Oct 23 | Closing Market Report

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In the October 23, 2026, edition of the Closing Market Report, host Todd Gleason reviews daily market settlements and interviews Mike Zuzolo of Global Commodity Analytics and Consulting regarding current commodity dynamics. Zuzolo highlights a divergence between crude oil and wheat prices driven by conflicting Black Sea shipping news, noting that anticipated Russian state grain interventions could eventually support domestic wheat and corn markets. Gleason then details the northward progression of Neocosmospora stem rot, a fungal disease resembling red crown rot, into Illinois and Missouri soybean fields. Finally, Eric Snodgrass of Nutrien Ag Solutions provides the agricultural weather forecast, observing that favorable Midwestern harvest windows should remain open into early November before an active subtropical jet introduces heavier precipitation. Snodgrass also warns that persistent El Niño conditions could threaten Brazilian soybean yields with rapid flash droughts in December and January.

03:06 Ag Markets with Mike Zuzolo, Global Commodity Analytics and Consulting
09:05 A Fungal Disease of Soybeans is Moving Northward
10:33 Ag Weather with Eric Snodgrass, Nutrien Ag Solutions

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Todd Gleason: From the Land Grant University in Urbana Champaign, Illinois, this is the Closing Market Report. It is the 23rd day of October, 2026. I am Extension’s Todd Gleason. Coming up, we’ll talk about the commodity markets with Mike Zuzolo and the agricultural weather forecast with Eric Snodgrass. If you can stay with us on our home station for the whole of the hour, you’ll hear most, but not all of our commodity week program with Ted Seifried of Zaner Ag Hedge and StoneX’s Mike Castle. It’s a fantastic program. You’ll want to go online to listen to the whole thing at willag.org. 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: December corn for the day settled at $4.56, down four and a half cents. The March at $4.70 and a quarter, four lower, and May down three and a half at $4.79. November beans, $12.56 and a half, up three and a half cents. January, three and three quarters higher at $12.68 and a half, and the March beans at $12.76, up four and a half cents. Bean meal futures a dollar twenty lower, settlement price there at $346.10. The bean oil at $66.83, nine cents higher. Wheat futures, soft red, a quarter higher at $6.25, that the December contract. The hard red at $6.64 and a half, down a penny and a quarter. Live cattle futures in Chicago, $2.31, twelve and a half unchanged. Feeder cattle at $3.45, thirty-five, a dollar thirty-five higher, and lean hogs for a hundred pounds at $65.57 and a half, up two and a half cents. Crude oil today, trading at $103.33 a barrel, at $3.86 higher. That’s for the West Texas, and the Brent crude at $116.74 a barrel, up $3.57 for the day. Gasoline, wholesale price at $3.12 and nine tenths of a cent, up four tenths. That’s on the RBOB. Diesel fuel at $4.80 a gallon, six and three tenths of a cent higher. The Dow Jones Industrial Average now trading about 611 points lower at 52,457, and the NASDAQ for the day is up around 25 and a half points. The S&P 500 is down around 38 points for the afternoon.

Todd Gleason: Of course you’re listening to the Closing Market Report from Illinois Public Media on this Friday afternoon. I am traveling in Logan County on my own farm where harvest is taking place with the soybeans. I can’t tell you how well they’re doing, but they’re doing really quite well today. And they’re coming in at about 11 to 12 percent this afternoon, which is better than they have been over the past several days or previous to the rainfall that we just got. Most farmers will understand that. That’s good news for them as they take things to the elevator. Just a quick note, I did not catch up with Mike right away and I had to do this by phone.

03:06 Ag Markets with Mike Zuzolo, Global Commodity Analytics and Consulting

Todd Gleason: We’re now joined by Mike Zuzolo. He’s with GlobalCommResearch.com out of Atchison, Kansas. Hello Mike, thanks for being with us today.

Mike Zuzolo: Great to be back with you on this beautiful Friday, Todd.

Todd Gleason: Tell me about the marketplace and what happened in Chicago.

Mike Zuzolo: Well, we can review short and sweet, big picture is crude. You could tell by the price action this week in both the crude and the wheat, we still don’t know what the correct price is because of conflicting news and changing numbers as far as what we’re getting through the straight up moves. What we’re getting through in terms of Romania and the Baltic regions versus the Black Sea regions, we continue to see ships being blown up. A Romanian ship blown up on Friday morning, and yet the wheat market is going to be down another 5.2 percent this week, while the crude oil made its highest move in the WTI on I guess it was Thursday’s trade, highest level of almost $110.50 a barrel, highest since May. One of the things that came out right about 1:00 on Friday that the trade probably didn’t get a chance to digest, I did see a little bit of a movement in the wheat market after it came out on the close, is that with Russia talking about peace and all of a sudden the peace talk starting to roll away from the station in both the crude oil and in the wheat mid-week, crude oil switched and went sharply higher as we closed out the week not believing the peace mindset that the wheat continued to. Russia is saying now they’re going to launch state interventions in the grain market, in other words, they’re going to start buying on behalf of the government. They’re going to start purchasing grain from farmers to support the market, not unlike what China does with putting stockpiles in their state reserves. And so, to me, and this is something I’ll write about this weekend for the clients, this seems pretty clear at this point that they’re not getting the grain out the door that they need even though we’re kind of pricing that in when it comes to the futures market. And last thing I’ll say about the wheat why I’m staying so focused on it right now, Todd, is because to me, it’s clearly holding back the corn. Yields are still low in corn compared to beans from what I’m hearing, and also we’re seeing the basis start to really pick up in whether it’s Decatur or whether it’s Atchison, Kansas, we’re seeing a big basis jump in these markets this past week.

Todd Gleason: So a couple of things, I’ll come back to the basis. But on the wheat, if that essentially takes this wheat off the market that the market was expecting or expecting maybe slowly to come out of Russia and it stays in country, very much like China, we might not know what the size of that crop is, but it’ll be USDA’s Russia minus, or minus Russia minus China, when they come out with numbers, does that support the market for wheat at some point?

Mike Zuzolo: Yeah, I think so. And I think that the thing that I’m going to talk about this weekend and kind of connect the dots on is not only why is the wheat and the crude separating at this point and why are they doing it for the wrong reasons, but the clear path at this point has been the wheat in Europe has not allowed the wheat in the United States to go higher because our price looks so high compared to both not so much Romania, but especially Ukraine and Russia. But I think therein lies the question and the answer that you’re asking me, is that if they start buying and taking supplies off the market, it tells me A, they don’t have the ability to get it out the door, and B, they need to get their prices up. And so one of the first things I’ll start looking for next week as we get ready for the Federal Reserve to do their thing in the middle of the week is what does that Russian and Ukrainian and European price do now that this news has broken? Do we gain, in other words, 20, 30 dollars a ton in those commodities, and then all of a sudden the United States says, hey, the low could be in at this point, and that opens the upside up to the corn as well.

Todd Gleason: Tell me about that upside and how it works with the basis that you’ve been hearing about as it begins to pop in some parts of the corn belt.

Mike Zuzolo: Well, it’s clear, you know, this is the time of year that you’re probably moving most of your corn into your own bins. So you’re naturally not going to get as much at the elevator. I think, though, what I saw in both Decatur, Jacksonville, here in Atchison, essentially if you go across 72 and then 36 into Kansas and then north into Nebraska, what I’m starting to see is a pattern where our basis bottomed earlier and it didn’t go as low as it did last year. And this matches up with yields from essentially central Indiana all the way to south central Nebraska when it comes to the corn, and that many producers are telling me now as they get ready to finish up, they’re at or below APH, and there’s a big discrepancy still between that and the USDA number.

Todd Gleason: Anything on soybeans we should be aware of this week?

Mike Zuzolo: Yeah, big thing on soybeans is we’re only going to close down about a half a percent. The soybean trade may be getting more into the idea that we’ve got issues in southern Brazil, too wet for too long, and it’s going to start delaying plantings. That’s probably number three on my list. Fed, wheat price, soybean weather, for next week’s trade.

Todd Gleason: Anything from the livestock before I let you go?

Mike Zuzolo: Big cattle on feed report. Do we have 11.4 million head or are the retention guys getting excited and putting the cattle out and keeping them out and do we get closer to 11 million head? That’s a big deal for today’s report.

Todd Gleason: Hey, thank you much, I appreciate it. We’ll talk with you again next week.

Mike Zuzolo: Thank you, Todd, take care.

Todd Gleason: That’s Mike Zuzolo, he is with GlobalCommResearch.com out of Atchison, Kansas.

09:05 A Fungal Disease of Soybeans is Moving Northward

Todd Gleason: Well farmers in Illinois and Missouri may have a new plant disease to deal with on their soybean crops. Neocosmospora stem rot looks a whole lot like red crown rot and frankly, not much is known about the fungal disease or its impact on soybean yield. The first official report of Neocosmospora stem rot in Illinois came in August of this year, 2026, from a Clay County soybean plant submitted to the University of Illinois Plant Clinic. Neocosmospora stem rot symptoms resemble other fungal diseases including red crown rot and to a lesser extent, sudden death syndrome and brown stem rot. The latter would be yellowing or browning of leaf tissue. The resemblance to red crown rot comes in the form of tiny red in color pear-shaped structures on the lower stem and crowns of the soybean plant. Farmers with suspect populations may submit them to the University of Illinois Plant Clinic for identification. To submit a sample, download and complete the diagnostic submission form available online. Soybean samples should consist of the entire plant dug, not pulled from the ground. Ideally, multiple plants showing a variety of progression of symptoms should be included. I’m University of Illinois Extension’s Todd Gleason.

10:33 Ag Weather with Eric Snodgrass, Nutrien Ag Solutions

Todd Gleason: Let’s turn our attention now to the weather forecast. Eric Snodgrass is here from Nutrien Ag Solutions and Agrible. Eric, let’s get right to this. Start in the corn belt. In fact, I’m traveling today, you know this is the case, I pulled over to talk with you, thinking I’d find a quiet place, and I’m pretty sure folks can’t hear it, but they’re shucking corn in the field right next to me. I’m not very far actually from home, just on the Clinton exit around 10 on the way to on 74. So anyway, it’s fun, and farmers are in the field and they’re really moving again this week. Tell me about the corn belt.

Eric Snodgrass: Well here’s what’s important, Todd. When we were discussing this harvest timeframe, you know, weeks and weeks ago, what did I tell you? I said, hey, harvest timeframe could be a little tighter, typically we knock off about eight good days, I said, but there will be windows, we’ll get a crop out, and we’re in the middle of our second one of those. But it’s interesting, if you look at the stats, you know, when this crop was ready to start to be harvested, don’t forget back in September, we were super wet, right? We were having problems, and there’s a lot of worry about stalk rot and just how much moisture was still around and getting tractors stuck. But we found our second window here, and this one’s been open for, gosh, in Illinois, it’s been open for eight days now, and it’s not going to close anytime soon. We’ve got very nice warm weather around us. There’s a couple of cool shots coming in the near-term forecast, but I don’t have major precipitation moving in for a while, and it’s honestly only a couple of forecast models. So we may be able to squeeze another five to seven days out of this before we talk about kind of rain that could slow us down a little bit. So it’s been good, and I think a lot of farmers have been able to back off the pedal a little bit and take some time, which overall I’m happy about. But still, you know, that analysis I gave you where we knock off those eight days, that goes all the way to Thanksgiving, and we need to figure out where we’re going to head in the month of November.

Todd Gleason: Okay, well tell me about that.

Eric Snodgrass: So big kind of changes happening in the Pacific Ocean right now. You know our jet stream has two pieces to it. There’s a northern branch, that branch is way up in Canada, that’s why it’s been so mild around here. But we’ve been watching the development, excuse me, of the southern branch, we call it the subtropical jet, and evidence of that thing’s potency was this week. I mean, we hit Arizona and California with a bunch of severe weather, I mean, did you hear about all the hail and the tornadoes we saw down in Arizona, which, I mean, it’s October, we don’t usually talk about it, but there they were. And so that’s an indication that the flow going from Hawaii to California and across the southern tier of the United States is going to pick up. And as we edge our way out of October, which still looks relatively favorable going forward to finish harvest, windows are going to be I think harder to come by in November. May not be immediately, but that subtropical jet getting on its horse and getting going, I think we’re going to start to see better and better chances of more, well, more precipitation, more inclement weather. The only thing I’m worried about, Todd, is if the temperatures got to come down. We’ve got to get soil temperatures down, which you and I talked about last week, in order to do any of that fall fieldwork as well, and I’m not seeing right now these robust, long-duration shots of colder weather, which are going to knock our temperatures back. We seem to be on a bit of a roller coaster rather than on any sort of sustained cool off.

Todd Gleason: Tell me about South America, since we’re thinking through what seasons look like.

Eric Snodgrass: Yeah, so here’s the thing I want everyone to remember about South America. All right, they’ve planted fast. They’re going to have 95% of the crop done by October. They moved through it, rains came up from the south, they were not monsoonal, doesn’t matter, it rained, and it looks like it’s going to keep going. There’s concern going into November and December that because of El Nino, which again, is our powerhouse event this year, that they’re going to be having trouble in those in the Amazon to the north of being too dry. Now listen, I went back and I looked at every year that Conab had data for Brazilian yields, and I broke it up into the center-west, I broke it into the Cerrado, and then I broke it down into southern Brazil. And if we are going to have a problem in like Mato Grosso, biggest producing state, total precipitation is a useless variable to predict yield. And this is why, what we found is that during certain years, El Ninos often helping this along, but during certain years, you get these plateaus where there’s no precipitation being added over a 10 to 12 day stretch, excuse me, where the temperatures are in the 90s and even low 100s. It’s just like us, you put on a stretch of dry weather with heat, flash drought takes over. What is interesting about Brazil is those almost never last more than 10, 12, maybe 15 days, and they are almost always followed by a doubling of the rainfall after that. This year, I think that risk is elevated over a typical year, which means December and January especially, that would be the months where this soybean crop could be most vulnerable, and I think we’re going to have to watch for it because El Ninos tilt the odds toward having that risk show up.

Todd Gleason: Interesting. Thank you, I appreciate that. Anything else before I let you go?

Eric Snodgrass: Nope, I would just say this El Nino is not done. So you’re going to keep hearing about it in the news for a while. Just remember, when it is done, at some point in like January, February, most of us are predicting an epic crash in this El Nino, like it’s going to drop off the face of the earth, and it’ll be fun to watch and talk about every Friday with you.

Todd Gleason: Well wait, what happens during an epic crash of an El Nino?

Eric Snodgrass: I’m not telling you right now. I’m not telling you right now, Todd. No, it’s going to give us an interesting second half of winter, and it tends to give us a bit more of a, I hate to say it this way, but a bit more of a violent spring. We tend to have a lot of spring storm activity, and we just came off of a record-setting year in Illinois, so no one wants to hear that.

Todd Gleason: Indeed. Hey, thank you much. That of course is Eric Snodgrass. He is with Nutrien Ag Solutions and Agrible. Helped us to wrap up this Friday afternoon edition of the Closing Market Report that came to you from Illinois Public Media.