Episode Number
10449
Episode Show Notes / Description
This edition of the Closing Market Report reviews daily agricultural market settlements before examining commodity trends, input costs, nutrient management, and regional weather patterns. Matt Bennett of AgMarket.net discusses harvest progress, noting that recent rains slowed soybean cutting in parts of the Corn Belt while outlining how Chinese export demand, tariff developments, and basis volatility are shaping the corn and soybean outlook. The broadcast highlights the impact of record-high diesel prices exceeding $6 per gallon on field operations and transportation costs during harvest. University of Illinois agricultural economist Gary Schnitkey shares findings from Precision Conservation Management data across half a million acres, explaining that adhering to Maximum Return to Nitrogen (MRTN) guidelines—typically 150 to 200 pounds of actual nitrogen per acre—delivers significantly higher operator returns than prevailing over-application rates. Finally, atmospheric scientist Mike Tannura of Tstorm.net details how recent heavy rains across the central Plains and western Corn Belt will give way to a 10-to-15-day dry, mild window favorable for fieldwork, while analyzing how an emerging strong El Niño is driving wetter conditions across both the Plains and South American growing regions.
02:44 Ag Markets with Matt Bennett, AgMarket.net
08:16 The High Cost of Diesel and Fall Harvest
09:15 Implications for 2027 Nitrogen Decisions
17:04 Ag Weather with Mike Tannura, Tstorm.net
02:44 Ag Markets with Matt Bennett, AgMarket.net
08:16 The High Cost of Diesel and Fall Harvest
09:15 Implications for 2027 Nitrogen Decisions
17:04 Ag Weather with Mike Tannura, Tstorm.net
Transcript
cmr261001
This edition of the Closing Market Report reviews daily agricultural market settlements before examining commodity trends, input costs, nutrient management, and regional weather patterns. Matt Bennett of AgMarket.net discusses harvest progress, noting that recent rains slowed soybean cutting in parts of the Corn Belt while outlining how Chinese export demand, tariff developments, and basis volatility are shaping the corn and soybean outlook. The broadcast highlights the impact of record-high diesel prices exceeding $6 per gallon on field operations and transportation costs during harvest. University of Illinois agricultural economist Gary Schnitkey shares findings from Precision Conservation Management data across half a million acres, explaining that adhering to Maximum Return to Nitrogen (MRTN) guidelines—typically 150 to 200 pounds of actual nitrogen per acre—delivers significantly higher operator returns than prevailing over-application rates. Finally, atmospheric scientist Mike Tannura of Tstorm.net details how recent heavy rains across the central Plains and western Corn Belt will give way to a 10-to-15-day dry, mild window favorable for fieldwork, while analyzing how an emerging strong El Niño is driving wetter conditions across both the Plains and South American growing regions.
02:44 Ag Markets with Matt Bennett, AgMarket.net
08:16 The High Cost of Diesel and Fall Harvest
09:15 Implications for 2027 Nitrogen Decisions
17:04 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 first day of October 2026. I’m extension’s Todd Gleason. Coming up, we’ll talk about the commodity markets with Matt Bennett. He’s at AgMarket.net. We’ll take up the weather forecast as we close out our time together. We’ll discuss North and South America. We’ll do that with Mike Tannura. He’s at Tstorm.net in Naperville, Illinois. Along the way, we’ll talk today with Gary Schnitkey, agricultural economist at the University of Illinois. He’s been collecting data from about 500,000 acres of farmland across the state of Illinois enrolled in the PCM or Precision Conservation Management program operated by the Illinois Corn Growers and the Soybean Association. There are some interesting items in there related to nitrogen rates and what is most profitable that you’re going to want to hear as it’s related to $5 cash corn next year along with $900 nitrogen supplies this fall. We’ll do all of that right here on this Thursday edition of the Closing Market Report from Illinois Public Media.
announce: Todd Gleason’s services are made available to WILL by University of Illinois Extension.
announce: December corn for the day settled at $5.02 and a quarter, a penny and a half higher. The March at $5.16 and three quarters of a bushel, up one and a quarter. May at $5.23 and three quarters for the corn, up a half cent. November soybeans, $12.84. They finished 9 cents lower. January at $13.00 and three quarters of a cent, down eight and a half. The March at $13.10 and three quarters, down seven and three quarters. Bean meal at $352.10. That finished down a nickel. The bean oil at $66.97, 88 cents lower. Wheat futures December contract at $6.82 and three quarters, up 7 cents for the day. The hard red at $7.37 and a half, four and a half cents higher on the afternoon. Live cattle futures in Chicago at $223.17 and a half cents, up 47 and a half cents. Feeders at $336.52 and a half, $2 and a nickel higher. Lean hogs at $68.87 and a half cents per 100 pounds. They finished down 50 cents on the day. Crude oil, $92.61 a barrel, up about $2.20. That’s up for the West Texas. The Brent still over 100 bucks at $102.03, up $4. Gasoline on the wholesale price at $3.39 and four tenths, up 13 and three tenths of a cent for the day. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is down 31 points at this hour.
02:44 Ag Markets with Matt Bennett, AgMarket.net
Todd Gleason: Matt Bennett now joins us from AgMarket.net. He’s in the field this afternoon shucking corn. Hi Matt, thanks much. Tell me about your progress as it relates to harvest and fieldwork.
Matt Bennett: We finished soybeans on Wednesday night and are very happy about that. We have some rain coming in, and as dry as we are, I didn’t think it would really affect us a whole lot, but the beans needed to get cut. We were trying to get started early in the morning. They were starting to get awfully dry again. We had beans that had leaves on them and still cutting 10%. We got that done and then we’re in corn here again today. As far as progress goes, if we get rained out tonight, we’re going to be about the halfway point on corn. Another week to 10 days of really good weather, we shouldn’t have any problem getting done.
Todd Gleason: Let’s talk about the soybeans. Since the meeting last week between President Xi and President Trump, actually probably just a bit before that, I think we have a high of around $13.35 or thereabouts in the November contract, and we’re down below 13 now. What do you think about that move and what it really means?
Matt Bennett: There are a few things going on here. Part of the reason the market was so supported obviously had a lot of Chinese purchases, a lot of weather issues. I think that supported it especially with the state of Iowa happening to sit as much as what they have. Parts of Nebraska, Wisconsin, Minnesota, there are just a lot of dry areas in Northern Illinois. I think that supported it well. Then you came in with that announcement that essentially we’re not going to have the 10% tariff relief on U.S. soybeans going to China, which makes it really hard on their privately owned buyers and crushers to be able to buy U.S. beans at the price they’d have to pay with the tariff and be able to make money. The state-owned companies, by direction of the Republic of China, have happened to buy those soybeans, and we’ve seen a lot of purchases. That really got into the market on Monday, shook it up quite a bit, saw some rebound here. The report on Wednesday was not bearish on soybeans. It wasn’t super bullish, it just wasn’t bearish. The last thing that plays into that is that now the weather looks like it’s going to open up the next two weeks. It looks like there should be a lot of areas that have been wet, incessantly wet for the last three, four weeks, that should be able to get some harvest activity done. It’s going to be tough going for them, especially at the start, but there should be a lot getting done there. I think once that gets started, it definitely changes bases, it changes all kinds of things. They’re going to see some pretty wild swings here in the next several days.
Todd Gleason: Do you expect losses to continue in the futures, or will it mostly be a basis play as we begin to have harvest pressure there?
Matt Bennett: If I was over in Iowa in places that have gotten to a $1.50 over, crushers couldn’t source those beans, they had to do whatever it took to get them in there. That’s an easy answer there, you’re going to lose a lot of basis once guys get started and get rolling. As far as futures go, in all honesty, I don’t look for a ton of downside. We’ve definitely taken the shine off this market. Whether this bean crop is bigger or smaller than the September WASDE, I think remains to be seen. I don’t know that it’ll grow a whole lot, if it grows at all. I do think that unfortunately we probably had some field loss here over the last two weeks, and while we’re running lockstep in pace with the five-year average, it seems like every year things get out a little bit quicker. Some of the areas that were able to run ran hard, and then some areas that are ready to be cut just couldn’t get cut yet, and that’s going to prove to be problematic long term.
Todd Gleason: What’s your assessment of the corn market looking into that World Ag Supply and Demand Estimate Crop Production Report on Friday of next week?
Matt Bennett: Whenever you look at the corn market, today we were getting beat up for a while and then we surged back, almost got to break even on the day, and obviously the corn market did not take the news yesterday very well. Overall, as I’m looking at the corn market, the thing that you can’t get away from is we still have phenomenal demand. There’s going to have to be some creative math most likely. If this yield drops any more than what it currently is at, you’re going to have to have some creative math to keep that carryout from getting fairly thin once again. You have to bring in those stocks that we learned about yesterday, 170 million bushels, but I feel like they may have robbed a little bit of demand from the new crop balance sheet just trying to keep things kind of where they want to see them because they are well aware that demand is going to take probably a little higher prices to really curb demand. We haven’t seen it curb to that much of a degree yet.
Todd Gleason: Anything else before I let you go?
Matt Bennett: Just be safe. I know a lot of folks are trying to get everything done they can before this rain, so just stay safe and hope everything goes well for everybody out there listening.
Todd Gleason: Thank you much, Matt. You stay safe too, please. That’s Matt Bennett. He is with AgMarket.net, joined us on this Thursday edition of the Closing Market Report from Illinois Public Media.
08:16 The High Cost of Diesel and Fall Harvest
Todd Gleason: Diesel prices are still at record highs above $6 around the nation in most places, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. IPM’s Abigail Bottar reports that’s hurting farmers as they enter the harvest season.
Abigail Bottar: Diesel prices jumped when the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran in February, blocking the Strait of Hormuz, a vital trade route for oil. Prices have been rising even more the past few weeks. Tory Meyr is a fourth-generation farmer growing corn and soy in southeast Missouri. He says the diesel he purchased to run his farm equipment was 60% more expensive than last year, and that doesn’t include diesel needed to transport the harvested grain.
Tory Meyr: That’s tremendously high. I have three semis that we run, and each one costs about $1,500 to fill up.
Abigail Bottar: He’s hoping the diesel he has on hand will get him through harvest and some fieldwork, and that the price will drop by the time he needs to buy more. I’m Abigail Bottar, IPM News.
09:15 Implications for 2027 Nitrogen Decisions
Todd Gleason: I’m University of Illinois Extension’s Todd Gleason. We’re now joined by Gary Schnitkey, agricultural economist at the U of I. He and a few others—Gary Schnitkey, Nick Paulson, Laura Gentry from the Corn Growers, and Carl Zulauf, who is an emeritus ag economist from Ohio State University—penned an article related to nitrogen rates and what they have seen in more than 10 years’ worth of nitrogen studies coming out of a lot of half a million acres in Illinois. There were some interesting findings in this article. First, why did all of you decide to take a look at this at this time of the year particularly?
Gary Schnitkey: Farmers are beginning to make their nitrogen decisions for 2027, booking nitrogen, and with that comes a decision on nitrogen rates. This year we’re looking at high nitrogen prices. AMS is reporting anhydrous ammonia at $900 per ton. I’ve heard some individuals booking prices less than that, but still very, very high prices. We’re looking at a high-priced nitrogen year, which says we should use nitrogen judiciously.
Todd Gleason: What did you find from the research that you did related to how the acres in the Precision Conservation Management program vary in their nitrogen rates, but more importantly, in their profitability per acre based on those rates?
Gary Schnitkey: We look at operator and land returns by amount of nitrogen applied. Generally speaking, the MRTN, or university recommendations for nitrogen rates, are right in the 170-pound range. We break nitrogen classes up into 151 to 175 pounds of N applied, and 25 pounds up and down from that. We find the two classes right between 151 and 200 to be the most profitable. That’s rather consistently so. We only found those classes not the most profitable in one year, and that was 2021 when we had high prices and relatively low nitrogen prices. Overall, we find profitability to be the highest for nitrogen rates near the MRTN, which is 150 to 200, with most of them being right at 170.
Todd Gleason: When you talk about that number, the MRTN, it being clearer today than it used to be, that is total pounds of nitrogen applied from all sources, including DAP. Is that the way the research you’ve done looks at it as well?
Gary Schnitkey: We take actual N applied, so anhydrous ammonia, we take that times 0.82 because that’s the number of pounds of N in that 100 pounds. We do that with every nitrogen fertilizer source and also include DAP and MAP. DAP, when we apply it, has some nitrogen in it, and we take that into consideration when we calculate actual N rates.
Todd Gleason: When you get down to it and you look at the profitability across those, you’re showing $409, I think, in the most profitable level. But it’s besting everything else by at least $8 an acre, and again, that’s 151 to 175. If you go 176 to 200, you lose eight bucks. Outside of those two things, drop off pretty quickly.
Gary Schnitkey: Just to give you a feel, if we’re at over $400 for the years 2021 to 2025 for those two classes, the class where 201 to 225 pounds are applied had a $387 return, which is below the 409 by $20. The 226 to 225 class has a $374 return. We’re $25, $26, $30 lower than our average class, and obviously that’s a considerable number.
Todd Gleason: There are important things to note about this. One is the profitability. For this year, you’re looking at five-dollar corn on average when you’re putting in a price for the 2027 corn crop, and you do have some suggestions for what producers in different parts of the state of Illinois might use for their total nitrogen rates.
Gary Schnitkey: This would be from the MRTN. Northern Illinois would be 184 pounds of actual N, Central Illinois 181, and Southern Illinois would be 204 pounds. We’re in the 180-ish range for Northern and Central Illinois, 200 pounds for Southern Illinois.
Todd Gleason: I’ve heard you say this before, based on the acreage that’s in the PCM program already, that farmers in general already apply far too much nitrogen on the anhydrous rig by 20 to 40 pounds.
Gary Schnitkey: Our average rate is 204 pounds, which is 25 pounds above the MRTN for this year. Obviously we have some in the MRTN ranges, and about 60% of our farms are over 200 pounds of N per acre, so reducing that considerably.
Todd Gleason: And that has benefits to drinking water and the water in the Gulf as well.
Gary Schnitkey: This might be the year when, if we’re particularly above 200 pounds of N, we think about cutting rates.
Todd Gleason: Thank you much, Gary. I appreciate it. Gary Schnitkey is an agricultural economist at the University of Illinois. If you’d like to use the MRTN or the nitrogen rate calculator, it’s easy enough to find. You can find it by searching out ‘nitrogen rate calculator’ or ‘N rate calculator’ online. There are numbers there for most of the Midwestern states from the Land Grant University system.
17:04 Ag Weather with Mike Tannura, Tstorm.net
Todd Gleason: Let’s turn our attention to the growing regions across the planet and what the weather and climate has been doing. Mike Tannura is here. He is with Tstorm.net, serves as president and CEO there in Naperville, Illinois. Online at Tstorm.net. Hi Mike, thanks for being with us again on a Thursday.
Mike Tannura: Hey Todd, thanks a lot for having me here.
Todd Gleason: Let’s start in the United States. Farmers really, particularly in Iowa and the western Corn Belt, would like to get a better start on their harvesting. They’re not behind yet, but they could be if things continue. It has been raining for the week in parts of the Corn Belt. Can you tell me about what that looks like so far?
Mike Tannura: There’s been a lot of rain from the central and southern plains into the western Corn Belt. We’ve been focused on hard red winter wheat for the most part. The state of Kansas has received around two inches of rain over the last five days on that crop. That’s a major rain event for any time of the year and certainly when we’re going from September into October. Hard red winter wheat in Oklahoma and Texas also received about one and a half inches. A major rain event right in front of planting, and the thing that we have to follow now is whether or not we end up receiving more rain, because if it keeps on raining, then you start thinking about some planting difficulties. Once this system moves out over the next one to two days, it’s going to be completely dry and mild in the plains and in the western Corn Belt. That will last for at least 10 to 15 days. Because of that, we think we’re going to have an ideal setup not only for wheat planting but also for corn and soybean harvesting in those areas that are now wet. You might have noticed that parts of Nebraska and Iowa have had a lot of rain over the last several days as well. Even though producers there are probably concerned as they look out their window, they won’t be too concerned a week from now and certainly 10 to 15 days from now because it just looks really dry.
Todd Gleason: Things will catch up in that part of the world. How about into the Eastern Corn Belt?
Mike Tannura: We have some rain to get through over the next day or two as well, but it hasn’t rained that much over the last 10 to 15 days, and so conditions aren’t as wet in Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio, despite some of the heavy totals that we saw earlier in September. Going forward, once we get beyond those two days coming up, it looks pretty dry here as well. There’s just not a whole lot to think about from a harvest standpoint. Things are going to improve as we move through next week, and we think that right around the middle of October, we’ll be looking at a pretty nice window for harvesting and for soft red winter wheat planting.
Todd Gleason: What do temperatures across the Corn Belt look like through that period?
Mike Tannura: Pretty much seasonal to mild. As you move west, it’ll keep on getting warmer and warmer. It’ll be unusually warm in the plains for quite a while once we get into next week. High temperatures once again in the 60s, 70s, and even 80s, which is unusual for October. One thing we’ll eventually have to start thinking about is the influence of El Niño on our weather pattern. Typically, from the summer into the fall, we haven’t ever really had a corn or soybean disaster. I think we’ve talked about that a few times on the show, and this crop probably won’t be one of the best on record, it won’t be a disaster either. We already know that, and that’s because typically you get some pretty nice rains over the course of the growing season. Once we get into the winter though, this is where the effects really start to show up. Typically, once you’re moving into November and especially December and January, you end up with a very mild winter. We think that’s a pretty high probability for the central US. It’s also pretty stormy once you’re in the plains. Look at the rain event that we just had here in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. That was a major event, and these are the types of events that are somewhat common when you’re in an El Niño like this. We think we’re going to see more of this going forward, and not only just over the next month or two, this will probably last through the winter.
Todd Gleason: Turn your attention to South America and talk about weather there. It has been stormy I know in the southern part of Brazil in particular, but what are you watching?
Mike Tannura: It’s more of the same. They’re in this very stormy pattern and that’s going to continue right through the middle of October. The one thing we have to think about is whether or not they’re going to receive too much rain in some of these areas. We’re thinking that four to eight inches of rain is on the way for Paraguay and southern Brazil. That’s a lot of rain for them. They normally would receive two to six inches of rain in the month of October, and we’re talking about way more than that over the next 15 days. El Niño has to be considered in this one as well. If you look at the past four strong El Niños, and we’re going into a strong one as we speak, all four of those were pretty wet from October through November and in most of December across southern Brazil, and this certainly seems to be exactly a repeat of that. We believe that this stormy pattern is being strongly influenced and even due to the El Niño. The one area where it gets a little bit trickier to determine is as you move to the north. As you know, Mato Grosso produces about 40 to 50% of the soybeans in Brazil every year, and their climate is a little bit different. If you look at those past four strong El Niños, two of them started pretty wet, but two of them were very dry over the first half of the growing season. This one is starting pretty wet. We’ve had some pretty great rains in the month of September, we have more coming up over the next one to two weeks, and this seems to be paralleling the 1982 and 1997 El Niño as opposed to the ones that started in 2015 and 2023. At this point, it looks like a pretty wet start to the Brazil growing season and is probably going to continue.
Todd Gleason: Thank you much, we appreciate it.
Mike Tannura: Sure thing.
Todd Gleason: Mike Tannura is with Tstorm.net, joined us on this Thursday edition of the Closing Market Report from Illinois Public Media. It is public radio for the farming world. Our theme music is written, performed, produced, and courtesy of Logan County, Illinois farmer Tim Gleason.
This edition of the Closing Market Report reviews daily agricultural market settlements before examining commodity trends, input costs, nutrient management, and regional weather patterns. Matt Bennett of AgMarket.net discusses harvest progress, noting that recent rains slowed soybean cutting in parts of the Corn Belt while outlining how Chinese export demand, tariff developments, and basis volatility are shaping the corn and soybean outlook. The broadcast highlights the impact of record-high diesel prices exceeding $6 per gallon on field operations and transportation costs during harvest. University of Illinois agricultural economist Gary Schnitkey shares findings from Precision Conservation Management data across half a million acres, explaining that adhering to Maximum Return to Nitrogen (MRTN) guidelines—typically 150 to 200 pounds of actual nitrogen per acre—delivers significantly higher operator returns than prevailing over-application rates. Finally, atmospheric scientist Mike Tannura of Tstorm.net details how recent heavy rains across the central Plains and western Corn Belt will give way to a 10-to-15-day dry, mild window favorable for fieldwork, while analyzing how an emerging strong El Niño is driving wetter conditions across both the Plains and South American growing regions.
02:44 Ag Markets with Matt Bennett, AgMarket.net
08:16 The High Cost of Diesel and Fall Harvest
09:15 Implications for 2027 Nitrogen Decisions
17:04 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 first day of October 2026. I’m extension’s Todd Gleason. Coming up, we’ll talk about the commodity markets with Matt Bennett. He’s at AgMarket.net. We’ll take up the weather forecast as we close out our time together. We’ll discuss North and South America. We’ll do that with Mike Tannura. He’s at Tstorm.net in Naperville, Illinois. Along the way, we’ll talk today with Gary Schnitkey, agricultural economist at the University of Illinois. He’s been collecting data from about 500,000 acres of farmland across the state of Illinois enrolled in the PCM or Precision Conservation Management program operated by the Illinois Corn Growers and the Soybean Association. There are some interesting items in there related to nitrogen rates and what is most profitable that you’re going to want to hear as it’s related to $5 cash corn next year along with $900 nitrogen supplies this fall. We’ll do all of that right here on this Thursday edition of the Closing Market Report from Illinois Public Media.
announce: Todd Gleason’s services are made available to WILL by University of Illinois Extension.
announce: December corn for the day settled at $5.02 and a quarter, a penny and a half higher. The March at $5.16 and three quarters of a bushel, up one and a quarter. May at $5.23 and three quarters for the corn, up a half cent. November soybeans, $12.84. They finished 9 cents lower. January at $13.00 and three quarters of a cent, down eight and a half. The March at $13.10 and three quarters, down seven and three quarters. Bean meal at $352.10. That finished down a nickel. The bean oil at $66.97, 88 cents lower. Wheat futures December contract at $6.82 and three quarters, up 7 cents for the day. The hard red at $7.37 and a half, four and a half cents higher on the afternoon. Live cattle futures in Chicago at $223.17 and a half cents, up 47 and a half cents. Feeders at $336.52 and a half, $2 and a nickel higher. Lean hogs at $68.87 and a half cents per 100 pounds. They finished down 50 cents on the day. Crude oil, $92.61 a barrel, up about $2.20. That’s up for the West Texas. The Brent still over 100 bucks at $102.03, up $4. Gasoline on the wholesale price at $3.39 and four tenths, up 13 and three tenths of a cent for the day. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is down 31 points at this hour.
02:44 Ag Markets with Matt Bennett, AgMarket.net
Todd Gleason: Matt Bennett now joins us from AgMarket.net. He’s in the field this afternoon shucking corn. Hi Matt, thanks much. Tell me about your progress as it relates to harvest and fieldwork.
Matt Bennett: We finished soybeans on Wednesday night and are very happy about that. We have some rain coming in, and as dry as we are, I didn’t think it would really affect us a whole lot, but the beans needed to get cut. We were trying to get started early in the morning. They were starting to get awfully dry again. We had beans that had leaves on them and still cutting 10%. We got that done and then we’re in corn here again today. As far as progress goes, if we get rained out tonight, we’re going to be about the halfway point on corn. Another week to 10 days of really good weather, we shouldn’t have any problem getting done.
Todd Gleason: Let’s talk about the soybeans. Since the meeting last week between President Xi and President Trump, actually probably just a bit before that, I think we have a high of around $13.35 or thereabouts in the November contract, and we’re down below 13 now. What do you think about that move and what it really means?
Matt Bennett: There are a few things going on here. Part of the reason the market was so supported obviously had a lot of Chinese purchases, a lot of weather issues. I think that supported it especially with the state of Iowa happening to sit as much as what they have. Parts of Nebraska, Wisconsin, Minnesota, there are just a lot of dry areas in Northern Illinois. I think that supported it well. Then you came in with that announcement that essentially we’re not going to have the 10% tariff relief on U.S. soybeans going to China, which makes it really hard on their privately owned buyers and crushers to be able to buy U.S. beans at the price they’d have to pay with the tariff and be able to make money. The state-owned companies, by direction of the Republic of China, have happened to buy those soybeans, and we’ve seen a lot of purchases. That really got into the market on Monday, shook it up quite a bit, saw some rebound here. The report on Wednesday was not bearish on soybeans. It wasn’t super bullish, it just wasn’t bearish. The last thing that plays into that is that now the weather looks like it’s going to open up the next two weeks. It looks like there should be a lot of areas that have been wet, incessantly wet for the last three, four weeks, that should be able to get some harvest activity done. It’s going to be tough going for them, especially at the start, but there should be a lot getting done there. I think once that gets started, it definitely changes bases, it changes all kinds of things. They’re going to see some pretty wild swings here in the next several days.
Todd Gleason: Do you expect losses to continue in the futures, or will it mostly be a basis play as we begin to have harvest pressure there?
Matt Bennett: If I was over in Iowa in places that have gotten to a $1.50 over, crushers couldn’t source those beans, they had to do whatever it took to get them in there. That’s an easy answer there, you’re going to lose a lot of basis once guys get started and get rolling. As far as futures go, in all honesty, I don’t look for a ton of downside. We’ve definitely taken the shine off this market. Whether this bean crop is bigger or smaller than the September WASDE, I think remains to be seen. I don’t know that it’ll grow a whole lot, if it grows at all. I do think that unfortunately we probably had some field loss here over the last two weeks, and while we’re running lockstep in pace with the five-year average, it seems like every year things get out a little bit quicker. Some of the areas that were able to run ran hard, and then some areas that are ready to be cut just couldn’t get cut yet, and that’s going to prove to be problematic long term.
Todd Gleason: What’s your assessment of the corn market looking into that World Ag Supply and Demand Estimate Crop Production Report on Friday of next week?
Matt Bennett: Whenever you look at the corn market, today we were getting beat up for a while and then we surged back, almost got to break even on the day, and obviously the corn market did not take the news yesterday very well. Overall, as I’m looking at the corn market, the thing that you can’t get away from is we still have phenomenal demand. There’s going to have to be some creative math most likely. If this yield drops any more than what it currently is at, you’re going to have to have some creative math to keep that carryout from getting fairly thin once again. You have to bring in those stocks that we learned about yesterday, 170 million bushels, but I feel like they may have robbed a little bit of demand from the new crop balance sheet just trying to keep things kind of where they want to see them because they are well aware that demand is going to take probably a little higher prices to really curb demand. We haven’t seen it curb to that much of a degree yet.
Todd Gleason: Anything else before I let you go?
Matt Bennett: Just be safe. I know a lot of folks are trying to get everything done they can before this rain, so just stay safe and hope everything goes well for everybody out there listening.
Todd Gleason: Thank you much, Matt. You stay safe too, please. That’s Matt Bennett. He is with AgMarket.net, joined us on this Thursday edition of the Closing Market Report from Illinois Public Media.
08:16 The High Cost of Diesel and Fall Harvest
Todd Gleason: Diesel prices are still at record highs above $6 around the nation in most places, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. IPM’s Abigail Bottar reports that’s hurting farmers as they enter the harvest season.
Abigail Bottar: Diesel prices jumped when the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran in February, blocking the Strait of Hormuz, a vital trade route for oil. Prices have been rising even more the past few weeks. Tory Meyr is a fourth-generation farmer growing corn and soy in southeast Missouri. He says the diesel he purchased to run his farm equipment was 60% more expensive than last year, and that doesn’t include diesel needed to transport the harvested grain.
Tory Meyr: That’s tremendously high. I have three semis that we run, and each one costs about $1,500 to fill up.
Abigail Bottar: He’s hoping the diesel he has on hand will get him through harvest and some fieldwork, and that the price will drop by the time he needs to buy more. I’m Abigail Bottar, IPM News.
09:15 Implications for 2027 Nitrogen Decisions
Todd Gleason: I’m University of Illinois Extension’s Todd Gleason. We’re now joined by Gary Schnitkey, agricultural economist at the U of I. He and a few others—Gary Schnitkey, Nick Paulson, Laura Gentry from the Corn Growers, and Carl Zulauf, who is an emeritus ag economist from Ohio State University—penned an article related to nitrogen rates and what they have seen in more than 10 years’ worth of nitrogen studies coming out of a lot of half a million acres in Illinois. There were some interesting findings in this article. First, why did all of you decide to take a look at this at this time of the year particularly?
Gary Schnitkey: Farmers are beginning to make their nitrogen decisions for 2027, booking nitrogen, and with that comes a decision on nitrogen rates. This year we’re looking at high nitrogen prices. AMS is reporting anhydrous ammonia at $900 per ton. I’ve heard some individuals booking prices less than that, but still very, very high prices. We’re looking at a high-priced nitrogen year, which says we should use nitrogen judiciously.
Todd Gleason: What did you find from the research that you did related to how the acres in the Precision Conservation Management program vary in their nitrogen rates, but more importantly, in their profitability per acre based on those rates?
Gary Schnitkey: We look at operator and land returns by amount of nitrogen applied. Generally speaking, the MRTN, or university recommendations for nitrogen rates, are right in the 170-pound range. We break nitrogen classes up into 151 to 175 pounds of N applied, and 25 pounds up and down from that. We find the two classes right between 151 and 200 to be the most profitable. That’s rather consistently so. We only found those classes not the most profitable in one year, and that was 2021 when we had high prices and relatively low nitrogen prices. Overall, we find profitability to be the highest for nitrogen rates near the MRTN, which is 150 to 200, with most of them being right at 170.
Todd Gleason: When you talk about that number, the MRTN, it being clearer today than it used to be, that is total pounds of nitrogen applied from all sources, including DAP. Is that the way the research you’ve done looks at it as well?
Gary Schnitkey: We take actual N applied, so anhydrous ammonia, we take that times 0.82 because that’s the number of pounds of N in that 100 pounds. We do that with every nitrogen fertilizer source and also include DAP and MAP. DAP, when we apply it, has some nitrogen in it, and we take that into consideration when we calculate actual N rates.
Todd Gleason: When you get down to it and you look at the profitability across those, you’re showing $409, I think, in the most profitable level. But it’s besting everything else by at least $8 an acre, and again, that’s 151 to 175. If you go 176 to 200, you lose eight bucks. Outside of those two things, drop off pretty quickly.
Gary Schnitkey: Just to give you a feel, if we’re at over $400 for the years 2021 to 2025 for those two classes, the class where 201 to 225 pounds are applied had a $387 return, which is below the 409 by $20. The 226 to 225 class has a $374 return. We’re $25, $26, $30 lower than our average class, and obviously that’s a considerable number.
Todd Gleason: There are important things to note about this. One is the profitability. For this year, you’re looking at five-dollar corn on average when you’re putting in a price for the 2027 corn crop, and you do have some suggestions for what producers in different parts of the state of Illinois might use for their total nitrogen rates.
Gary Schnitkey: This would be from the MRTN. Northern Illinois would be 184 pounds of actual N, Central Illinois 181, and Southern Illinois would be 204 pounds. We’re in the 180-ish range for Northern and Central Illinois, 200 pounds for Southern Illinois.
Todd Gleason: I’ve heard you say this before, based on the acreage that’s in the PCM program already, that farmers in general already apply far too much nitrogen on the anhydrous rig by 20 to 40 pounds.
Gary Schnitkey: Our average rate is 204 pounds, which is 25 pounds above the MRTN for this year. Obviously we have some in the MRTN ranges, and about 60% of our farms are over 200 pounds of N per acre, so reducing that considerably.
Todd Gleason: And that has benefits to drinking water and the water in the Gulf as well.
Gary Schnitkey: This might be the year when, if we’re particularly above 200 pounds of N, we think about cutting rates.
Todd Gleason: Thank you much, Gary. I appreciate it. Gary Schnitkey is an agricultural economist at the University of Illinois. If you’d like to use the MRTN or the nitrogen rate calculator, it’s easy enough to find. You can find it by searching out ‘nitrogen rate calculator’ or ‘N rate calculator’ online. There are numbers there for most of the Midwestern states from the Land Grant University system.
17:04 Ag Weather with Mike Tannura, Tstorm.net
Todd Gleason: Let’s turn our attention to the growing regions across the planet and what the weather and climate has been doing. Mike Tannura is here. He is with Tstorm.net, serves as president and CEO there in Naperville, Illinois. Online at Tstorm.net. Hi Mike, thanks for being with us again on a Thursday.
Mike Tannura: Hey Todd, thanks a lot for having me here.
Todd Gleason: Let’s start in the United States. Farmers really, particularly in Iowa and the western Corn Belt, would like to get a better start on their harvesting. They’re not behind yet, but they could be if things continue. It has been raining for the week in parts of the Corn Belt. Can you tell me about what that looks like so far?
Mike Tannura: There’s been a lot of rain from the central and southern plains into the western Corn Belt. We’ve been focused on hard red winter wheat for the most part. The state of Kansas has received around two inches of rain over the last five days on that crop. That’s a major rain event for any time of the year and certainly when we’re going from September into October. Hard red winter wheat in Oklahoma and Texas also received about one and a half inches. A major rain event right in front of planting, and the thing that we have to follow now is whether or not we end up receiving more rain, because if it keeps on raining, then you start thinking about some planting difficulties. Once this system moves out over the next one to two days, it’s going to be completely dry and mild in the plains and in the western Corn Belt. That will last for at least 10 to 15 days. Because of that, we think we’re going to have an ideal setup not only for wheat planting but also for corn and soybean harvesting in those areas that are now wet. You might have noticed that parts of Nebraska and Iowa have had a lot of rain over the last several days as well. Even though producers there are probably concerned as they look out their window, they won’t be too concerned a week from now and certainly 10 to 15 days from now because it just looks really dry.
Todd Gleason: Things will catch up in that part of the world. How about into the Eastern Corn Belt?
Mike Tannura: We have some rain to get through over the next day or two as well, but it hasn’t rained that much over the last 10 to 15 days, and so conditions aren’t as wet in Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio, despite some of the heavy totals that we saw earlier in September. Going forward, once we get beyond those two days coming up, it looks pretty dry here as well. There’s just not a whole lot to think about from a harvest standpoint. Things are going to improve as we move through next week, and we think that right around the middle of October, we’ll be looking at a pretty nice window for harvesting and for soft red winter wheat planting.
Todd Gleason: What do temperatures across the Corn Belt look like through that period?
Mike Tannura: Pretty much seasonal to mild. As you move west, it’ll keep on getting warmer and warmer. It’ll be unusually warm in the plains for quite a while once we get into next week. High temperatures once again in the 60s, 70s, and even 80s, which is unusual for October. One thing we’ll eventually have to start thinking about is the influence of El Niño on our weather pattern. Typically, from the summer into the fall, we haven’t ever really had a corn or soybean disaster. I think we’ve talked about that a few times on the show, and this crop probably won’t be one of the best on record, it won’t be a disaster either. We already know that, and that’s because typically you get some pretty nice rains over the course of the growing season. Once we get into the winter though, this is where the effects really start to show up. Typically, once you’re moving into November and especially December and January, you end up with a very mild winter. We think that’s a pretty high probability for the central US. It’s also pretty stormy once you’re in the plains. Look at the rain event that we just had here in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. That was a major event, and these are the types of events that are somewhat common when you’re in an El Niño like this. We think we’re going to see more of this going forward, and not only just over the next month or two, this will probably last through the winter.
Todd Gleason: Turn your attention to South America and talk about weather there. It has been stormy I know in the southern part of Brazil in particular, but what are you watching?
Mike Tannura: It’s more of the same. They’re in this very stormy pattern and that’s going to continue right through the middle of October. The one thing we have to think about is whether or not they’re going to receive too much rain in some of these areas. We’re thinking that four to eight inches of rain is on the way for Paraguay and southern Brazil. That’s a lot of rain for them. They normally would receive two to six inches of rain in the month of October, and we’re talking about way more than that over the next 15 days. El Niño has to be considered in this one as well. If you look at the past four strong El Niños, and we’re going into a strong one as we speak, all four of those were pretty wet from October through November and in most of December across southern Brazil, and this certainly seems to be exactly a repeat of that. We believe that this stormy pattern is being strongly influenced and even due to the El Niño. The one area where it gets a little bit trickier to determine is as you move to the north. As you know, Mato Grosso produces about 40 to 50% of the soybeans in Brazil every year, and their climate is a little bit different. If you look at those past four strong El Niños, two of them started pretty wet, but two of them were very dry over the first half of the growing season. This one is starting pretty wet. We’ve had some pretty great rains in the month of September, we have more coming up over the next one to two weeks, and this seems to be paralleling the 1982 and 1997 El Niño as opposed to the ones that started in 2015 and 2023. At this point, it looks like a pretty wet start to the Brazil growing season and is probably going to continue.
Todd Gleason: Thank you much, we appreciate it.
Mike Tannura: Sure thing.
Todd Gleason: Mike Tannura is with Tstorm.net, joined us on this Thursday edition of the Closing Market Report from Illinois Public Media. It is public radio for the farming world. Our theme music is written, performed, produced, and courtesy of Logan County, Illinois farmer Tim Gleason.