- Drew Lerner, WorldWeather.cc
From the Land Grant University in Urbana Champaign, Illinois, this is the closing market report. It is the May 2025. I'm extension's Todd Gleason. Coming up, we'll talk about the commodity markets with Greg Johnson. He's at TGM, That's Total Grain Marketing, the elevator right here in Champaign County.
Todd Gleason: 00:19We'll take a quick look at the agricultural news from Washington DC, and then we'll turn our attention to the weather forecast too with Drew Lerner at World Weather Incorporated in Kansas City on this edition of the closing market report from Illinois Public Media. In our fortieth year of the program, more than 10,000 episodes and some 30,000 interviews. Todd Gleason services are made available to WILL by University of Illinois Extension. July corn for the day settled at $4.45 and a half. That was 3¢ higher.
Todd Gleason: 00:54December at $4.40 and a half, down a half cent. July soybeans up 5 and a quarter. They settled at $10.77 and 3 quarters. And November futures $10.61 and a quarter a penny and three quarters higher. Beet meal futures down a dollar 40 to $91.90.
Todd Gleason: 01:10The settlement price bean oil at $52.32 84¢ higher. Wheat futures, soft red July up 7 and a half cents. Settlement price at $5.24 and 3 quarters. The hard red July in the harvest month at $5.23 even up 11 and a quarter cents. Live cattle futures $2.25 lower.
Todd Gleason: 01:30The feeder cattle were off $4.02 and a half cents, and lean hogs down 65¢ for a hundred pounds for the day. Crude oil 45¢ lower per barrel $63.23 and the wholesale price of gasoline today just about unchanged at $2.13 and a tenth of a cent per gallon. Ethanol down a penny and seven tenths at dollar 70 and 7 tenths of a cent per gallon. Greg Johnson from TGM. That's totalgrainmarketing.com now joins us to take a look at what's been happening in the marketplace as the president has been traveling out of the country.
Todd Gleason: 02:06I say that, Greg, because when the president's in the country, and this was the way it was in the first term, there were lots of things that would happen in agriculture that were based on trade and discussions that the president of The United States would be having. You and I have been through many presidents. This is the one that has the most impact directly on the CME Group. I suppose things are a little quieter today than they have been for the last week or so.
Greg Johnson: 02:31You're exactly right. We're waiting for more details to develop, and the only details we have so far is the agreement between The US and The UK. There's supposedly more deals in the works and to be announced soon, but, it depends on what your definition of soon is, I guess. So today we are looking for new news and there's not a lot of new news out there other than the weather forecast, I guess. Looks to be continued wet.
Greg Johnson: 03:03Showers continue to come through. And with most areas approaching 80% planted, you know, the focus there turns to rain is a good thing. Now if you're in Southern Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, places like that, rain is not a good thing. They'd like to see it, dry up for a couple of weeks and let them get planted. And then and then everybody will be in that same camp after they get that planted that, will be looking for rain.
Greg Johnson: 03:28But, at this point, a little wet, in Southern Illinois and Kentucky and, but that's about the only area. So in general, progress is ahead of the five year average and right on pace with what most farmers would like to see completed at this point.
Todd Gleason: 03:44There had been and I think there still remains some areas across the Midwest that are moderately dry, even a couple, that have been in moderate drought, probably not enough area for the marketplace to get very excited about.
Greg Johnson: 03:59Right. And and it's just too soon, to get excited about dry weather. If this continues for another thirty to forty five days, yes, then we have a story. But, you know, I always equate it to people that have irrigation. They're not running their irrigation systems today.
Greg Johnson: 04:16They don't run those until late June, early July, typically. So that's when it's critical for the crops to get rain. When the crops are small, they don't need a lot of rain. They can root down and find what moisture's there. So it's hard to kill the crop in May.
Greg Johnson: 04:31It's hard to really get a weather related rally in corn this time of year just for that reason. So we're probably thirty days away from, you know, really focusing on weather as a potential market mover. And so until then, corn sitting at the lowest price we've had since the first of the year, whereas beans, on the other hand, are $0.25 off the highest price we've had since the first of the year. The difference being that there's been some demand in the soybeans here recently, government related. You know, traders are wondering whether the government mandate on the renewable biodiesel will encourage more soybean oil and as oil price soybean oil prices are the highest they've been since December of twenty twenty three.
Greg Johnson: 05:17So there is definitely some artificial or government related demand in the soybean oil market. The question is, can you crush soybeans just for the oil? And historically, the answer is no, because 80% of the bean is soybean meal and 20% is soybean oil. So what do we do with all that extra soybean meal if we crush, if we do in fact crush beans for the oil? So, in the short run, that's a little friendly and we've seen oil prices at all time highs or recent highs anyway, and and that's helped out the soybean market.
Greg Johnson: 05:48But, I I'm not sure if that can continue.
Todd Gleason: 05:50Yeah. And China, for its part, has said, and they generally don't take very much meal from us at all, if any. I don't quite recall. As I said, you know, for our livestock industry, we're gonna try to limit meal, and that would limit soybean imports in general to that nation, anyway. What else are you watching in the marketplace?
Greg Johnson: 06:11Right now, we've seen, basis levels firm up on corn because that's directly related to the lack of farmer selling, whereas the bean basis has gotten a little bit weaker and that's also directly related to the farmers are selling beans. So we're seeing a pickup in old crop bean movement, and that's, reflected in a weaker bean basis. And we're seeing, very little movement in corn. Farmers just don't like these prices. They're already 80% to 85% sold on old crop corn.
Greg Johnson: 06:39And I think, at this point, if they've held on this long, they're probably going to hold on another thirty to forty days and see if we can get some weather related rallies in the corn. So lack of farmer movement has resulted in a little bit stronger basis. We at this point, we look at, funds as well. The funds have sold off their big long position that they had this winter in corn. They're basically even right now on both corn and soybeans.
Greg Johnson: 07:05So that could go one of two ways. If we have ideal weather through the growing season, we could see the funds establish a short position going into fall harvest. On the other hand, if we have any kind of weather concerns, we could see the funds reestablish that long position. So they're right in the middle at this point at even, and we're waiting to see which way they go. And then the other thing that we're keeping an eye on is the overall economy.
Greg Johnson: 07:30We're seeing a rally in the U. S. Dollar, which is not good for commodity prices, but we are seeing a little bit of inflation related to the tariff talk. The short run, inflation could be a little friendly for commodity prices, but we're that there's still as you said to start the show, things change almost on a daily basis when it comes to the trade talks and the tariff talks. So we're nobody has a real firm opinion on how that's gonna go.
Greg Johnson: 08:00So it's kinda day to day as far as that's concerned.
Todd Gleason: 08:02Are you getting information up and down the system itself as to what we believe the tariffs are on corn, soybeans, and wheat going into China? Has there been an indication really yet of what that number is?
Greg Johnson: 08:16Well, we know it's not the 145 that it was going that it was going to be. That that effectively shuts off any any soybean exports to China. China hasn't bought corn from us for several years, but they do buy a fair amount of beans from us. So that's the big concern is on soybeans. At 145, they're not going to buy anything from us.
Greg Johnson: 08:35Now at 35%, they could, but, I think what we're waiting to see what the results of the talks are between, the two, US Representatives and the and the Chinese representatives. And so, you know, I I know we've been around long enough to know that, this could take weeks, if not months. I I'm not looking for an answer today or tomorrow. I I think this could drag on for a while. So but at least they put the ninety day moratorium on the 45% tariff.
Greg Johnson: 09:04So if they do wanna buy something, it's at some more reasonable tariff level, like 30%. It's not great, but it's not one forty five. But, in order to see the tariff numb the whatever the eventual tariff number is gonna be, it's probably gonna be several weeks, if not months, before we see some resolution between US and China.
Todd Gleason: 09:22Yeah. I suppose most of the industry agrees, at least for the ag products, it won't be the 10% that China and, The United States are thinking about, but something 10% plus. So I went through some of those numbers yesterday as well. You can listen to them on the closing market report from Monday if or from Tuesday if you'd like. South American corn crop safrinha still in good shape.
Greg Johnson: 09:48Yes. And that's another reason for the weakness in the old crop corn. We were concerned that, with the good demand that we've seen here out of The US for corn, that we might have to keep prices pretty high, to get to new crop. But now with the, South American crop looking to be pretty good, I think that's gonna serve as a pretty good buffer. So at for the time being anyway, the the feeling is that there's gonna be enough old crop corn, and that's why we've seen the prices sell off a little bit as far as corn is concerned.
Todd Gleason: 10:16Hey, Greg. Thank you much. We'll talk with you again next week.
Greg Johnson: 10:19Thanks, Todd.
Todd Gleason: 10:20That's Greg Johnson. He is with TGM. That's totalgrainmarketing.com. In today's agricultural news, House Republicans Monday proposed a $290,000,000,000 cut from the supplemental nutrition assistance program over the next decade. The GOP plan uses some of the money saved to increase spending on commodity programs, crop insurance and other farm bill programs.
Todd Gleason: 10:48The draft tax release Monday shows the bill's agricultural provisions would increase the PLC reference price by 10 to 20% in line with the Farm Bill the committee approved last year. Politico says the $230,000,000,000 instructed savings target will be reached by forcing states to pay for part of the SNAP program using a sliding scale based on their payment error rates beginning in fiscal twenty twenty eight and would pay between 525% of the benefit costs. Other portions of the bill increased the individual limit for commodity program payments from $125,000 to $155,000 and indexed it for inflation. In other items from DC, Growth Energy welcomed the news that the proposal released Monday from the Ways and Means Committee included an extension of the 45z Clean Fuel Production Credit. It's an incentive designed to spur innovation in American biofuels.
Todd Gleason: 11:47The 45Z Clean Fuel Production Tax Credit is intended to incentivize the production of low carbon transportation fuels. Growth Energy's research demonstrates that the credit would add $21,200,000,000 to The US economy and support more than 192,000 jobs. And that's a look at today's Ag News. Drew Lerner of World Weather Incorporated in Kansas City now joins us to take a look at the global growing regions and the impact of climate and weather on each of them. Hello, Drew.
Todd Gleason: 12:32Thank you very much. The immediate impact had been that farmers were worried for a little bit that they were gonna be late, and then suddenly they caught up. They really haven't ever been late, but they were a little worried about getting into parts of the Eastern Corn Belt particularly. Now I will say that Southern Indiana, Southern Illinois, parts to the South of the Corn Belt really have still been struggling to make up time. Did they do much better in this past week?
Todd Gleason: 13:03And if not, will they do much better in the next seven days?
Drew Lerner: 13:06You know, the biggest problem with that area isn't so much the volume of precipitation. It's just the frequency. After the big rains that occurred at the April, early May, or no, sorry, March, early April, they have been struggling ever since. Was so much rain that a lot of these low lying areas just got into standing water. And it's been very difficult to get that out because it keeps precipitating periodically.
Drew Lerner: 13:37It's not heavy, but it's just enough to counter the evaporation that's occurred in the runoff. And so, yes, you're absolutely right. Those areas are still hurting and the pattern is not going to be any different over this next day, probably two weeks at least. I do think that the warmer temperatures will help. Now we're going to be seeing a lot of 80 degree temperatures on a near daily basis over this next couple of weeks.
Drew Lerner: 14:03So that's going to help a lot when it's not raining. So I do think it'll get better, but I don't want to imply it's not going to continue to rain periodically because we do have rain every few days coming into a part of that region. It's gonna be really difficult to get really notably drier.
Todd Gleason: 14:20Now I have to think about how that impacts the weekly crop progress report. Report. If it was to the north, we would see it, but it would disappear quickly as the planting dates started to go away. However, because those are in the South, if those acres are not planted, the expectation that they will will be planted will continue to be. I would think that the crop progress report might show that, planting slows down, pretty substantially in the last two weeks and certainly the first couple of weeks of June.
Todd Gleason: 14:50We'll see how that happens. I'm just thinking out loud. I'm sorry, Drew. Yeah. Yeah.
Todd Gleason: 14:54And because that one last thing on that, the way the planting crop progress works is, it's what we expect to plant, and then as soon as we don't expect to plant that, that drops off. So it's not that it got planted, it's just that no longer is it expected to be planted, so it doesn't show up in stat. Okay. So given all of that, Iowa, Minnesota, the two Dakotas, maybe Nebraska, they have had really good conditions, have moved really fast for the most part, I believe. Will they get rainfall?
Drew Lerner: 15:32Yes. They will. It will take a week. Yeah. They they still have about seven days to go through before it starts to rain in that region.
Drew Lerner: 15:39Would say, for sure, it'll be dry through the weekend. And then next week we'll start seeing parts of that region getting a little bit of moisture. The better rain is probably going to be about midweek next week. It's still debatable how significant it will be, but we should see at least everybody that been without the moisture to get at least a little bit of something. Now the Southwest Plains probably won't do all that well, but the heart of the Midwest should get relief.
Drew Lerner: 16:06And, of course, we've got still a pretty darn good chance for seeing substantial rains in the Northwestern part of the Corn Belt.
Todd Gleason: 16:13Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas. I know there's a lot of difference in the heat in some of those areas. Kansas wheat crop looks like at least part of it's in really good condition. Will it continue to get some rain there for both the wheat, the corn and the soybeans?
Drew Lerner: 16:28You know, think a big part of Central And Western Kansas down in the Panhandle, that area is probably not going to see much moisture for the next week to maybe nine days or so. For the Eastern Part Of Kansas and some of that corn and soybean production area in the Eastern Part of the Central Plains in general, I do think that there will be some moisture that will show up. It is a week away and we are going to see some 80 and lower 90 degree temperatures for a little while here. We'll start to cool down and that's what will help to trigger some of the moisture. So, you know, a part of that region will get some relief.
Drew Lerner: 17:05I doubt that a big part of Nebraska is going to get a serious amount of rainfall. Now the Northern part of the state will probably do okay. But the central and southern portions of Nebraska and into the Eastern areas, I think the rains are going to be somewhat light. They will definitely provide an opportunity for short term improvement. But as far as fixing the long term drier scenario, not quite so sure we're going to do that.
Todd Gleason: 17:31From Dayton, Ohio to Champaign to Springfield, northward in Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, parts of Wisconsin, what do things look like?
Drew Lerner: 17:41You know, think it's a pretty darn good scenario. There there's a lot of variation. We've been a little wet. There's no question about that, and we do need to see some drier bias conditions. This week's upper level low is still trying to get out of the region, but it will go ahead and and be successful with that.
Drew Lerner: 17:57And like I said, we'll get into some 80 degree plus readings of temperatures here coming up over the next several days And that will help to promote the drier bias. But we do have more rain that will develop a week from now. And that is going to slow things down just a little bit again. So, you know, I think that in general for the crops that are in the ground, not a bad scenario. For those folks that are still trying to put the rest of the crop in, it may be just a little challenging, but not the end of the world.
Drew Lerner: 18:28We're not going to be so excessively wet that we can't get that done. The exception again is that area we talked about in the Lower Ohio River Valley down into the Delta. That might be a little bit different story.
Todd Gleason: 18:39Let's hopscotch across the planet now. We'll begin in the Canadian Prairies. Will they get rainfall?
Drew Lerner: 18:46You know, there's quite a contrast going on up there. There's a this storm system, there's two of them actually that are going to move across the Northern US Plains here in the coming week. The first one is gonna begin tonight. We'll go on into Saturday morning and that storm will impact the the heart of the Dakotas in a pretty significant manner. And it does extend up into Southeastern Saskatchewan and West Central And Southwestern Manitoba, which is that whole region there has been pretty dry for a fair amount of this growing season so far.
Drew Lerner: 19:19And so this is going be a nice significant event. One to four inches of rain will occur in the Missouri Valley in the heart of the Dakotas and probably three quarters of an inch to a couple of inches will occur in the Canadian side of the fence. Now just to the west of that, in the western two thirds of Saskatchewan and eastern parts of Alberta, it is getting way too dry once again. This is I don't know how many years it's been. It's been many years where they've been struggling with dryness in some of that region.
Drew Lerner: 19:46And they're not going to be seeing a lot of rain for the next week to week and a half. There may be something that shows up in the last week to ten days of May. A lot of folks up there are beginning to become a little worried the drought's coming back. My personal opinion is that they will get timely rain at the May and especially in June.
Todd Gleason: 20:06In Europe, are there concerns you've been watching?
Drew Lerner: 20:08You know, it's been unusually dry for a very long period of time in Northern Europe. This is the North Sea region, United Kingdom, Northern France, parts of Germany, a big part of Germany, the low countries as I call them, that's Belgium and Netherlands and Luxembourg. And I've been to Scandinavia. I've already seen just a persistence of below normal precipitation. And the thing that's been saving the crops in that region is that hasn't been that warm.
Drew Lerner: 20:35And so because it hasn't been hot and they're doing okay, but they need some rain. And if it heats up and it doesn't rain, they're gonna be in a big trouble, a big mess pretty quickly. So we're gonna watch that area. The odds are good that after about ten more days that they'll start seeing some moisture. So it's probably nothing more than something just to be a little worried about.
Drew Lerner: 20:56They'll probably come through it okay.
Todd Gleason: 20:58An enormous part of China's growing regions had been in dry areas north of the Yangtze River, I believe. Has that changed over the last week?
Drew Lerner: 21:08Yeah. You know, we got some timely rain in the eastern part of that dry area. That's primarily the North China Plain. And certainly the relief shrunk that dry area down by about 40%. The relief may be temporary, but it did do a nice job in providing some needed moisture.
Drew Lerner: 21:30Now the rest of that area is still pretty darn dry and we don't expect any changes in the next ten days. And it will be warm. That will look for upper 80 and lower to middle 90 degree highs daily through the next ten days. So that dryness may expand again and we'll need to keep a close eye on it. We're now getting into the time period where this is much more important for the spring and summer crops and that are not irrigated obviously.
Drew Lerner: 21:56And so we need to keep an eye on it. If they fail to get some rain before the end of the month, then I think that there's going to be a big shift in attitude about what's going on in that part of the country. The rest of China is in good shape. That includes the corn and soybean areas in the Northeast where more than half of those crops are produced and plenty wet in Southern China where there's a lot of rice produced.
Todd Gleason: 22:17And finally, in Argentina, it's time to plant winter wheat. What are conditions like?
Drew Lerner: 22:22You know, this may be the best planting season Argentina has had in multiple years, maybe before 2020. It's, we've had plenty of moisture here during the past few weeks and the ground is adequately moist. There's a few areas on the West that maybe aren't all that great, but relative to where we've been in recent years, the moisture profile is almost ideal. And we have some more rain coming up this week. The start of week planting is usually in late May and June is the primary planting month.
Drew Lerner: 22:52And I think things are looking really good for them.
Todd Gleason: 22:55Hey, thanks much.
Drew Lerner: 22:56You bet. Have a great day.
Todd Gleason: 22:57You too. Drew Lerner is with World Weather Incorporated in Kansas City. Joined us on this Wednesday edition of the closing market report that came to you from Illinois Public Media. I'm extension's Todd Gleason.