate pH and possible lime applications versus relying on these rules of thumb. Just something to keep in mind for farmers when they apply sulfur.
Todd Gleason: That’s Blake Link. He is a PhD student at the University of Illinois under Soil Scientist John Jones, and leads the field research team. You’re listening to the Closing Market Report on this Thursday afternoon. Our theme music is written, performed, produced, and courtesy of Logan County, Illinois farmer Tim Gleason.
16:03 Ag Weather with Mike Tannura, Tstorm.net
Todd Gleason: Let’s turn our attention to the global growing regions across the planet. Mike Tannura is here. He is with Tstorm Weather, president and CEO there in Naperville, Illinois, and online at tstorm.net. Hi Mike, thanks for being with us.
Mike Tannura: Hey Todd, thanks for having me.
Todd Gleason: Let’s start in the United States today and begin with the heat we are now under. What do you know about this heat dome and the conditions?
Mike Tannura: The heat’s been really centered on the northern and northwestern growing areas. This has really hit the spring wheat crop pretty hard, and also some of the corn and soybean crops across the Dakotas and into Minnesota. It has expanded over the last day or two to include more of the northern half of corn and soybeans. But everybody in the southern Corn Belt and the mid-South are all saying, well, it hasn’t really been that hot here; it’s actually been pretty nice. We do have a divide with some heat to the north that’s been ongoing this week and some okay temperatures to the south. It’s going to be kind of the same over the next five days because we’ll see that heat loosely continue in those same areas, though a cool front or two will kind of mix in with those to keep temperatures down just a tiny bit. And the southern areas really will never tap into the heat. Yes, they might have a warmer, hot day here or there through Tuesday, but we have a circulation moving northward that will bring clouds and showers and storms to the southern areas. It’s really kind of a mixed bag, Todd, with half the corn and soybean crop saying this is not really great, it’s too hot, and the other half saying, I don’t really see a problem.
Todd Gleason: Not really great, it’s too hot, but is it extreme in your opinion?
Mike Tannura: It was earlier last weekend and into Monday. Saturday, Sunday, and Monday we saw highs solidly in the hundreds in parts of the Dakotas and Montana, but again, that was centered more on spring wheat. For most corn and soybeans, it was in the 90s and 70s, which is quite a bit above normal, especially the further north you head. But overall, this was not a historic heat wave.
Todd Gleason: Daytime and nighttime temperatures 90s and 70s. What do you see next week?
Mike Tannura: We’ll see a cool front move through Monday and Tuesday. Temperatures will drop down for several days, and that’ll leave highs mostly in the 80s with lows in the 60s, and that will be for everybody. So it will be a little bit nicer for most of next week.
Todd Gleason: That sounds like very comfortable weather. When we get further out into the month of August, do things change over that 20-day period?
Mike Tannura: Ten to 20 days from now, it is a bit of a challenge. We have a couple of different things we’re watching. The heat we’ve been talking about is still going to be in parts of the US. We think that might include some of the western corn and soybeans during that period. At the same time, cool fronts are going to continue to move through the east. That will leave corn and soybeans kind of in between. So the most likely scenario is for some heat west, some coolness east, with most of the corn and soybean crop kind of in the middle with highs in the 80s and 90s and lows in the 60s and 70s. Not ideal, but it’s also not a huge problem; pretty close to normal. That’s kind of the most likely scenario. Todd, one thing we do need to talk about though is rain, because there’s not really very much rain on the horizon over the next five to eight days across the Plains and the western Corn Belt. This area is going to be turning drier as we move forward. Now, we’d be more concerned about it in a normal year, but this year has not been normal, and we’ve had a ton of rain up until maybe 10 days ago. Overall, we can still ride this situation out at least based on the proprietary data that we’ve been analyzing. The eastern areas are still going to see some rain this week, some rain next week, so kind of that same divide with some of the poorer conditions developing west and some of the okay to good conditions to the east. But the wild card here, Todd, is what happens with rain 10 to 20 days out.
Todd Gleason: Follow up on that rain forecast a little bit. What do you see 10 to 20 days out?
Mike Tannura: This is where it gets a little tricky because we can see a couple of things happening. We can see the southwest monsoon going to start up a couple of weeks early. This is where some quasi-tropical energy drifts in from the Pacific and gets into Arizona and that whole desert region of the southwest. Once we get into August, a lot of times those little waves of energy float into the Plains and turn into some pretty nice rainmakers. And we do see hints of that starting up as early as seven to 10 days from now. So we are including that chance for rain. Now, if that doesn’t happen, then the likely scenario would be for that rapid temperature contrast from heat west and coolness east to set up the main storm track basically on top of the Corn Belt. That would also lead to rain chances. So we think there is going to be rain one to two weeks out. Most of the computer models are not really sure what to make of this, and they’re also not really generating all that much rain despite a setup that looks pretty favorable for it. At this point in time, we think that rains will be pretty close to normal in one to two weeks.
Todd Gleason: I do have a final question for you. This is related to smoke. There’s always some discussion about what that means for the crop, but apparently we will be seeing more smoke.
Mike Tannura: Well, we certainly are today. I mean, it’s been around and it’s been sweeping across parts of the Corn Belt. And typically what happens, since we’ve now seen this many of the last 10 years, it’s kind of becoming an annual thing, but basically it keeps your daytime temperatures down by providing almost like a layer of fog. You have this light fog that’s kind of preventing full sunshine from heating the ground and warming up the temperatures. So your daytime temperatures get held down a little bit. It really doesn’t matter much at night. The other thing it would do is filter out your sunshine. So a corn crop on a sunny day that gets 100 units of sun, maybe now it’s only going to receive 97 units of sun because of that filtering. I’m not sure the exact numbers, but you kind of get the idea. So how all that plays out into yields? We haven’t seen anything too unusual in recent years from a yield perspective where something was way out of whack to the high or low side even though we had a lot of smoke. So probably whatever effect the smoke has on that process is fairly small.
Todd Gleason: Thank you much. I appreciate it. We’ll talk with you again soon enough.
Mike Tannura: Sounds great, Todd.
Todd Gleason: That’s Mike Tannura. He is with Tstorm Weather, that’s Tstorm.net online, joined us here on the Closing Market Report for this Thursday afternoon. Find and listen to the whole thing again anytime you’d like at WILLag.org. I’m University of Illinois Extension’s Todd Gleason.
The July 16, 2026 edition of the Closing Market Report covers commodity markets, soil management research, and regional agricultural weather patterns. Host Todd Gleason opens the program from the National Association of Farm Broadcasting event in Kansas City, sharing first-hand observations of resilient midwestern corn crops despite recent heat waves. Market analyst Matt Bennett of AgMarket.net discusses current wheat and energy price volatility driven by geopolitical factors, noting that while the corn crop is progressing well through pollination, upcoming weather conditions will determine the extent of market premiums. University of Illinois PhD student Blake Link reports from the Orr Research Center on the expanding necessity of sulfur fertilizers across the Corn Belt, explaining the different forms of sulfur applications and their chemical effects on soil acidity. Finally, Mike Tannura of Tstorm Weather provides a global and domestic agricultural weather outlook, highlighting a temperature divide between a hotter northern region and a milder south, the potential for early-season monsoonal rains in August, and the localized atmospheric impacts of seasonal wildfire smoke on crop photosynthesis and daytime temperatures.
01:10 Ag Markets with Matt Bennett, AgMarket.net
08:38 Evaluating the Need for Sulfur Fertilizers in the Corn Belt
16:03 Ag Weather with Mike Tannura, Tstorm.net
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Todd Gleason: From the Land Grant university in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, this is the Closing Market Report. It is the 16th day of July 2026. I’m Illinois Extension’s Todd Gleason, in Kansas City today at the National Association of Farm Broadcasting event. Coming up, we’ll talk about the commodity markets with Matt Bennett. He’s at AgMarket.net. We’ll hear about sulfur fertilizers and the changing needs of the corn crop across the Midwest as it relates to the Clean Air Act. Then, we’ll turn our attention to the weather forecast, too. Mike Tannura will be here from Tstorm Weather, that’s Tstorm.net online. On that sulfur side, he will be discussing some smoke that is in the air again this season. We’ll do all of that right here on 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.
Announce: Todd Gleason’s services are made available to WILL by University of Illinois Extension.
01:10 Ag Markets with Matt Bennett, AgMarket.net
Todd Gleason: Let’s take a look at what’s been happening in the marketplace. Matt Bennett is here. He is with AgMarket.net out of Windsor, Illinois. Hi Matt, thanks for being with us today.
Matt Bennett: Thanks for having me.
Todd Gleason: I want to start by talking about my travels over the last 24 hours or so. Yesterday, I made my way to the Orr Research Center in western Illinois on the west side of Jacksonville. The trip from Champaign, through Decatur, Springfield, and to Jacksonville on the interstate surprised me a bit because the corn looked better than I suspected it should, and probably did. I pulled off at Jacksonville and used two-lane roads to the Baylis Orr Research Center, and then all the way to Hannibal, Missouri. The two-lane roads run through the hills, hollows, trees, and farm fields, and that too looked really good. Finally, across the top of Missouri on Highway 36. I made that trip on June 1st and back on June 4th or 5th, all the way to Junction City, Kansas. The crop on that date looked way better than what we had in Illinois, mostly because it had been planted much earlier. We had two-leaf corn in Illinois on that route, and the corn in Missouri and Kansas was hip-high and looked really good. I will say this time around that it clearly has pollinated, and it appears to have been suffering from the heat. It was a bit spindly against the heat of the day, 91 yesterday coming across there. I’m wondering, when you talk to producers, Matt, what they’re telling you about the condition of the crop today, and the condition of your crop there in Windsor, about an hour south of Champaign-Urbana?
Matt Bennett: Our crop looks pretty good overall. The pattern-tiled stuff has the chance to be pretty special if we can get the right rainfall over the next two or three weeks on corn and maybe the next month to five weeks on soybeans. The growers I talk to—if we’re fair about it, guys that have a great crop are usually pretty tight-lipped; they don’t want to tell anybody. But we’re hearing from a few guys, especially in the Dakotas this week, talking about hot conditions, way too much wind, and they’re not very happy with how their crops are holding up through this type of heat. It all boils down to taking some heat as long as we don’t have super hot nights, and as long as we have enough moisture. Right now in central Illinois, anyway, it looks like pollination is going to go off pretty much without a hitch.
Todd Gleason: For the moment, are you willing to mostly discount risk premium in the marketplace?
Matt Bennett: I don’t think the corn market would have been nearly as strong there on Wednesday if we wouldn’t have had Kansas City red wheat up 40 cents and Chicago soft red wheat up in the mid–30s. There’s no doubt that lent some support over toward corn and soybeans. At this point in the game, the trade is well aware that we need that 183-type yield to keep from drawing stocks down significantly year over year. Obviously, having lower acres necessitates an awfully big crop. Right now, on the good-to-excellent ratings, we’re running 6% below where we were at this time last year. So, I think the trade is aware that weather needs to really cooperate here over the next three to four weeks. I don’t know that there’s a ton of weather premium in this market by any means. I think it has as much to do with outside influences as anything.
Todd Gleason: Let’s talk about some of those outside influences. They are primarily weather-related to France, but I think they’re primarily due to both the war in Ukraine and Russia, and how wheat may or may not be able to move out of the Black Sea, and oil out of the Strait of Hormuz. How do you view those two?
Matt Bennett: The thing about the wheat situation is that there’s no doubt, with some of those bombs flying back and forth, what that’s doing is elevating wheat prices. The people engaged in that definitely have something to gain on the back end of that. I don’t know if this stops and a bunch of wheat gets dumped on the world market. I don’t know how this thing plays out, but there’s no doubt it’s a very interesting situation, and that’s where a bulk of the exportable supplies out of the world come right out of that region. That’s one thing that could make the wheat market very volatile. Like we’ve tried to tell people here over the last day or so, taking advantage of that for someone that has maybe put wheat in the bin and saw it go up 50 cents to a dollar is not a bad idea to maybe take advantage of that. That obviously spilled over into corn and soybeans. As far as the Strait of Hormuz, the oil market has not skyrocketed back closer to the highs, fluttering around the $80 mark. With that being the case, it tells you that a large part of the trade feels comfortable this is all going to iron itself out sooner or later, and that the relief we’ve seen in energy prices is something that will maybe come back to us. That’s just kind of the way I’m looking at both of those situations as of today.
Todd Gleason: So how do you see corn, soybean, and wheat playing out over the next month or month and a half, particularly as we close in on the end of July, if a weather premium doesn’t come back into this marketplace?
Matt Bennett: If weather premium doesn’t come back into the marketplace, there’s no doubt you’re going to be in a position where you’re going to probably take December corn back under the $4.50 level again. If you don’t get weather issues to come in, I don’t know that we fall precipitously. I don’t think there’s a lot of incentive for the grower to sell down at that $4.30 and below level. So your natural seller is probably going to be absent. At the same time, I think it’s going to be really hard to rally if you don’t get a weather issue. As far as soybeans go, they’ve just been resilient, Todd, as you know. It’s been such a resilient market, but it’s also shown it doesn’t feel real comfortable being above $12. A person has to understand if they’re in a spot where they know they can make money at this type of level right now, they better be paying attention and at least putting in a worst-case scenario.
Todd Gleason: Thank you much. I appreciate it, Matt.
Matt Bennett: Absolutely. Thank you, Todd.
Todd Gleason: Matt Bennett is with AgMarket.net, joining us on this Thursday edition of the Closing Market Report from Illinois Public Media. By the way, I’ll be traveling back from Kansas tomorrow, so instead of the Closing Market Report, you’ll hear the Commodity Week program that I’ll record this afternoon in person with Arlan Suderman and Mike Zuzolo.
08:38 Evaluating the Need for Sulfur Fertilizers in the Corn Belt
Todd Gleason: Sulfur has historically played a secondary role in Midwest soil fertility plans, largely supplemented by atmospheric deposition. However, as clean air regulations continue to reduce that free supply, corn producers are reevaluating their nutrient management strategies. Yesterday, during Agronomy Day at the Orr Center in western Illinois, University of Illinois researcher Blake Link addressed these shifting dynamics. I asked Link about the relationship between corn and sulfur.
Blake Link: Sulfur in terms of a fertilizer source that farmers require comes in multiple forms, the most important of which is sulfate, because that’s what plants are taking up. So, when we talk about sulfur materials in terms of fertilizers, we’re talking about things that contain sulfate itself, think like ammonium sulfate. We’re talking about things that contain thiosulfate, think ammonium thiosulfate in a liquid form. And elemental sulfur, think Tiger 90 or some sort of pelletized elemental sulfur. Thiosulfate and elemental sulfur require oxidation to become sulfate. That process produces acidity, which farmers need to keep in mind in terms of lime requirements, but over time they do become sulfate. That time period does depend on the amount of elemental sulfur; thiosulfate generally becomes sulfate quicker. But all three of those sources are viable sources for farmers to use as sulfur fertilizers.
Todd Gleason: So as a fertilizer, sulfur has sort of been in the background. Once in a while you hear about it, but it seems today that there is much more discussion about sulfur and its need within the corn production process. I’m wondering whether you think widely across the Corn Belt sulfur is in short supply within the soils and that it really needs to be added to them.
Blake Link: We can begin that discussion by talking about some soil test levels. We do a soil test survey across the Midwest, and our 2025 data is in. In Illinois, we’re seeing over 50% of soil samples routinely run coming in below seven parts per million, which would fall into the very low category according to the Agronomy Handbook. That does provide some background for us. I would also say, as many people probably know listening to presentations on sulfur, that with the Clean Air Act and cleaning up of coal-fired power plants, we’re getting less sulfur deposited with rain. So the need is growing a little bit. Whether that translates to a farmer getting a return on his investment for purchasing and applying sulfur fertilizer is relatively unclear in Illinois. There’s been some more extensive research done in Indiana and other states, but at least for the confines of Illinois, we’ve seen inconsistent results, and we really need some more time to accumulate a little bit more data to be able to give farmers a better understanding of that question.
Todd Gleason: Are there parts of the state or soil types in particular that are more likely to be in need, should you see on a soil test that it is short of sulfur?
Blake Link: Absolutely. Sulfur in many ways is analogous to nitrogen, Todd. I think what’s important about that is organic matter, as it mineralizes, produces sulfur for farmers and their crops. Situations where farmers have low organic matter levels, think about coarse-textured soils or loamy soils, leaching would be an issue there. Those are places where both the supply of sulfur is low and the losses of sulfur through crop uptake but also leaching is relatively high. In that case, those might be areas to keep an extra close eye on for possible sulfur deficiencies.
Todd Gleason: What do you tell farmers when you come to an Agronomy Day like this one about how they should assess the need?
Blake Link: It’s difficult to give a good answer to farmers at this point, Todd, about whether they should or shouldn’t use sulfur. Unfortunately, we just don’t have good statewide data to influence that. What I would say is that it’s relatively low risk for a farmer in fields where he suspects a sulfur deficiency might be to do some trials of his own, or perhaps contact the Illinois State Fertility Lab or Illinois Extension to coordinate some on-farm trials to test whether sulfur is first of all going to influence yield at all, and second of all going to return the farmer’s investment for such a sulfur purchase.
Todd Gleason: As we began our conversation, you suggested that producers need to watch the acidity in this process. How so, and how do they test for that?
Blake Link: It’s not so that acidity is some scary thing that we need to be afraid of and so we shouldn’t use sulfur. It’s more so that it’s just an artifact of using thiosulfate or elemental sulfur fertilizers, just the same as we use ammoniacal fertilizers like anhydrous ammonia. Those are also acid-producing. There’s sort of an old rule of thumb that for every pound of anhydrous ammonia we apply, we need to think about putting down four pounds of pure calcium carbonate or its equivalent in limestone. In sulfur, a general rule might be three pounds of calcium carbonate or its equivalent. Although that certainly depends, and we should definitely rely on regular soil testing to evaluate pH and possible lime applications versus relying on these rules of thumb. Just something to keep in mind for farmers when they apply sulfur.
Todd Gleason: That’s Blake Link. He is a PhD student at the University of Illinois under Soil Scientist John Jones, and leads the field research team. You’re listening to the Closing Market Report on this Thursday afternoon. Our theme music is written, performed, produced, and courtesy of Logan County, Illinois farmer Tim Gleason.
16:03 Ag Weather with Mike Tannura, Tstorm.net
Todd Gleason: Let’s turn our attention to the global growing regions across the planet. Mike Tannura is here. He is with Tstorm Weather, president and CEO there in Naperville, Illinois, and online at tstorm.net. Hi Mike, thanks for being with us.
Mike Tannura: Hey Todd, thanks for having me.
Todd Gleason: Let’s start in the United States today and begin with the heat we are now under. What do you know about this heat dome and the conditions?
Mike Tannura: The heat’s been really centered on the northern and northwestern growing areas. This has really hit the spring wheat crop pretty hard, and also some of the corn and soybean crops across the Dakotas and into Minnesota. It has expanded over the last day or two to include more of the northern half of corn and soybeans. But everybody in the southern Corn Belt and the mid-South are all saying, well, it hasn’t really been that hot here; it’s actually been pretty nice. We do have a divide with some heat to the north that’s been ongoing this week and some okay temperatures to the south. It’s going to be kind of the same over the next five days because we’ll see that heat loosely continue in those same areas, though a cool front or two will kind of mix in with those to keep temperatures down just a tiny bit. And the southern areas really will never tap into the heat. Yes, they might have a warmer, hot day here or there through Tuesday, but we have a circulation moving northward that will bring clouds and showers and storms to the southern areas. It’s really kind of a mixed bag, Todd, with half the corn and soybean crop saying this is not really great, it’s too hot, and the other half saying, I don’t really see a problem.
Todd Gleason: Not really great, it’s too hot, but is it extreme in your opinion?
Mike Tannura: It was earlier last weekend and into Monday. Saturday, Sunday, and Monday we saw highs solidly in the hundreds in parts of the Dakotas and Montana, but again, that was centered more on spring wheat. For most corn and soybeans, it was in the 90s and 70s, which is quite a bit above normal, especially the further north you head. But overall, this was not a historic heat wave.
Todd Gleason: Daytime and nighttime temperatures 90s and 70s. What do you see next week?
Mike Tannura: We’ll see a cool front move through Monday and Tuesday. Temperatures will drop down for several days, and that’ll leave highs mostly in the 80s with lows in the 60s, and that will be for everybody. So it will be a little bit nicer for most of next week.
Todd Gleason: That sounds like very comfortable weather. When we get further out into the month of August, do things change over that 20-day period?
Mike Tannura: Ten to 20 days from now, it is a bit of a challenge. We have a couple of different things we’re watching. The heat we’ve been talking about is still going to be in parts of the US. We think that might include some of the western corn and soybeans during that period. At the same time, cool fronts are going to continue to move through the east. That will leave corn and soybeans kind of in between. So the most likely scenario is for some heat west, some coolness east, with most of the corn and soybean crop kind of in the middle with highs in the 80s and 90s and lows in the 60s and 70s. Not ideal, but it’s also not a huge problem; pretty close to normal. That’s kind of the most likely scenario. Todd, one thing we do need to talk about though is rain, because there’s not really very much rain on the horizon over the next five to eight days across the Plains and the western Corn Belt. This area is going to be turning drier as we move forward. Now, we’d be more concerned about it in a normal year, but this year has not been normal, and we’ve had a ton of rain up until maybe 10 days ago. Overall, we can still ride this situation out at least based on the proprietary data that we’ve been analyzing. The eastern areas are still going to see some rain this week, some rain next week, so kind of that same divide with some of the poorer conditions developing west and some of the okay to good conditions to the east. But the wild card here, Todd, is what happens with rain 10 to 20 days out.
Todd Gleason: Follow up on that rain forecast a little bit. What do you see 10 to 20 days out?
Mike Tannura: This is where it gets a little tricky because we can see a couple of things happening. We can see the southwest monsoon going to start up a couple of weeks early. This is where some quasi-tropical energy drifts in from the Pacific and gets into Arizona and that whole desert region of the southwest. Once we get into August, a lot of times those little waves of energy float into the Plains and turn into some pretty nice rainmakers. And we do see hints of that starting up as early as seven to 10 days from now. So we are including that chance for rain. Now, if that doesn’t happen, then the likely scenario would be for that rapid temperature contrast from heat west and coolness east to set up the main storm track basically on top of the Corn Belt. That would also lead to rain chances. So we think there is going to be rain one to two weeks out. Most of the computer models are not really sure what to make of this, and they’re also not really generating all that much rain despite a setup that looks pretty favorable for it. At this point in time, we think that rains will be pretty close to normal in one to two weeks.
Todd Gleason: I do have a final question for you. This is related to smoke. There’s always some discussion about what that means for the crop, but apparently we will be seeing more smoke.
Mike Tannura: Well, we certainly are today. I mean, it’s been around and it’s been sweeping across parts of the Corn Belt. And typically what happens, since we’ve now seen this many of the last 10 years, it’s kind of becoming an annual thing, but basically it keeps your daytime temperatures down by providing almost like a layer of fog. You have this light fog that’s kind of preventing full sunshine from heating the ground and warming up the temperatures. So your daytime temperatures get held down a little bit. It really doesn’t matter much at night. The other thing it would do is filter out your sunshine. So a corn crop on a sunny day that gets 100 units of sun, maybe now it’s only going to receive 97 units of sun because of that filtering. I’m not sure the exact numbers, but you kind of get the idea. So how all that plays out into yields? We haven’t seen anything too unusual in recent years from a yield perspective where something was way out of whack to the high or low side even though we had a lot of smoke. So probably whatever effect the smoke has on that process is fairly small.
Todd Gleason: Thank you much. I appreciate it. We’ll talk with you again soon enough.
Mike Tannura: Sounds great, Todd.
Todd Gleason: That’s Mike Tannura. He is with Tstorm Weather, that’s Tstorm.net online, joined us here on the Closing Market Report for this Thursday afternoon. Find and listen to the whole thing again anytime you’d like at WILLag.org. I’m University of Illinois Extension’s Todd Gleason.