Oct 15 | Closing Market Report

Todd Gleason: 00:00

From the Land Grant University in Urbana Champaign, Illinois. This is the closing market reported as the October 2025. I'm extension's Todd Gleason. Coming up, we'll talk about the commodity markets with Greg Johnson from TGM. That's totalgrainmarketing.com.

Todd Gleason: 00:16

He is in Champaign County and then we'll turn our attention to river levels. We'll hear from harvest public media and as we wrap up our time together, we'll explore those levels more and what the weather forecast might be for the Midwest as the growing season progresses through harvest. We'll do that with Drew Lerner at World Weather Inc. In Kansas City. He'll help us take a look at the weather in Argentina and Brazil as well, all on this Wednesday edition of the closing market report that comes to you from Illinois.

Todd Gleason: 00:47

Public media, it is public radio for the farming world online on demand anytime you'd like at willag.0rg.

announce: 00:56

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

Todd Gleason: 01:01

December corn for the day finished at $4.16 and 3 quarters, up three and three quarters. March 3 higher at $4.32 and a quarter. November beans unchanged today at $10.06 and a half cents. January 1024 and a quarter also unchanged in soft red winter wheat in the December a penny and a half lower. They finished at $4.98 and 3 quarters of a cent.

Todd Gleason: 01:23

Greg Johnson from TGM Total Grain Marketing. The elevator right here in Champaign County now joins us to take a look at the marketplace. Hi, Greg. Thanks much for being with us. You and I did not talk last week, so I'd like to know how the last two weeks have gone in East Central Illinois.

Todd Gleason: 01:42

Your draw area is fairly large. Soybeans first, I think, this year and followed up by corn.

Greg Johnson: 01:48

Yep. Soybean harvest is 99% done. There's just a few fields left and as well as the double crop beans, which may be ready as early as next week. But for the most part, bean harvest is over and the yields were very, very good, all things considered, considering how dry it was. It seems like the deep dark soils, which Central Illinois has a lot of, really were able to handle the dry weather much better than what anybody thought.

Greg Johnson: 02:17

We really thought we would be seeing double digit declines in soybean yields and really we saw single digits. And some of those were very minor, maybe three to 5% reduction in yield. And we really thought we might, going into the harvest, see 10 to 15% reduction in yields here in East Central Illinois, because we were probably the driest part of the state and the driest part of the Midwest. But deep dark soils were very good. Now some of the lighter timber soils, or if you have hill ground, yeah, the yields were down, both corn and soybeans, but the bean yields were very, very good.

Greg Johnson: 03:00

And corn yields, same way, single digit losses but not double digit losses. And the one difference I would say with corn is the fungicide applied, the applicated fields seem to be doing much better than the fields that did not get fungicide applied. So, in Iowa we've heard that it's a very big difference, you know, forty, fifty, 60 bushels advantage for the fields that were applied with fungicide. Here it's probably more like twenty, thirty bushel difference, but still that's a difference. And so corn yields are, you know, I would say we're 70% done with corn, and with with that big of a, sample size, I would I I feel pretty confident in saying that, corn yields are, down from last year, but not down dramatically here in East Central Illinois.

Todd Gleason: 03:50

Iowa likely a southern rust issue. There was southern rust in Central Illinois as well. Was it southern rust or tar spot? Do producers have, any opinion on which caused most of the problem?

Greg Johnson: 04:04

Southern rust is what I'm hearing. I know there was tar spot, but I think there's always tar spot, and I think the tar spot came relatively late. I'm not sure how much that would have affected the yields, but I know that southern rust was really a big issue this year, and we're seeing yield differences, based on whether the fungicide was applied or not.

Todd Gleason: 04:23

Does the marketplace, recognize that at this point? I'm sure it does. And how disappointed would producers be if it really does?

Greg Johnson: 04:32

Yeah. I I think the yields in Iowa I think that's the question mark. I mean, we we know Illinois yields are gonna be down slightly, but I think we kinda knew that Illinois yields were gonna be down, maybe even more so than what they turned out to be. But Iowa, everybody going into harvest, you know, Iowa had plenty of rain, Minnesota had plenty of rain, the Dakotas had plenty of rain this year. Everybody was expecting this bumper crop out of Iowa.

Greg Johnson: 04:56

And based on what we're hearing, the yields have been very disappointing, especially on the fields that did not get fungicide applied. So I think that smaller crop in Iowa, combined with the fact that the market is telling farmers and elevators to stock away corn, there's good carry in the market. And now all of a sudden the export pace, the weekly exports have really been strong for several weeks in a row. So the end users are taking advantage of the lower prices, trying to buy as much as they can. And so farmers are stock stocking away corn.

Greg Johnson: 05:33

Elevators are stocking away corn. And so I think we're seeing, a slight rebound in prices. It it really hasn't affected the futures price that much, but it is affecting basis. We are seeing basis levels for corn, quite a bit stronger, especially considering the big size of the crop, overall.

Todd Gleason: 05:51

What does it tell you, about those bushels that have been going across the scale? What decision have farmers generally been making when they're forced to?

Greg Johnson: 06:01

We've been seeing farmers sell beans across the scale. They'd like to get $10 for beans, but they're in the $9.7 s to 9.8 s. Every once in a while they'll pop up to $9.9 and then they'll back it down again. So, farmers, I think, realize that the trade talks between The US and China may take months, not weeks. And so you really have to be optimistic or be able to wait for a long time if you're gonna hold on to beans.

Greg Johnson: 06:28

So from a cash flow point of view, we've seen a bigger percentage of soybeans being sold across the scale. Corn, if they can hold onto corn, they're holding onto corn. We're seeing a lot of bags being put up on the fields, a lot of temporary storage, a lot of buildings that weren't normally used for storage are being converted to storage. They're doing everything they can to sock away the corn because they think with the good export demand and a slightly lower crop overall that, you know, corn prices still have a chance to rally between now and next spring.

Todd Gleason: 07:00

What are the fundamentals that you're watching? I know, of course, the trade issues related particularly to China. They've worsened in the last week. We're coming up on the date when we'll have to have a discussion about Mexico too.

Greg Johnson: 07:14

Yeah. I I would say the the one of the fundamentals that maybe doesn't get talked about enough is the weaker dollar. President Trump has said he wants to have a weaker dollar. You know, that's good for exports. And, I think we are starting to see some of the benefits of that, from some of these countries, that, are able to, afford US corn.

Greg Johnson: 07:36

It hasn't translated into the beans because obviously China is the country that buys half of our beans typically, and they haven't bought a single bushel. But corn, that weaker dollar has really helped us out. There's some talk about inflation. We've seen speculators and traders flock to the gold and silver market and the Bitcoin market as kind of a hedge against inflation, against a weaker currency. So while that may not be good for the overall economy, it is certainly good for exports, including corn.

Todd Gleason: 08:07

The black box marketplace, and you talked a little bit about that. But what what have they done along with the funds as it's related to corn and soybeans over the past few weeks, do you think?

Greg Johnson: 08:19

That's a good question since we don't get commitment or trader reports. We're kind of relying on allegorical and just anecdotal stories about whether the funds are covered or not, and we really haven't seen much one way or the other. I think the funds were short corn going into fall harvest. And I think they're still short corn, beans, they're a little short, but basically unchanged on the soybean market. So the funds really haven't had much of an impact just because they're like everybody else.

Greg Johnson: 08:47

We just don't have any government reports, so there's not a lot of data, not as much data to trade off of as what we normally have.

Todd Gleason: 08:53

Anything else before I let you go?

Greg Johnson: 08:55

No. I I think that's it. I think, like I say, the yields are a little bit lower, but surprisingly not as bad as what we thought they were gonna be considering how little rain we've had.

Todd Gleason: 09:04

Hey. Thanks much. We'll talk with you again next week.

Greg Johnson: 09:07

Alright. Thanks, Todd.

Todd Gleason: 09:08

That's Greg Johnson. He's with TGM, totalgrainmarketing.com out of Champaign County, Illinois. Joined us on this Wednesday edition of the closing market report from Illinois Public Media. I do urge you to visit our website right now today at willag.org, willag.0rg, where you'll find a way to register not only for the farm assets conference, but for the Illinois Farm Economic Summits as well. They come up back to back up in December, starting Friday, December 12 in Bloomington for the Farm Assets Conference.

Todd Gleason: 09:41

You can see details of it online at willag.org. There is a link too for the IFAS series or the Illinois farm economic summits. They'll be in DeKalb, Peoria, and then Mount Vernon on the following Monday, the fifteenth in DeKalb, the sixteenth in Peoria, and the seventeenth in Mount Vernon. Register today. Don't wait.

Todd Gleason: 10:01

Do it right now at willag.0rg. You know, the river level is really important to the export market, but it's also important for those things that are coming up the river like fertilizer. Today, Rui Sendeball has this story on how it impacts the price of fertilizer.

Harvest Public Media: 10:27

The Mississippi River, stretching over 2,000 miles, is essential for farmers to sell their crops. Nearly half of all US corn, soybeans, and wheat exports pass through here on their way to the Gulf Of Mexico. I'm standing at the edge of the river on the pier in Red Wing, Minnesota, just south of the Twin Cities. This is the furthest point where barges can travel into The US to pick up their crops for export. It's also the last stop for them to unload fertilizers, herbicides, and other essential inputs farmers need.

Harvest Public Media: 11:01

Here, water is plentiful and barges glide easily along. But in the Lower half of the Mississippi, South Of Illinois, there's been little rain. Some parts of the river could drop by eight feet in weeks. Captain Mike Napper, a Mississippi River tug and pull pilot, says barges have to carry lighter loads to avoid scraping the bottom of the ship's hull on the riverbed.

Harvest Public Media: 11:23

You know, the less product you take, they gotta make more trips to get, you know, x amount of products from a to b.

Harvest Public Media: 11:31

He now operates out of a pier in Wisconsin, but previously worked in Memphis, Tennessee for seven years. By late September, the Farm Bureau reported that barge rates had already risen significantly above their long term averages. If the river shrinks as forecasted for October, rates could reach previous drought year highs.

Harvest Public Media: 11:52

Somebody else has gotta pay the piper for that extra trip. Well, then on the flip side of that, the fertilizer companies is gonna charge the farmer more. And trust me, I spent the first eighteen years of my life on a dairy farm. I know all about that.

Harvest Public Media: 12:09

Paul Freeman's farm in Starbuck, Minnesota is a couple of hours away from the river's edge. The combine we're in is inhaling rows of soybeans. He's feeling the pressure from the fertilizer spikes and expects next spring to be no different.

Harvest Public Media: 12:23

They're gonna spread that cost down the line to where the person has to pay it, and that's me.

Harvest Public Media: 12:29

But he's got a plan. He'll buy his fertilizer earlier this year in the winter to better plan his costs for the spring. Has that happened before?

Harvest Public Media: 12:38

Farmers are getting smarter and they're that more.

Harvest Public Media: 12:41

Chad Hart, an ag economist at Iowa State University, agrees. He says that while some buy fertilizer early, others wait, hoping that the price will come down.

Chad Hart: 12:51

You're just trying to figure out best how to time the market to try to avoid those pinch points.

Harvest Public Media: 12:57

These rising costs come at a time when many producers are already in a tough place. China has decided not to buy any soybeans for the upcoming market year. It's also buying less corn.

Greg Johnson: 13:09

So it's sort of a double whammy, for farmers here. They're facing lower prices for their corn and soybeans if we can't move as fast down the river, but we're also facing higher fertilizer, higher input costs because of that same problem.

Harvest Public Media: 13:26

Back at his farm, Paul Freeman is about to unload today's harvest into a storage truck. It's usually a moment of great pride, but with high operating costs and low revenues, his margins are tightening.

Harvest Public Media: 13:39

At the end of the day, I gotta make ends meet just like the the person that I have to doing the checkout at the grocery store. That person has to make ends meet also.

Harvest Public Media: 13:52

So he's adapting. He's expanding his local business connections, selling specialty crops to Japan, and putting less fertilizer on his fields. I'm today Ruiz and DeValle. Harvest Public Media.

Todd Gleason: 14:06

Harvest Public Media is a collaboration of public media newsrooms in the Midwest, including associate partner stations like our home station, WILL AM five eighty. Let's turn our attention now to the weather forecast for the growing regions across the planet. Drew Lerner is here. He's World Weather Incorporated in Kansas City. Hello, Drew.

Todd Gleason: 14:30

Thanks for being with us again.

Drew Lerner: 14:31

Yeah. Yeah. Welcome to yet another summer like day.

Todd Gleason: 14:35

It is a summer like day in the October on the fifteenth. That's, well, unusual not to have one or two or five, but, you know, a month worth. It seems or half a month's worth seems kind of odd. Let's start with that. And I I actually want to start with the the river system itself.

Todd Gleason: 14:58

We just heard a story about the river system and its ability to handle not only the export market, but in this case, things coming upstream. It's not good at the moment. Can you tell me a bit about river stages and how you see those playing out over the next couple of weeks?

Drew Lerner: 15:18

Yeah. You know, we've well, if it wasn't for that two to five inch rain that occurred in parts of Kentucky, Tennessee and Arkansas, Southern Missouri, you know, a couple of weeks ago, I think we would be in a terrible mess today. But there was that rain event and it was helpful in bringing the river up a little bit, but we're, we've reversed things again and we're drying back down. We do have a little frontal system that's going to come through these areas as we go forward through this weekend. It will bring in some half to one and a half inch rains and help to moisten the top.

Drew Lerner: 15:54

So a little bit, but I'm afraid it's not enough to really run off in a big time way on the rivers. And when I step back and I go and look at a number of historical events that occurred in the past. These are events that are cyclical associated with the solar cycle and from the eighteen year cycle and from a pattern that we've been following that's been very similar to one that we had in the past. And all these point towards a continuation of rather less than normal precipitation. I'll put it that way.

Drew Lerner: 16:29

It's not going to be absolutely dry, but we're going to have this ongoing below normal precipitation bias still hanging around as we go into November and maybe even into early December. There will be a change in the temperatures when we get into the November. I think the bottom of the barrel will finally drop out and we'll start seeing much cooler bias. But as far as those rivers is concerned, I think we'll be fighting low levels for a number of weeks yet. And, you know, once we get into the heart of winter, it's hard to reverse it anyway because, you know, we get a lot of snow and not so much rain.

Drew Lerner: 17:06

And so it may be an interesting winter. We're gonna have to keep a close eye on those rivers without without a doubt.

Todd Gleason: 17:12

Yeah. Lack of rainfall and warmer temperatures across the whole of the Corn Belt. So I would expect, Is that what you're telling me? And if that's the case, that'll mean an early finish to the harvest season.

Drew Lerner: 17:24

Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. We're not I mean, it's not gonna be absolutely dry. Don't don't get me wrong in that sense.

Drew Lerner: 17:30

We will have frontal systems like this one coming through this weekend that'll produce a fair amount of moisture. It'll set us back for a day or two, but it's so dry in the soil. It's going absorb very quickly. The two or three frontal systems that are going to follow this weekend's event are looking to be rather meager rain producers. The Gulf Of America doesn't look like it opens up very well as a moisture feed.

Drew Lerner: 17:55

And so we're just going to continue to get a little bits of moisture once in a while, but certainly not enough to dramatically raise the river levels and, not enough to set back the the harvest in a major way. So, yeah, I do think it'll be a quick and a quick and clean harvest for the most part.

Todd Gleason: 18:14

And you mentioned The Gulf. That reminds me that they have had a lot of rainfall on the West Coast, particularly in parts of Southern California, and then that would play around through the Southwest, maybe into some of the hard red winter wheat growing regions. Can you talk about it and what you're watching there?

Drew Lerner: 18:36

Yeah. Those systems that have come into the Southwest have been kind of interesting, definitely anomalous for this time of the year. We don't usually get that kind of rain event in California and the rain in Arizona came from, you know, tropical cyclones, Priscilla and Raymond this past weekend. So we can explain away that, But in both cases, the moisture flow aloft was such that all that moisture flowed into Montana and Western parts of the Dakotas and on up into Saskatchewan and Manitoba and missed a lot of the hard ribbon or wheat areas. Now don't get me wrong.

Drew Lerner: 19:14

We had some showers that occurred there, but the bigger rains that occurred in September have not been matched since. We did get a little bit of moisture occur in the hard ribbon or wheat areas, but it does look like the tendency right now is for less precipitation occur in the Southwest and West Central parts of the Plains. And that should translate into a more classical La Nina like drier tendency which I think we'll see perpetuated into the latter part of the autumn.

Todd Gleason: 19:41

La Nina reminds me that they are in the midst of the planting season particularly in Brazil. Can you tell me about South America?

Drew Lerner: 19:48

Yeah. You know, Brazil had that great rain and then the September, since then the rains haven't been very good. It's been warm. We lost a lot of that moisture planting got off to a great start in the center of Brazil, but that area has been the driest here recently and planting continues to advance, but emergence and establishment is terrible right now. The best crop conditions and the most significant field progress has been in Parana and parts of Paraguay and Southern Montegrasso De Sol and Sao Paulo because they've had the better rain.

Drew Lerner: 20:22

So those Northern areas up in the Center West are definitely dry. Well, we have one rain event coming up here this weekend that is going to move through all crop areas and bring some moisture in. We're going to watch that real closely because we believe that the next week from Tuesday all the way through the second weekend of the two week outlook will be dry biased in a big part of Brazil. And because we're running so late on getting some of this crop up and developing in Mato Grosso and Goias, this rain this weekend is extremely important. I think we'll get enough moisture for the crop to get up and for new planting to take place.

Drew Lerner: 20:59

But if for some reason the moisture is missed, the markets might be a little bit more excited next week because there will be a drier forecast ahead. And so it'll just get kind of interesting. We'll watch it.

Todd Gleason: 21:11

Very early in the season, the further south you go on that continent, what do you see in Southern Brazil and then parts of Argentina?

Drew Lerner: 21:20

For Southern Brazil, they've been plenty moist. They've got a great wheat crop in Rio Grande do Sul. Most of the wheat in Parana and Sao Paulo has already been harvested or is in the midst of being harvested, but Rio Grande do Sul runs later in the year and their crop is filling and maturing. The moisture has been great. They have a big crop down that way.

Drew Lerner: 21:41

What risk they have is that it could continue raining a little bit too much and they could have a quality decline, but I'm not seeing that. What I'm actually seeing is a good mix of weather for Southern Brazil. And, the first season corn planting has got off to a great start. It is going to continue to advance well. And I think that with the La Nina bias is beginning to build in, we're going to see less rain in Southern Brazil instead of more.

Drew Lerner: 22:08

And that should help that wheat crop get finished out real nicely. So we'll have a nice sized crop there. For Argentina, the weather has been really good over the past few weeks, alternating periods of rain and sun. There is a little dry bias that's built back into some of the Western fringes of the region. They've got another week to go before it rains again.

Drew Lerner: 22:28

So might get a little dry, but it's gonna be good for spring and summer planting. And the wheat crop is developing well. So I'm not too concerned about it, but it is gonna be important that they get their rain event, which starts at the end of next week into that second weekend of the outlook.

Todd Gleason: 22:43

Hey. Thanks much, Drew.

Drew Lerner: 22:45

You bet. Have a good day.

Todd Gleason: 22:46

You 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. It is public radio for the farming world online, on demand anytime you'd like at willag.org or search it out by name in your favorite podcast applications. I'm Extensions, Todd Gleason. Doctor.