Mar 31 | Closing Market Report

Todd Gleason: 00:00

From the Land Grand University in Urbana Champaign, Illinois. This is the closing market reported as the March 2025. I'm extension's Todd Gleason. It's USDA report day. Coming up, we'll talk about the prospective plantings and grain stocks figures with Kurt Kimmel from agmarket.net.

Todd Gleason: 00:18

We'll get some perspective on that report as it's related to the ARCPLC decision farmers must make by the April, and then we'll hear again from Aaron Hager, weed scientist at the University of Illinois, about endless soybeans and 24 D. We'll put that into perspective of Springfield and legislation and take up waterhemp in detail as well. You wanna listen to that. And then as we close out our time, we'll take up the weather forecast with Mark Russo at Everest Dream Analytics on this Monday edition of the closing market report from Illinois Public Media.

announcer: 00:56

Todd Gleason services are made available to WILL by University of Illinois Extension.

Todd Gleason: 01:01

May corn for the day settled at $4.57 a quarter. It was four higher. 07/04/1963 and a quarter, up three and a quarter. December down a half. It settled at $4.42.

Todd Gleason: 01:12

The May beans at $10.14 and 3 quarters of a cent, 8 and a quarter cents lower a bushel. July down 9, 10 20 8 and a quarter the settlement price there. New crop November soybeans $10.19 and a quarter down nine and three quarters. Bean meal 80¢ lower. The bean oil down 27¢.

Todd Gleason: 01:28

Soft red winter wheat up seven and three quarters at $5.50 and a half, and the hard red at $5.70 up four and a half, both of those in the harvest month July. Live cattle futures down a buck 20, feeders off 67 and a half cents, and lean hogs were 50¢ lower. This morning's USDA report showed prospective plantings of 95,326,000 acres of corn. That's 105% of what was planted last year and soybeans at 83 or rather at 83,495,000 acres. That's just 96% of last year.

Todd Gleason: 02:09

Again, 95.3 for corn. AgMarket.net actually at 95.4, and soybeans at 83 almost five. Ag Market dot net had their number at 82.8. Those numbers were not too far off. Actually, really good in the broad perspective of the analysts that were reporting prereport estimates.

Todd Gleason: 02:32

Thank you, Kurt, for being with us today. I appreciate it, mister Kimmel, for being along. You guys did a good job.

Curt Kimmel: 02:39

Well, the team did. I I did not really put a whole lot of input in, to be honest with you, but the team did their homework. And and once again, they were they were right in there on it. Yeah. It's kinda neat to be able to be close to it.

Curt Kimmel: 02:55

And, yeah, Matt and the the guys did a fantastic job of of of looking at that. So but that's behind us now. It's called opening day for the grain market now, and what I refer to that is we've got the acreage estimates now and those are the top number on the supply demand balance sheet. And so where do we go from here? Well, there's a lot of moving parts as far as what type of yield, what type of demand to put on it and see what that bottom line is.

Curt Kimmel: 03:28

Early ballpark estimates when you look at the bottom line as far as this coming year's carryout, we'll know that here in May but corn carryout is probably in this 2.1 to 2.2 area, bean carryout 2.8 to 3.1 but you know when you talk tariffs, you talk yield, that's going to fluctuate quite a bit. Rewind and fast forward rewind over a year ago the carryout started at on corn at about 2.1, pushing 2.2. If you look at the supply demand balance sheet, now we're down to 1.5. So, these are benchmarks to go by and we'll see, how things unfold as we move forward. Other hit and misses, the cotton came in at 9.86, The average trade estimate was 10.1.

Curt Kimmel: 04:24

Outlook meeting was about 10. So we lost some cotton acres there, some shifting there. Probably the biggest miss in my part at least was sorghum. Sorghum acres 6.5, average trade estimate was six point zero, last year they were 6.3 and I was under the impression that a lot of those Kansas guys were going to shift to corn due to the fact that they've just got a bunch of vital sorghum sitting around due to China being absent. How how's the marketplace?

Curt Kimmel: 04:57

So, one kind of offsets the other end through there, so we've got the acreage numbers, we'll we'll see what, the weather forecast brings now.

Todd Gleason: 05:05

Yeah. As to where things changed, Iowa one hundred and five percent for corn acreage over last year, Illinois one hundred and three percent, Nebraska one hundred and five percent, Minnesota one hundred and five percent, South Dakota one hundred and seven percent, Kansas one hundred and two and Indiana at 104%, North Dakota one hundred and six %. So everybody planting more corn consequently meant soybeans were down. Illinois, the largest soybean state, down three percent to 97% of last year. Iowa at 96%.

Todd Gleason: 05:36

Minnesota, ninety five %. North Dakota at 94%. Grain stocks numbers were also out today. There were some expectations that they might show something unique and different. They did not, as least as it was, related to the trade.

Todd Gleason: 05:53

Those stocks came right in, at the trade numbers. 8,150,000,000 bushels in the bin for corn, 1,910,000,000 for the soybeans. So I don't suppose there's much to talk about there. Then you turn your attention to South America. What are we hearing from that size of the crop?

Curt Kimmel: 06:11

Yeah. We'll continue to focus on it, but we're gonna continue to look at the divergence between what the Southern Hemisphere is projecting, what the Northern Hemisphere is projecting on their production and demand and so forth. I think that is gonna remain wide, for the most part. They've been receiving some beneficial rains, and we'll see how that crop, comes along through here. But the other part of the equation is is overall world logistics, world demand here as Liberation Day takes place here on Wednesday, April 2.

Todd Gleason: 06:48

Did today's, marketplace and reaction to the USDA reports change anything in your mind as it's related to corn and soybean market?

Curt Kimmel: 06:56

Well, technically, it's kind of supportive here, from the chart point of view. We went down and matched or close to the March lows on old crop corn. Friday's price reversal to the upside kind of held in place. We've been recording some lows here towards the end of the first part of the month here, so hopefully that trend will continue. If you look at momentum indicators, do have a little bit of bullish momentum indicator, bullish divergence indicating that these lows we just made should hopefully be good here for a while.

Curt Kimmel: 07:31

Some of the analysts been promoting the bull spread in here, buying old crop corn, selling new crop corn on spread. There's ideas that that spread could widen out to 50¢, on that. So it sorta suggests that, this old crop corn market, particularly this time of year, can hang in there from the point that seasonally we have some support due to the fact that producers have gone to the field and they're pretty well sold up to where they want to be. So those were kind of two takeaways here from the last day or two's training action there, Todd.

Todd Gleason: 08:07

Thanks much, Kurt. Kurt Kimmel is with agmarket dot net. Let's turn our attention now to the ARCPLC decision and tie those numbers to the USDA reports that took place earlier today. On Friday, Nick Paulson and Gary Schnickke, PharmDoc team members, ag economist here on the campus of the U of Ime, presented an ARCPLC webinar which you can still find up on our website, actually the PharmDoc Daily website, under the archives section. In it, made the case that ARC COUNTY was definitely the choice for soybeans across the growing region and that they leaned slightly towards ARC COUNTY as it's related to corn.

Todd Gleason: 08:50

However, we did ask them what might make them change their mind about leaning towards ARC County for corn and using PLC given at that point what might have happened in today's USDA reports.

Gary Schnitkey: 09:06

We did have one question that sort of falls under this other consideration here. What will you what USDA prospective planting corn acreage figure would you cause you to more fully commit the PLC, which is a good good question. Again, what people are expecting is corn acres to increase and soybean acres to potentially decrease in this upcoming upcoming re report. And rather than state the the acres, I'm gonna state the thing that I would look at if a futures market reaction to that. Right now, the d's twenty twenty five futures contract is trading at $4.40.

Gary Schnitkey: 09:52

If after the report on Monday comes out, you see that go down 20 to 30¢, then you would be more fully looking at looking at PLC. And again, we're not thinking much about about about soybeans changing much with that report.

Todd Gleason: 10:12

That's Gary Schnickke from Friday afternoon discussing the potential for today's reports to change the ARC COUNTY lean towards decision that he and Nick Paulson had discussed during a webinar for corn. That decision needs to be made of the ARC PLC by April by producers and landowners across The United States for corn and soybeans both. And as it happens, today's reports did not push the corn market down 20 to 30¢, though the larger corn acreage that was released is likely to cause Gary and Nick to be less intent on our county but still leaning that direction at this point and certainly more intent that our county is the right choice for soybeans. You're listening to the closing market report from Illinois Public Media. The theme music is written, performed, produced in courtesy of Logan County, Illinois Farmer Tim Gleason.

Todd Gleason: 11:10

You may find today's USDA reports on our website. The address is willag.org. That's willag.org. Let's return to some information you heard during last Friday's closing market report about two four d and Enlist soybeans. Today, we'll add a deeper discussion of controlling waterhemp to the mix.

Todd Gleason: 11:36

The farm broadcaster Cesar Delgado from Ottawa had asked University of Illinois Extension weed scientist Aaron Hager a series of questions on the subject during a LaSalle County Farm Bureau meeting last week. He allowed me to pull a few of those sound bites. We'll pick up again with Aaron Hager reminding farmers that there are only two labeled formulations that can be applied post emergence in 24 D resistant soybean varieties. Hager says these are Enlist One and Enlist Duo.

Aaron Hager: 12:06

One of the things that we we really want to emphasize this year around 24 D is its use in soybean varieties that are resistant to it, and those would be the Enlist soybean system. There are only two available labeled post emergence products containing two forty that can be applied in crop in Enlist soybeans. Those would contain the choline salt formulation of two forty, in particular either Enlist One, which is two forty choline by itself, or Enlist Duo, which is a premix of two forty choline and glyphosate. There are no other salt formulations that can be used in crop, and we certainly do not want to use ester formulations in crop. Esters tend to have higher potential for volatility than salt formulations.

Aaron Hager: 12:53

And again, if if we're concerned about off target movement, applying an ester formulation in crop when air temperatures are typically going to be, you know, higher than what they are when we use an ester in a burndown scenario, that is really something we discourage people from doing because it increases the likelihood of seeing damage to non target vegetation across our landscape.

Todd Gleason: 13:17

Again, no other salt formulations and no ester formulations can be applied post emergence to two forty resistant soybean varieties. The ester formulations are more volatile than salt formulations and volatility can increase with the warmer air and soil temperatures that typically occur when post emergence applications are made. For that very reason, volatility or the ability of the herbicide to move in the environment has caused over time a series of bills to be introduced in Springfield to ban the sale and application of 24 D ester formulations. Hager says applying an ester formulation post emergence in soybean could result in additional damage to non target vegetation trees, ornamental plants, and such, and increases the likelihood that a similar bill will advance through a future legislative process.

Aaron Hager: 14:07

Well, it has actually been a concern that we've had for the last couple of of legislative sessions. There there, more than once, there's been a bill that's been introduced to ban the sale and application of ester forms of two forty in the state of Illinois. That one is not likely to move out of committee for this legislative session, but, again, in the future, it's likely to come back again. And another one that we're continuing to to monitor, to watch is a requirement for or a proposed piece of legislation to require any pesticide applications within a half mile of a school or park that notification has to be given to the school, to the park within seventy two hours of when that application is scheduled to be made. So there's a lot of uncertainty with, you know, the the distance.

Aaron Hager: 14:55

Why is it a half a mile? You know, what why seventy two hours? Why would we need to, you know, make a notification if an application is made when the actual wind is blowing away from these particular areas? So we're keeping an eye on that one. I think there'll be some changes to it, but, we're continuing to to to monitor that one.

Todd Gleason: 15:12

Something else Hager has been monitoring is herbicide resistance in waterhemp. Factually, he's been following that issue since, well, before it really became a thing.

Aaron Hager: 15:21

Well, it's been interesting to watch waterhemp in particular because thinking back, I I did my first plot work with waterhemp twenty seven years ago. And when we were doing that work, we literally were driving from Champaign County to Bond County, which is just outside of Saint Louis because we really did not have waterhemp in East Central Illinois to work with. Now in the succeeding years, I don't think it's really a surprise to anyone how quickly, how aggressively this one species has now moved across the state, including now areas well into even Wisconsin and Minnesota, where it's now really become a problematic and in many fields it becomes the driver weed species. It's the species that is really driving the decisions that the farmers are having to make. What options do we have?

Aaron Hager: 16:10

We have chemical options, but we're reaching a point very, very quickly where the number of effective options, chemical options that we have has been greatly reduced, and it's not gonna increase in the future. So we will you know, our our our story, if you would, to to farmers is that we we most likely will continue to use herbicides on most of our cropping acres. But we've really reached a point now where we have to think about what else can we do in addition to herbicides that is gonna reduce the amount of seed that's produced at the end of the year. That's really the only thing that we know of right now is that if there's no seed produced, then there's no change in the frequency of resistance. Anything short of that, and in all honesty, we're we're guessing.

Todd Gleason: 16:52

This broad development of herbicide resistance within waterhemp populations is the reason the U Of I Weed Scientist says farmers must do more than simply make post emergence applications. These without a doubt must be timed with when the waterhemp first emerges from the soil.

Aaron Hager: 17:08

Well, I, and again, twenty seven years ago, we had a pretty good portfolio of both soil applied and foliar applied herbicides that could effectively control waterhemp in both corn and soybean. Over time, that number has greatly diminished. We now have resistance in Illinois waterhemp populations to herbicides from seven different classes. And so we see resistance to foliar applied herbicides that's fairly easy to detect. But we also have widespread resistance to soil applied herbicides, is more difficult in many cases to actually confirm under fuel conditions.

Aaron Hager: 17:43

So obviously, most folks I think would be familiar when they see resistance to foliar applied herbicides. They spray a herbicide on the population and it does not die. But the way that we see resistance to soil applied herbicides, the way that's manifest is that the length of residual control gets less and less. So for example, if we normally would expect to get five to six weeks of good residual control from a herbicide on a sensitive population, maybe that's now three weeks, maybe that's even less than three weeks now, which again emphasizes the importance of, you know, continual monitoring of our fields so we know when the emergence actually takes place.

Todd Gleason: 18:20

If you'd like to learn more, check out the weed management section of the University of Illinois online agronomy handbook. Search agronomy handbook and the University of Illinois link should be one of the first things in the results. Mark Russo now joins us. He's with Everstream Analytics. Hello, Mark.

Todd Gleason: 18:50

Thanks for being with us. We have a lot of ground to cover here in The United States. Planters will be rolling certainly in some of the southern regions as it's related to corn and soybean planting. Even in Illinois, they might roll fairly soon not already this point. Can you tell me what conditions are like today, and what they might be like for the next seven to ten days?

Mark Russo: 19:19

Yeah. Overall, well, from a soil temperature standpoint, actually, across much of the Central And Eastern except for far up north, soil temperatures are actually warmer than normal. In terms of soil moisture, it's quite variable across much of the ag belts here across the Central And Eastern US. As we go through this week, a couple of key items. Number one is that temperatures are going to be cooling back down to to near normal, even cooler than normal readings as we get into next week.

Mark Russo: 19:54

No extreme cold is expected, but with this cooler bias, that will again begin to again limit soil temperatures, but that is not a red flag right now. And then in terms of the rainfall outlook, actually, we are going to see more of the Midwest Delta in a wetter than normal pattern with even some pretty high amounts in and around the Ohio River Valley and Northern Midwest. This is not a red flag right now since it has been very dry in those areas, but that puts more emphasis on drier conditions returning later in the month.

Todd Gleason: 20:31

In the second half of the month, do you see that to be the case?

Mark Russo: 20:35

Yes. The early signs point towards a less active pattern returning, later in the month. And along with that, warmer temperatures is is expected as well.

Todd Gleason: 20:45

Tell me about the forecast for the hard red winter wheat growing regions of Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas.

Mark Russo: 20:52

Yeah. Certainly in and around the Wichita, Kansas area down into Northern Oklahoma, that's been the driest area and acreage that needs rain the most here. There is gonna be an opportunity for rain, coming up later on this week and over the upcoming weekend, even extending into the early part of next week. It looks like an okay event, not widespread to solve the issues, but at least allow for a little bit of contraction here. So we do see this window of opportunity at least helping a bit, but does not look to completely solve the dryness issues there.

Todd Gleason: 21:29

In the Southern Hemisphere, bring us up to speed on Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Brazil, or at least areas you see that are of interest.

Mark Russo: 21:37

Yeah. In Argentina, the wet pattern of the past week and a half, that is now coming to an end, and the drier pattern is following suit here for the next few weeks. That's actually a good pattern, favorable pattern for harvest progress. And after any brief delays here in the past week, this will help improve things throughout the April. And then further up north into areas of Brazil, as well as adjacent Paraguay and Uruguay, we see generally favorable weather.

Mark Russo: 22:08

Favorable weather for soybean harvesting, also favorable weather for safrinha corn development. A few dry pockets here and there might be in place in the safrinha corn belt, but the net pattern does provide at least general improvement here coming up through mid April.

Todd Gleason: 22:27

K. Thanks much, Mark.

Mark Russo: 22:28

You're welcome, Todd.

Todd Gleason: 22:30

That's Mark Russo. He is with Everestream Analytics, joined us on this Monday edition of the closing market report that came to you from Illinois Public Medium. It is public radio the farming world online on demand anytime you'd like at willag.org. There you'll today find the prospective plantings report on the home page with state by state changes that may be of interest to you. And you can check all those numbers out.

Todd Gleason: 22:57

Under the USDA tabs, you'll also find the grain stocks figures. They're at willag.org. You have a good afternoon. I'm Illinois Extension's Todd Gleason.