Sep 01 | Closing Market Report

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The September 1, 2026, edition of the Closing Market Report, hosted by Illinois Extension’s Todd Gleason on Illinois Public Media, provides an in-depth review of key regulatory, market, agronomic, and weather developments impacting agriculture. Agricultural economist Scott Irwin discusses the EPA's decision to grant 1.8 billion gallons in small refinery exemptions (SREs) for 2025, explaining how the agency’s supplemental rulemaking to reallocate 100% of those volumes into 2026 and 2027 mandates effectively neutralizes potential demand losses and supports the biodiesel and soy complex. Market analyst Naomi Blohm of Total Farm Marketing reviews the rally in soybean futures above $13 resistance, highlighting strong domestic demand, Chinese export sales, and the market impacts of geopolitical friction in the Black Sea and Middle East. Agricultural economist Nick Paulson explains how surging global sulfur prices—driven by Middle Eastern conflict and petroleum byproduct supply disruptions—are increasing the cost of MAP and DAP phosphate fertilizers ahead of fall applications. Finally, meteorologist Don Day of Day Weather breaks down the persistent, above-average heat across the Corn Belt and evaluates upcoming rainfall chances for early soybean planting in Brazil.

01:05 Trump Admin's EPA SRE Announcement a Reallocation
05:29 Ag Markets with Naomi Blohm, Total Farm Marketing
10:27 Sulfur and Increasing Phosphate Fertilizer Prices
20:20 Ag Weather with Don Day, Day Weather

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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 September 2026. I’m Illinois Extension’s Todd Gleason. Coming up, we’ll talk about the commodity markets with Naomi Blohm—she’s at totalfarmmarketing.com. We’ll hear from Scott Irwin about yesterday’s Trump administration US EPA SRE, or Small Refinery Exemptions, and the impact it has, or may, or will not have on the soybean and corn markets. Then we’ll turn our attention to Nick Paulson, also an ag economist from the U of I. Nick has penned an article about sulfur and its use in MAP and DAP, and the expense of that product. As we wrap up our time together right here on Illinois Public Media’s Closing Market Report that comes to you from willag.org—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.

01:05 Trump Admin’s EPA SRE Announcement a Reallocation

Todd Gleason: We’ll begin today not with the commodity market trade, but actually with something that took place yesterday. The Environmental Protection Agency ruled on 34 Small Refinery Exemption petitions under the Renewable Fuel Standard, granting roughly 1.8 billion gallons in waived obligations for last year, 2025. Now, while that top-line number raised immediate demand concerns across farm country, the agency also announced plans for a supplemental rulemaking later this fall to reallocate 100% of those volumes into the 2026 and 2027 mandates. University of Illinois agricultural economist Scott Irwin is here now to explain why this move effectively neutralizes the loss and why it provides a significant lift for the biodiesel and soy complex. Thank you for being with us, Scott. Just as a reminder again, nearly 1.8 billion gallons worth of Small Refinery Exemptions were put forth yesterday—some at 100%, some at 50%. You and I talked earlier, late last week actually, about the potential impact this could have on the marketplace, particularly for soybeans. What do you think now?

Scott Irwin: Uh, this is, uh, uh, unvarnished good news for ag and biofuels because while the headline number on the, um, additional volume of the Small Refinery Exemptions is large, um, the EPA also announced that there’s going to be a supplemental rulemaking by the end of October that will—what’s called—reallocate 100% of the extra volumes, uh, of RINs that would be released by those SREs to 2026 and ’27, um, obligations. So, in other words, it’s basically a wash.

Todd Gleason: That is good news. Does it surprise you?

Scott Irwin: Yes, because the 100% really surprises me, because in the original Set 2 rulemaking for 2026 and ’27, there was reallocation of ’23 through ’25 SREs. Uh, well, there were only ’23 and ’24 available at that time. No, excuse me, 2023 was the only one that had been announced, and so they projected them for ’24 and ’25. And in the rulemaking, they only reallocated 70% of what they had projected into 20, uh, ’26 and ’27. This extra now for 2025 is going to be reallocated 100%. And so I thought they would stick with the 70% reallocation, but nope, it’s a—it’s a full reallocation.

Todd Gleason: So good news for both corn and soybeans across the board, then?

Scott Irwin: Don’t think it has any implications for corn, um, because basically ethanol is largely, uh, neutral to all of this SRE stuff anyway. Um, you know, this is—this is big news for biodiesel, renewable diesel, and soybean oil. And so I—I think, uh, it will really help, um, put a positive trend in those markets moving forward.

Todd Gleason: Thank you much. I appreciate it.

Scott Irwin: All right. Glad to talk to you, Todd.

05:29 Ag Markets with Naomi Blohm, Total Farm Marketing

Todd Gleason: Scott Irwin is an agricultural economist on the Urbana-Champaign campus of the University of Illinois and a member of the farmdoc team. The Environmental Protection Agency yesterday announced a decision on 34 petitions from small refineries seeking exemptions, or SREs, from compliance with the 2025, or last year’s, Renewable Fuel Standard obligations. The agency expects the exemptions to be reallocated into 2026 and 2027.

Here now to tell us how the marketplace reacted to this announcement and many other things that have been happening in the last 24 hours is Naomi Blohm from totalfarmmarketing.com out of West Bend, Wisconsin. Thank you, Naomi, for being with us. Let’s start with the SREs, the exemptions, and the reallocation. It appears the marketplace took it very, very well.

Naomi Blohm: Sure did. So last night and then this morning, November soybean futures pushed through that $13 resistance area, triggering some buy-stops, but also just new money continues to flow into this marketplace even though it is so technically overbought on daily charts. It’s the demand story that continues to be friendly for soybeans, not only just on the domestic demand side—export sales continue to plug away. We also had another export sale, 130- 136,000 metric tons of soybeans for delivery to China that was announced this morning. So we’re seeing export demand strong, domestic demand strong. Um, as Scott pointed out, the demand then for biofuels continues to be a friendly story as the years go on. And now we just have to figure out exactly how many soybeans are out there in those fields in America, uh, with the USDA not giving us a new insight on that until next week Friday, the 11th of September. That’ll be the next USDA WASDE report.

Todd Gleason: Uh, prior to then, uh, we will be watching many things and waiting really that report to see what USDA does. But overnight, uh, a great deal of information coming from the Black Sea and Middle East. Turkey trying, uh, unsuccessfully apparently, to broker some sort of deal between Russia and Ukraine to continue the usage of the Black Sea as an export market for both, uh, and that appears to have fallen apart. And then two more ships actually were attacked apparently, uh, as well by Iran trying to exit the Strait of Hormuz. How do you see those impacting the marketplace?

Naomi Blohm: So with that news, that’s what’s giving wheat some support today. Um, we’re just not seeing any, um, fix to the situation in the Black Sea. And so there still is, you know, there’s grain there. There’s grain there, but it’s not able to get exported in a timely fashion. So that’s keeping the market supported. Um, and of course, we appreciate the efforts of of of Turkey to try to negotiate and be a broker between those two countries to get grain moving, but unfortunately it’s just not happening yet.

Um, now on the, um, Middle East side of things, Iran said today that they were willing to go back to a ceasefire agreement if the US does. Now, this came out on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in, uh, Kyrgyzstan. Um, Iran’s president said that if the US returns to commitments in the memorandum of understanding, then the Islamic Republic of Iran would immediately reciprocate.

So at this summit, we have the leaders of China, Russia, and India gathering, um, also Iran and Pakistan. So, and there’s some other countries, um, like Belarus and Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. They’re all gathering, um, kind of having their own little separate powwow. And that’s important to know because of obviously all the things that are happening with Iran and the US, things happening with Russia and the Black Sea, uh, our upcoming meeting with China in a few weeks, um, with the United States.

So a lot of, um, not only just things affecting the grain market as far as specific production for US agriculture and global agriculture, but we have so many geopolitical aspects of this as well between the Black Sea and the Middle East, and then of course China and India involved with this as well. So it is going to be a volatile few months, I think, for agriculture. Between the strong demand story, the uncertainty of production, and the geopolitics, it is going to be volatile. Be ready for anything.

Todd Gleason: On that last point, the uncertainty of production, have farmers actually gotten into the field and do they think their crop is better than what Pro Farmer is telling us?

Naomi Blohm: You know, I have not heard too much yet. I did hear from a client in northwest Iowa that just started some corn silage. It was a little bit better than he thought—not anything of record amounts, though. And I think he was expecting the worst just because they have been missing some of those rains this summer, but he was pleased that it was a little bit better than he thought. But what we’ll see is what the USDA thinks on September 11th.

Todd Gleason: Hey, thank you much. I appreciate it.

Naomi Blohm: Thank you.

Todd Gleason: That’s Naomi Blohm. She is with totalfarmmarketing.com. A quick note: our conversation was recorded earlier today.

10:27 Sulfur and Increasing Phosphate Fertilizer Prices

Todd Gleason: I’m University of Illinois Extension’s Todd Gleason. Nick Paulson, agricultural economist, a member of the farmdoc team, now joins us. He and Gary Schnitkey and Carl Zulauf penned an article for the farmdoc website at farmdocdaily.illinois.edu entitled “Sulfur and Increasing Phosphate Fertilizer Prices.”

First, Nick, this is not, uh, an article about recommendations related to the agronomy side, or how much or how to use those sorts of things, but really just about the prices of fertilizer, uh, looking at anhydrous ammonia in comparison to, I think. Uh, can you give me some insight as to why you needed or wanted to look at sulfur as related to, uh, fall applications of fertilizers?

Nick Paulson: Yeah, so I I think sort of the the idea for this article, or the the origination of this article, came from, you know, as as usual, questions we’ve been getting, uh, many from farmers or or folks that work with farmers. And and the questions all kind of centered around, you know, we have a bit of an understanding of why nitrogen has has gone up the way it has, particularly since, um, you know, late February and the start of the the war in Iran.

But I think, you know, one of the quietly creep- more quietly creeping up prices that we’ve seen on the fertilizer side of things is in in phosphates, and so looking at what we see for DAP and MAP prices. And they’ve kind of been creeping up really for the last 2 years, uh, fairly consistently. Um, and then we did see a little bit of a a larger uh bump up, uh, since uh since since March.

Um, but I think it’s just one of those things that it’s sort of been a a couple years coming and and and folks are starting to to see the higher prices. And so this was sort of an explanatory article, a little bit of a background article and looking at, um, you know, what goes into the production of products like DAP and MAP, what are sort of the inputs that that move the needle on on costs of production, so to speak. And and sulfur is kind of the big part of that story right now in terms of, uh, cost increases for an input translating into higher prices for the for the product.

Todd Gleason: Roughly speaking, an analogy is that, um, natural gas, uh, is to anhydrous ammonia the roughly the same as sulfur is to the phosphates. Would that be, generally speaking, the production process kind of thing?

Nick Paulson: Yeah, so, you know, and and that’s that’s a that’s a good analogy to make cuz cuz we actually have written and talked about sort of what goes into the production through the Haber-Bosch process to to get anhydrous and how important natural gas is as an input. And so, yeah, I think that’s a good analogy. Sulfur, um, and then phosphate rock are kind of the two main inputs that go into the production of of DAP and MAP, um, as well as anhydrous, uh, which is also used, which adds that nitrogen component to those products.

And, you know, phosphate rock is important, too, um, but that sulfur input has just been a much more volatile, uh, uh, input in terms of its prices and has just seen tremendous increases, um, in the last year. And a lot of that is tied to what’s going on in the Middle East, um, as well as conflict and and trade trade policy issues that are going on in other parts of the world right now.

Todd Gleason: This is because those are the primary areas where sulfur is sourced?

Nick Paulson: Um, not necessarily the primary areas in terms of total global sulfur production. Um, but sulfur is by and large the majority of sulfur comes from as a byproduct, um, from petroleum processing. So anywhere that has major, uh, oil and gas, uh, is going to be producing a lot of sulfur. So the US produces a lot of sulfur. Um, but, yeah, a lot of it comes out of the Middle East and would be reliant, in terms of getting into the global market, on that Strait of Hormuz, um, that we’ve seen so many problems with, uh, since the war in Iran started. And so, again, we still produce a lot here, um, but kind of like nitrogen, um, these are global commodities, and so even though we produce a lot of sulfur here, we’re still being impacted by the, um, by the global price shocks just just like we are on the nitrogen side.

Todd Gleason: Tell me about how the price of sulfur has acted over the last, I don’t know, 8 to 10 months or maybe 2 years.

Nick Paulson: Yeah, so like in the article, I think we went back to the start of 2024. Um, throughout the first half of 2024, sulfur was under $100 a pound, or excuse me, $100 a ton, um, in the series that we tracked. Um, again, kind of steadily increased throughout 2025 to reach, uh, $300-$400 a ton. Um, and then the big increase that we’ve seen now from, you know, $400-$450 a ton at the end of, uh, February, early March of this year, um, we’ve been up over $1,000 a ton, uh, since since kind of mid-summer. So, so big, big dollar-per-ton, but also, you know, very big percentage price increases on that sulfur.

Todd Gleason: Do we have an idea if it correlates with something? Because if the United States is producing quite a bit of sulfur, I’m I’m wondering why prices jump so much.

Nick Paulson: Yeah, so I mean, again, it’s the US produces a lot. I think the other thing going on here is that, um, we do have high energy prices right now, um, and, you know, that that may actually further contribute to higher sulfur prices if we see any sort of, uh, scale back in demand because of high energy. Um, that that’s that’s that’s another that’s one factor.

Um, you know, the the other thing on on sulfur is that I think we highlighted pretty well in the article is that, you know, a good chunk of this does come out of the Middle East, even if it’s not the sulfur that, you know, was coming to the US, you know, our our it’s global commodities, so the the price shocks are felt everywhere.

Um, and the real concern I think with sulfur right now is the facilities that were producing this as a byproduct, you know, as part of the petroleum industry, you know, those things are not going to be able to be fixed quickly in the short term. A lot of this is due to, you know, severe infrastructure damage as a result of the war. And so, you know, this is sort of a a price increase that we think is going to persist even if we got, you know, the end of the war and an agreement here tomorrow. This is still something that’s going to linger for the next, um, you know, year to multiple-year period.

Todd Gleason: Finally, what things, uh, are you, your colleagues, or and farmers, um, or and, should farmers consider as we go into the fertilizer pricing timeframe and using timeframe of the fall?

Nick Paulson: Yeah, um, that’s that’s it’s tricky one to give advice right now cuz there’s so much uncertainty. Um, again, I think the concern on sulfur and how that translates to higher DAP and MAP prices is that we may only be starting to see the impact of higher sulfur prices in those in those DAP and MAP prices. Um, you know, I you you could make the argument that more adjustment is needed on the manufacturing side, and the sulfur prices that we’re seeing now above $1,000 a ton probably translates to even higher DAP and MAP prices than we’re currently seeing, um, which, you know, are already high relative to maybe where we’re at with commodity prices.

Um, so it it might be a a tough decision to to kind of pay the prices that we’re looking at right now, um, but I I would guess there’s a better-than-average chance that that those prices will continue to increase as opposed to decrease. Um, with products like DAP and MAP and just phosphate needs in general, um, you know, I think there’s always the ability for the farmer to maybe, uh, wait. Those things aren’t necessarily done every year.

Um, and so there is a, you know, strategy where maybe you just tap into some soil reserves, um, and and wait to see what happens, uh, a year from now. Um, but again, that’s I think also has its own risks given that, uh, I think, like I said, there’s a better-than-average chance we could see even higher prices next year.

Um, and so I think the, you know, the best thing to do is, you know, use your soil testing results, uh, make sure you’re not, um, putting on any more than than is necessary to kind of replace what’s been lost in the soil to maintain, um, soil nutrient levels that you want, and, um, you know, move forward from there.

Todd Gleason: Advice from John Jones as well. He is the soil fertility specialist here on the Urbana-Champaign campus at the University of Illinois. We’ll talk with John probably later this week, uh, to get some better thoughts as it’s related to the agronomy around MAP and DAP applications and how producers should use their soil test, uh, to manage those this fall. Thank you very much, Nick. I appreciate you taking the time with me today.

Nick Paulson: Thank you, Todd.

Todd Gleason: That’s Nick Paulson. He is an agricultural economist, a member of the farmdoc team. You may read more from him online at farmdocdaily.illinois.edu on sulfur. Look for “Sulfur and Increasing Phosphate Fertilizer Prices.”

20:20 Ag Weather with Don Day, Day Weather

Todd Gleason: Let’s turn our attention now to the weather in the growing regions across the planet. Don Day is here from Day Weather in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Thank you, Don, for being with us again. Let’s start in the Corn Belt. It’s been very, very hot. How long do you expect these temperatures to continue, and how broadly, uh, are they across the Corn Belt?

Don Day: Well, they’re pretty broad across the, uh, Corn Belt region, and so this trend is going to continue here for a little bit. Uh, we continue to favor a flow of air into the Corn Belt that’s coming up from the south and west, and as long as that continues, which we’re expecting it to be here for another week, uh, it is continued very warm temperatures. So the warmth is going to be unabated. Now, I do think towards the middle of the month we should expect it to to peel back, but I think we’ve got a good 7 to 10 days of these above-average temperatures.

Todd Gleason: Where are the places in the Corn Belt that you think will be most impacted, meaning the Eastern Corn Belt has had an awful lot of moisture, I’m not certain that the Western Corn Belt can withstand this as easily?

Don Day: Well, the Western Corn Belt is going to be the hottest, and also it is going to be the driest. So when you get into, you know, I we’re we’re still going to have rain along and north of Interstate 80 if we use that as a marker. There’s going to be some showers and thunderstorms up there, but as you get into Missouri, as you get into Kansas, Oklahoma, uh, maybe parts of southeastern areas of Nebraska, those are the areas that are going to be the driest. But there will be active thunderstorms along the northern periphery of the heat, so that may take a little bit of the edge off.

Todd Gleason: Turning your attention to South America, particularly to Mato Grosso in Brazil. In Mato Grosso, some of those center-west states, uh, they can begin planting soybeans as of today, but will not until they have some moisture in the ground. Do they have moisture in the ground, and if not, how soon?

Don Day: Well, the the the moisture this winter has been focused more towards Chile, parts of Argentina, and the far southeastern parts of Brazil. As you go more into the central and northern parts, it’s certainly been drier. However, in the next week or so, uh, rain chances, uh, are pretty good, uh, in those areas. Uh, we could see amounts of rain of 1 to 2 inches in some areas. So it may be well-timed rain coming to those areas. Although soil moisture conditions are certainly dry in many areas, I do see some better rain chances coming.

Todd Gleason: Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

Don Day: Thank you.

Todd Gleason: Don Day is with Day Weather in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and helped us to wrap up this Tuesday edition of the Closing Market Report. It came to you from Illinois Public Media online at willag.org. I’m Extension’s Todd Gleason.