May 19 | Closing Market Report

cmr260519

- Ag Markets with Naomi Blohm, TotalFarmMarketing.com
- Right to Repair, Seedbanks, CO2 Pipelines, Year-Round E15, EV Tax
- Ag Energies with Dave Chatterton, SFarmMarketing.com
- Ag Weather with Don Day, DayWeather.com

Todd Gleason: From the Land Grant University in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, this is the closing market report. It is the 19th day of May 2026. I'm Extension's Todd Gleason. Coming up, we'll talk about the commodity markets with Naomi Blohm. She is at TotalFarmMarketing.com out of West Bend, Wisconsin. Then we'll turn our attention to the agricultural energies. Dave Chatterton will join us. He'll talk about miles driven for the summertime, what that means for ethanol and blends, and we'll also discuss how long it might take for the price of crude oil to drop if and when the Strait of Hormuz were to open. And we'll also talk today about the weather forecast, too. We'll do that with Don Day at DayWeather in Cheyenne, Wyoming, on this Tuesday 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.

Todd Gleason: July corn for the day settled at $4.75 and a quarter, a penny and three quarters lower. September $4.81 and a half, down three quarters. And December at $4.97 and three quarters, a quarter of a cent lower. July beans down three and a half at $12.09 and a half. November $12.03, up two cents for the day. Bean meal down $2.20. Bean oil 19 cents lower. And soft red winter wheat in the July, two and three quarters higher at $6.67 and a quarter. The hard red at $7.03 and three quarters, finished unchanged.

01:29 Ag Markets with Naomi Blohm, TotalFarmMarketing.com

Todd Gleason: Naomi Blohm from TotalFarmMarketing.com now joins us to take a look at the marketplace on this Tuesday. Thanks for being with us, Naomi. Talk me through yesterday and then the overnight and day trade today, which was not nearly as exciting.

Naomi Blohm: Exactly right. Yesterday, grain markets were on fire with a recovery bounce higher on news that the US and China were going to be doing some more trading. There was talk of an additional $17 billion worth of ag goods from the United States, in addition to soybeans. That really perked the market up. Today, when we started off, we didn't get any specific news of what is going to be entailed with those additional purchases, or when, or the quantity. So we are seeing a little bit of a pullback today in some of the grain markets. With the December contract for corn, it's still not able to get through that $5 area. It tried yesterday, couldn't quite do it. Tried again today, couldn't do it. November beans today are looking like they're going to be able to close above that $12 mark, but the question will be if they have any follow-through tomorrow. Front and center, everyone's attention is to see if any in-the-morning flash sales are announced for export sales from China. Will they be buying from us sooner rather than later, or are they going to wait and do their buying maybe at the end of August or early September, which is a lot of times when we see them come into our marketplace near our harvest low.

Todd Gleason: We'll have to wait and see. In that space of time, how do you tell producers to manage that new crop soybean or corn sale that they will eventually have to make?

Naomi Blohm: My bias here for now is, unless proven otherwise—and proven otherwise would mean an intense flare-up in the Middle East or a sudden shift in weather—you have to assume that things are going to go well for producing this crop. We still have planting pace that's ahead of expectations. There are already people talking on the newswires today about big corn yields. With that in mind, do be mindful of protecting the value that's in front of you, either with cash sales or looking at some different put option strategies. Down the road, if something does happen with the Middle East, or if we go into a flash drought situation later this summer, we can look at re-ownership with call strategies. Right now, the market is going to go back into its normal flux of "prove me wrong." When we are in that mentality space, a lot of times we see grain prices do their seasonal thing where they start to drift lower in May to June, and then after Father's Day weekend in June, a lot of times there's that big sell-off all the way into mid-to-late August.

Todd Gleason: I do want to ask you about the world ag supply and demand estimates in those tables. USDA does a pretty good job of defining what current policy is. For instance, the 25 million metric tons for soybeans, new crop, would have already been built into the May tables that were just released, and corn purchases by China have been built in already. I'm wondering how you think they're doing on old crop buys at this point. I think they're behind.

Naomi Blohm: Regarding the Chinese purchases of ag products from the United States, I feel like what they have done was meet that initial mark of what they were talking about back in the fall and early November. Once the new year approached, that's when President Trump said they were going to potentially be buying this additional 12 million metric tons. And that's what we aren't seeing yet. The old crop ending stocks numbers in regards to old crop exports could be something that fluctuates. Right now, the USDA has old crop corn exports pegged at 3.3. New crop, they're saying it's going to be lower, 3.1. To your point on soybeans, the USDA increased export for soybean demand for new crop. They now have exports for soybeans going to be at 1.63 billion bushels, up from 1.53 on the data sheet. They are trying to say that they think Chinese demand will be there for the new crop, but the question will be are there going to be any changes on the June or July WASDE for old crop export demand.

Todd Gleason: I had nearly forgotten about the 12 million metric tons that were kind of on the books but not anywhere officially, and was thinking just that the 8 million metric tons that Jameson Greer had talked about being in each of the president's additional years in office. That put them as calendar years, and I just had changed my mind about what was bought when. What else are you watching at this point in the marketplace?

Naomi Blohm: On the livestock side, don't forget we've got a Cattle on Feed report on Friday, and the talk is that it might be a little bit negative, so we'll want to keep an eye on that. I also read today that next week, Greer is going to be in Mexico meeting with the president of Mexico. That was going to be more of a talk about the US-Mexico-Canada trade agreement. We'll see if there's any conversation in there regarding US ag exports to Mexico, or if there is going to be talk about the cattle border opening from Mexico into the United States. That's going to be on the docket for next week, so keep an eye on that. And again, this Cattle on Feed report on Friday might finally get this market to shift out of this short-term sideways trading pattern that it's been in for both live cattle and feeder cattle.

Todd Gleason: Just one other note, US Trade Representative Jameson Greer is the person we've been talking about. Thank you so much, I appreciate you being with us today.

Naomi Blohm: Thank you.

Todd Gleason: That's Naomi Blohm. She is with TotalFarmMarketing.com.

07:53 Deere Right to Repair Settlement

Todd Gleason: A right to repair settlement has gotten preliminary approval. The US District Court for the District of Northern Illinois yesterday granted preliminary approval to Deere's proposed $19.9 million settlement to resolve numerous farmer-initiated lawsuits filed in 2022. Reuters reported in early April that Deere had agreed to pay the $19.9 million in settlement funds for farms and farmers that are part of class action suits over costs and access to repairs. The case is part of broader scrutiny in the United States over so-called right to repair practices, with regulators and plaintiffs arguing that some manufacturers limit competition by controlling access to repair tools and software. The settlement fund covers eligible plaintiffs who paid Deere authorized dealers for repairs to large agricultural equipment from January 2018, according to a document filed yesterday in the federal court in Chicago. Deere is now also facing a right to repair suit in construction equipment.

08:57 USDA Considers Moving Seedbanks out of ILLINOIS

Todd Gleason: Let's stay in Illinois for the moment. The US Department of Agriculture wants to move two of the nation's most important seed banks out of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign campus. As Abigail Bottar, ag reporter here at Illinois Public Media reports, some experts worry the change could harm corn and soybean research.

Abigail Bottar: The USDA is proposing moving the country's only public soybean seed bank to Columbia, Missouri, and the Maize Genetics Cooperation Stock Center to Ames, Iowa. The maize collection includes irreplaceable corn stalks and has been housed on the University of Illinois campus for more than 70 years. University of Illinois Professor of Crop Sciences Martin Bohn says he's worried the proposed location in Iowa doesn't have the physical infrastructure or personnel to properly care for the collection.

Martin Bohn: The material in the stock center, this is very special, and you need to have expertise. You need to know what's going on, how to handle these.

Abigail Bottar: In a statement, the USDA said the move would bring the collections closer to the farmers and ranchers they serve. I'm Abigail Bottar, IPM News.

10:02 IL General Assembly may Ban CO2 Pipeline Eminent Domain

Todd Gleason: There is more from the state of Illinois today. When central Illinois farmer Steve Hess found out his community had won the fight against Navigator CO2 Ventures—a Dallas, Texas-based company building a pipeline to transport carbon dioxide across the region for storage underground—he threw a party. Now the Illinois legislature is getting into the act, considering a bill that would ban companies from using eminent domain to seize land for CO2 pipelines. The bill was brought to the General Assembly by Hess, Sangamon County resident Kathleen Campbell, and other members of the coalition to stop CO2 pipelines. That's the group that formed in 2022 to fight Navigator.

10:55 Year-Round E15 has Tough Road

Todd Gleason: Now let's move out of Illinois and to Washington, D.C., where the former chairman of the US House Agriculture Committee says there are still headwinds facing nationwide year-round E15 legislation. Collin Peterson tells Brownfield he is expecting legislation to have an uphill battle in the US Senate. Senator Boozman in Arkansas and others in Oklahoma are very concerned about this and how you bridge that divide with the small refinery exemptions and so forth. Peterson says infrastructure is also a hurdle. We have infrastructure in Minnesota, South Dakota, North Dakota, and Iowa to dispense E15, but most of the country does not have that, he goes on. Even if year-round E15 legislation were to pass, he thinks there are not a lot of places that would use it, and so it is not going to be the demand that some people think it is. Peterson admits there is money available to build out E15 infrastructure, but not everyone will take advantage.

11:55 Federal Legislation Could Tax EVs

Todd Gleason: And finally, electric car supporters are concerned a new fee that would force EV owners to pay as much as $150 annually nationwide to help pay for roads will dampen demand for plug-in products at a time when gas prices have prompted some car shoppers to consider going electric. The new proposed EV fee will start at $135 annually beginning in October 2026, if a new bipartisan draft of a five-year surface transportation funding bill that Congress is considering becomes law. Under the proposed legislation, which has been dubbed the Build America 250 Act, the fee can be increased by $5 each year until it hits its maximum of $150 annually.

12:55 Ag Energies with Dave Chatterton, SFarmMarketing.com

Todd Gleason: Each Tuesday we take a look at the agricultural energies. Dave Chatterton is here now from Strategic Farm Marketing right here in Champaign, Illinois. Thanks for being with us, Dave. Let's start with what you think the broad scope of the agricultural energies looks like today.

Dave Chatterton: Still a bit of a struggle here in terms of on-farm diesel fuel prices and where we're at. If you look at the broader market in terms of the futures market and where we're at globally, it's still a market that's unfortunately captive to the headlines. And those headlines specifically about Iran or about the Strait of Hormuz. We're getting a lot of back and forth in those headlines. We've got a ceasefire here that's somewhat fragile but is holding for the most part while we're waiting for hopefully a negotiated end to the conflict and a reopening of the strait. But for now, it's hard for energy prices to relax, as the problem could go from where it's at today to getting even worse if the US calls off negotiations and calls the attacks back on and even increases them. Or it could get much better if we do get an accord that opens the strait. So we're still relatively trapped here at some high values, Todd. As far as we can tell, President Trump overnight and this morning called off his latest attacks so that negotiations were underway, and we're progressing. We've heard that line a few times in the process here, which is not all that unusual. But as far as we can tell, neither side is budging from their negotiating positions, and what the US wants and what Iran is asking for seem to be still pretty far apart. We are waiting to see how things get resolved. In the meantime, we're watching global inventories continue to decline. The IEA was out with a piece yesterday talking about March and April global oil inventories falling at the fastest level on record, over 246 million barrels just in those two months. We're coming to an inflection point where we have to solve this situation one way or the other, either by higher prices and rationing demand, or by opening the strait and getting the supply situation back in line.

Todd Gleason: If we do open the strait, I made note that the analyst at GasBuddy had made comments that for every day of the war he thought it would take a full week to recover supply and move back down, so we're at 70 or something like that days. That would be more than a year to get back down to a price without the Strait of Hormuz being closed. How long do you think it might take?

Dave Chatterton: It's a really interesting question, and one we don't have much of a template or historical relevance for. I wouldn't say that he's far off in doing that, but I would say that you never want to underestimate the ability of market participants to pull a dollar off the table. When margins are strong and when there's money to be made, people get very creative and do things that maybe traditional economists don't think they should be able to do. I don't know if it's quite that long, but certainly, it's going to take a while. If we fast forward to a situation where we get a potential peace accord and the strait reopens and traffic resumes, we're certainly going to get a reaction in the futures market. I think the cash market is going to be much slower to respond. We are much more fortunate here in the US. Even though we're dealing with high prices and let's say $5 farm diesel, we're much more fortunate than other parts of the world that are more heavily dependent on imports of oil. We're feeling the pinch a little bit less than that farmer in South America or that consumer in Europe. We should recover quicker than the world, but it's still going to take a while to get to a conclusion here.

Todd Gleason: As farmers still will have to deal with this certainly going through the fall, maybe into the spring, and possibly next fall depending on how things go, what are you suggesting to producers today as it relates to their fuel needs, whether that be natural gas for drying or diesel for harvest in the fall?

Dave Chatterton: We're going a little bit hand-to-mouth here. We want to keep a little bit of working inventory in front of us. There's not a supply crunch in the US at present, but we are seeing diesel fuel and LPGs continue to get exported. The arbitrage window particularly for diesel fuel is now open to Europe, to Mexico, to Brazil. As these world prices rally at a little bit stronger rate than what we've seen here, we need to keep an eye on inventories going forward. Certainly not a time to push the panic button at these types of values, but we'll be opportunistic for the fall, and we'll drag our feet here just a little bit.

Todd Gleason: So the idea is we have to watch the Strait of Hormuz, the price of crude oil, Brent in particular, WTI as well, to see if they react and how quickly. If the price gets high enough, other parts of the world start to purchase fuel from the United States.

Dave Chatterton: Correct, Todd. We've got a big inverse in our futures market for let's say for diesel fuel. So call it 4.10 and 4.12 on the lead month futures. If you go out to October, we're at 3.55. We can't find those inverted values in the cash market here from a contracting standpoint. If we start to see the front of the market fall, we want to see that back of the market soften as well with it. Like I said, you want to be pretty opportunistic if we do start to fall here.

Todd Gleason: Turn your attention to ethanol. Any reason to be worried about the summer driving season as it relates to the number of miles Americans might put on their vehicles?

Dave Chatterton: I think we haven't seen a lot of anecdotal evidence in the data yet that driving is slowing down in the US. Certainly that can be the case the deeper into the crisis that we go and the more consumer debt that's piling up on credit cards. Right now, ethanol margins remain fairly frothy. We're maybe a dime below the peak that we had several weeks ago, but values continue to look very good. The discount of ethanol to gasoline is pushing $2 a gallon in some cases here, and the plants are benefiting from not only good blending margins, but also strong RIN values. Profitability is there. They're going to run those plants absolutely as hard as they can here in the near term. The export side of the fence has started to heat up just a little bit, so I think the demand is there, and so far so good. We'll keep an eye on this driving situation through the spring. There's been talk about E15 and the farm bill, and it looks like this is going to be dead in the Senate, but it did get past the House. We'll keep an eye on the political front here as well.

Todd Gleason: Thank you much, I appreciate it.

Dave Chatterton: Thank you, Todd.

Todd Gleason: That's Dave Chatterton. He is with Strategic Farm Marketing, online at SFarmMarketing.com.

20:03 Ag Weather with Don Day, DayWeather.com

Todd Gleason: Don Day is with DayWeather in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and now joins us to take a look at the forecast for the Corn Belt. Actually, Don, I'd like to start out in Cheyenne where you are. We talked about ten inches of snow that you had gotten fairly recently, kind of a late snowstorm for you. You've gotten more, is that right?

Don Day: Yeah, over the last 48 hours, Interstate 80 was closed down for more than 24 hours from some locations picking up 12 to 30 inches of snowfall along that interstate stretch as it goes around the mountains of southern Wyoming and to Utah. The water in the West is badly needed. We need more, but a couple of May snowstorms are certainly going to help the water outlook a little bit out West. And some of the winter wheat country, portions of eastern Colorado, portions of Nebraska and western Kansas, and the panhandles, didn't get snowed on, but they did see some rain.

Todd Gleason: How helpful do you think that rain will be to a crop that is getting closer to maturity?

Don Day: That's a good question. It may be a little too little, a little too late, but I don't think it's going to hurt, especially with the soil moisture profiles. Maybe longer term, getting that soil moisture profile back. The outlook does look better for some of that winter wheat country, but as you mentioned, we're at the tail end, so hopefully some folks will benefit. But as we know, that wheat outlook has really been taking a beating with the drought out West.

Todd Gleason: Turn your attention to parts of Kansas and Nebraska, the Corn Belt areas. Have they improved?

Don Day: It depends on where you are. Central and eastern Nebraska, some areas got a little bit too much of a good thing. A lot of severe weather, tornadoes, hail, but also some very beneficial rains. Unfortunately, the beneficial rains kind of missed the Sandhills region and into the panhandle. Central and eastern Nebraska, a good part of Iowa, all has picked up over the last seven days some really good rainfall. But it has come at a cost, and that was with severe weather.

Todd Gleason: Short term, between now and the end of the week, what are your expectations for the broader Corn Belt?

Don Day: Short term, between now and the end of the week, it's going to be actually fairly quiet. We're going to see a severe weather shift into the south-central and east-central parts of the United States. We'll still have some rain in southern Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. But we're going to see drier conditions out in the northern and northwestern areas of the Corn Belt until we get into next week. We'll see shower and thunderstorm activity return. There are going to be some gaps of drier conditions for two or three days, but also a fairly active pattern across the south and the central parts of the United States next week with warmer conditions, but also frequent thunderstorm opportunities.

Todd Gleason: Thank you much, Don.

Don Day: Thanks, Todd.

Todd Gleason: That's Don Day. He is with DayWeather in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and joined us on this Tuesday edition of the Closing Market Report from Illinois Public Media. It is public radio for the farming world. Todd Gleason's services are made available to WILL by University of Illinois Extension.