Episode Number
10433
Episode Show Notes / Description
This episode of the Closing Market Report, hosted by Todd Gleason, provides a comprehensive update on commodity markets, the beef industry, and global agricultural weather. The program begins with Greg John from Total Grain Marketing, who discusses pre-report estimates for upcoming USDA crop production figures, noting expected yield drops for corn and soybeans, alongside the potential market impacts of Chinese commodity purchasing. Next, University of Illinois extension beef specialist Travis Meteer analyzes the current cattle cycle, explaining how meatpacking plant closures and low herd inventories are shaping the industry while cattle are being fed to all-time heavy weights to compensate for lower head counts. Finally, Drew Lerner of World Weather Incorporated delivers a global weather outlook, highlighting the erratic early-season showers in Brazil, persistent heat in the southwestern United States, harvest-delaying rains across the Midwest, and a large storm system threatening crop quality in the Canadian Prairies.
01:43 Ag Markets with Greg Johnson, TotalGrainMarketing.com
11:10 Thoughts on the State of the Beef Industry
14:46 Ag Weather with Drew Lerner, WorldWeather.cc
01:43 Ag Markets with Greg Johnson, TotalGrainMarketing.com
11:10 Thoughts on the State of the Beef Industry
14:46 Ag Weather with Drew Lerner, WorldWeather.cc
Transcript
cmr260909
This episode of the Closing Market Report, hosted by Todd Gleason, provides a comprehensive update on commodity markets, the beef industry, and global agricultural weather. The program begins with Greg John from Total Grain Marketing, who discusses pre-report estimates for upcoming USDA crop production figures, noting expected yield drops for corn and soybeans, alongside the potential market impacts of Chinese commodity purchasing. Next, University of Illinois extension beef specialist Travis Meteer analyzes the current cattle cycle, explaining how meatpacking plant closures and low herd inventories are shaping the industry while cattle are being fed to all-time heavy weights to compensate for lower head counts. Finally, Drew Lerner of World Weather Incorporated delivers a global weather outlook, highlighting the erratic early-season showers in Brazil, persistent heat in the southwestern United States, harvest-delaying rains across the Midwest, and a large storm system threatening crop quality in the Canadian Prairies.
01:43 Ag Markets with Greg Johnson, TotalGrainMarketing.com
11:10 Thoughts on the State of the Beef Industry
14:46 Ag Weather with Drew Lerner, WorldWeather.cc
---
Todd Gleason: From the Land Grant University in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, this is the Closing Market Report. It is the 9th of September, 2026. I’m extension’s Todd Gleason. Coming up, we’ll talk about the commodity markets and the pre-report estimates for USDA’s crop production figures with Greg John at TGM, right here in Champaign County. Then we’ll turn our attention to the state of the beef industry in the United States. And as we wrap up our time together, we’ll talk about the weather forecast too in the Americas, from South America—Argentina, Brazil—all the way into Canada and the United States as well. We’ll do that with Drew Lerner at World Weather Incorporated in Kansas City on this Wednesday afternoon edition of the Closing Market Report from Illinois Public Media. It is public radio for the farming world online at willag.org.
announce Todd Gleason’s services are made available to WILL by University of Illinois Extension.
Todd Gleason: In Chicago, December corn finished 5 and 3/4 lower at $5.27 and 3/4 of a cent a bushel. The March at $5.43 and a quarter, down 5 and 3/4. And May 5 and a half lower at $5.51 on the settlement price. November soybeans $13.09 and a half a bushel, 6 and 3/4 lower. January $13.25 and a quarter, down 6 and 3/4 as well. Bean meal futures $1.80 higher. The bean oil down 14 cents. Wheat futures in the December soft red down 18 and a quarter at $7.28 and 3/4. The hard red at $8.06 and a quarter, 12 and 3/4 of a cent lower. Live cattle down $1.17 and a half. Feeders up 37 and a half. And hogs $1.17 and a half lower.
01:43 Ag Markets with Greg John, TotalGrainMarketing.com
Todd Gleason: Greg John from TGM, that’s Total Grain Marketing here in Champaign County. The elevator system now joins us to talk about the marketplace as we head barreling towards Friday and the 11:00 a.m. Central time USDA report. We have numbers from Bloomberg, and from Reuters, and from StoneX. Both Reuters and Bloomberg were below the 180.7 that USDA delivered in August for the average corn yield. StoneX was above that number. What are you thinking about all of them?
Greg John: Yeah, it kind of feels like the consensus of traders and analysts going into the report on Friday is that corn yield may be lowered by about two bushels to the acre. Soybeans may be not quite a half a bushel, three-tenths to a half a bushel. So the weather to finish the crop was not quite as ideal as what we were hoping for. I think in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, maybe the crop maintains. I don’t think we see a big drop in those individual states. But the Dakotas and Minnesota, they really turned off hot and dry in August, and it feels like that’s where we’ll see the yield drop come out of that extreme north, northwest part of the Midwest. So that’s what traders are expecting.
I always remind people that yield is one component of this production number; the other is acres. USDA last year increased corn acres in both the August and September report. So far this year, they did increase the acres again in the August report. Will they do that again in September? I guess we’ll find out on Friday, but that’s something to keep in mind, is that it’s all about production. Whether they find it in the yield or in the acres, it all adds up to production. So traders are, I think, looking for a slightly smaller production number on both corn and soybeans, and so that’s keeping people friendly a little bit, keeping farmers from selling too much. On the flip side, we are at almost three-year highs in soybeans. We are at three-year highs in corn. So these are good prices. The question is, will we see even better prices post-harvest?
Todd Gleason: Just on the acreage, it’s important to remember that USDA in its March and June numbers is primarily using surveys of farmers first as to what they expected they were going to plant, June of what they have planted, and what they may or may not yet plant still. And then in August, they’ve already begun to get some of the FSA numbers in, and that’s when they started really to begin, in just the last couple of years, to change the numbers. Those continue to come in, of course, and they adjust them. Prior to this, it was generally October before we got any changes in the acreage figures. They’re just coming sooner now than they have, and they’re based on data coming in from FSA and what farmers have actually put into the ground. Now, tell me about this week so far, Greg. As it relates to price, it appears that they’re still worried not so much about weather, but what’s happening in the Middle East, but almost marking time before this USDA report on Friday.
Greg John: Exactly. Yeah, the report’s going to take center stage on Friday. After that, we go back to talking about the war between Russia and Ukraine. Reports this morning were that Ukraine bombed one of the Russian grain ports, and according to infrared satellite photos, there were fires. So it sounds like they made a hit, and that may curtail grain exports out of that port for some time. So that continues to be something to keep an eye on.
The big news probably, at some point in time, will be the wild card in this whole thing. And I think we’ve talked about this several times, is China. According to my numbers, China bought some more beans this morning, another flash sale was reported to China. That puts them, according to my calculations, at almost 50% bought of the 25 million metric tons that they supposedly agreed to buy from the US. So they’re on the right path of buying that 25 million. The question is, will they buy less than 25 million, will they start slowing up, will they buy more than 25 million, or will they buy exactly 25 million? And then the follow-up question is corn. Will China buy corn? According to this agreement per Trump, China has committed to spend $17 billion worth of money on US commodities other than soybeans. If any of that is corn, with a lower yield and increased demand because of the situation in the Middle East and the Black Sea, that could be the next impetus for higher corn prices. But Trump and Xi meet supposedly in late September if that doesn’t get pushed back. So maybe we’ll have some more details here at the end of the month, but that’s certainly worth keeping an eye on.
Todd Gleason: September 23, 4, and 5 you are talking about marketing year numbers, so for new crop corn and soybeans?
Greg John: Correct. That’s exactly what we’re talking about.
Todd Gleason: Okay, now what do you think producers should do other than to go out and take some counts and look to see when they’re going to harvest?
Greg John: Well, I think it boils down to percentages here. It feels to me like there’s just as much upside from these prices as downside, with the wild card being China. So if you’ve got inside information on whether China is going to buy or not, that would tell you whether to hold or to sell. But really, if you’re less than 25% sold, what’s wrong with getting a little bit more corn sold and more beans sold at three-year high prices? If you’re already half sold, I think you can afford to be patient and see this thing play out. We may sell off a little bit into harvest. We may see a little harvest pressure as we get into the harvest and farmers rewarding this rally, but again, if China shows up, we could make that up in one day. So I think it all boils down to percentages. The bottom line is I think we can make money even with the higher input costs, and so the whole idea of marketing is not to predict the high of the market or the low of the market. The idea is to lock in profits, and if you can lock in profits, there’s nothing wrong with locking in some profits on some of your bushels.
Todd Gleason: I know it’s very early, but have you been listening or hearing anything out of South America as it relates to the number of acres that Brazil might put into the ground, whether they will make expansion this year, and how soon they might decide that they can really begin to run the planters?
Greg John: That’s an excellent question. I have not heard anything yet. Early on we had heard that acres actually might be flat for the first time in 15, 20 years, that Brazil may not expand their soybean acreage even though there’s millions of acres that could be brought into production. But that was back when the prices weren’t near as high. Now that we’ve had this rally, I would certainly expect Brazil to increase acres, maybe another million, million and a half more acres than what they planted last year, as a response to $13 prices. I haven’t seen anything in print or any surveys out of South America, out of Brazil or Argentina, but common sense and the law of supply and demand would say Brazilian farmers should be more willing to grow some more acres at $13 than they were at $11.
Todd Gleason: Hey, thank you much, we appreciate it. We’ll talk with you again next week.
Greg John: Hey, thanks, Todd.
Todd Gleason: You’re welcome. Greg John is with TGM. Now StoneX, by the way, has released its estimate of the size of the US corn and soybean crops. The numbers are based on a survey of the company’s customers and carried out by the Des Moines office, says researcher Mike Castle.
Mike Castle: I do think it’s kind of worth pointing out, I know it’s not necessarily what folks want to hear, but it is, you know, pretty solid historically speaking. Obviously, last year was a good example of that. That first print at 188, everyone kind of got upset, freaked out about that, and then USDA came in above that at 188.8. It ended up at 186.0 and then USDA’s final was 186.5. So it does have a good track record.
Todd Gleason: This year the StoneX put the corn yield at 148.8 in August. Its September estimate has dropped, and that number is now 182.9, which is still two bushels better than the USDA’s current estimate. The company has the Illinois corn crop at 212 bushels to the acre, Indiana 203, and Iowa at 214. USDA’s next crop production report, of course, is due Friday at 11:00 a.m. The agency currently has the US corn crop pegged at 180.7. Again, the StoneX number 182.9 pre-report, Bloomberg at 178.1 on the average, and Reuters at 178.2.
announce: You’re listening to the Closing Market Report from Illinois Public Media online on demand at willag.org. Our theme music is written, performed, produced, and courtesy of Logan County, Illinois farmer Tim Gleason.
11:10 Thoughts on the State of the Beef Industry
Todd Gleason: Now up next we’ll hear a portion of an interview that our colleague Cesar Delgado from the National Association of Farm Broadcasting did with extension beef specialist Travis Meteer. He asked Travis about the US-Mexico border plant closures, the United States meatpacking plants, that is, and where we might be in the primary beef cycle.
Travis Meteer: I think it’s obviously sending a signal. We understand that we’re in the part of the cattle cycle where we do have lower numbers, and so we have reduced fed cattle numbers. We’ve seen the Mexican border closure that probably exacerbated that situation, and so the signal was sent. The packing sector is consolidating and shutting some of these plants down because of the reduction in numbers of head available. Now we’re feeding these cattle to all-time heavy weights. So beef production and the pounds of beef were able to kind of compensate by taking these cattle to heavier weights, and that’s happening. But as far as just sheer number, there are less cattle to be bid on.
If we remember back during COVID though, the packers making a tremendous margin on these fed cattle, and so I would say as an industry, there’s all these ebbs and flows. And so while right now there’s not as much need for the capacity because of where we are in terms of the cattle supply, with the cow herd numbers being at an all-time low, we were just getting to the point where we were seeing some profitability in the cow-calf sector. And that generally sends, as history tells us when we’ve got profitability in the cow-calf sector, our cattle producers are good at adding cows and growing the cow herd back to produce more calves that enter the feedlot. So it is a cycle. We’re just in a spot of the cycle where we’re at low inventory, low cow herd inventory numbers. And the closure of the Mexican border has really kept the feeder cattle supply to all-time lows. I wish we didn’t have any government intervention. I wish we’d let the markets work. I wish we’d let the profitability signals to the cow-calf producer grow the cow herd, and we would come back. I just think there’s been some things here in the last year and 16 months that from a policy standpoint has kind of intervened. Unfortunately, we’re just dealing with the repercussions of having less cattle around. Hopefully, we can grow the cow herd here subtly over the next couple of years and bring back some numbers of head of cattle and grow the beef herd so that we can increase our harvest-available cattle.
Todd Gleason: That was a portion of an interview that Travis Meteer did with Cesar Delgado, a colleague of ours from the National Association of Farm Broadcasting. Thanks to Travis and to Cesar for making the audio available to us. Travis is an extension beef specialist at the University of Illinois.
14:46 Ag Weather with Drew Lerner, WorldWeather.cc
Todd Gleason: Let’s turn our attention to the global growing regions. Drew Lerner is here to talk about the weather and weather forecast for each of them. Hi Drew, thank you for being with us. I think we have quite a bit of ground to cover today, we usually do, but I want to stay with the Americas. We’ll begin in South America, particularly with Brazil, Mato Grosso center west, and how things have progressed. Last week you told us there were some scattered showers that usually happens as they move from the dry season into a wetter season. They do need rainfall in order to have enough moisture to put a crop in the ground. How do you think things are progressing there?
Drew Lerner: Well, they’ve had a couple of additional bouts of scattered showers and thunderstorms in center-west Brazil over the past week, and most of it has still been quite erratic, mostly light, but it’s pretty unusual to get such a frequency of rain to occur in the first days of September. So this is a positive thing for the farmers there, maybe not so great for here at home from a marketing perspective. But the situation is going to continue to be favoring scattered showers. I know there’s been a lot of chatter in the marketplace, “Oh, there’s going to be trouble in South America this year,” and there may well be a little later down the road, but they’re certainly looking at a potential here to get into the fields nice and early, and that would be good for both the soybeans and the safrinha crops later in ’27.
The outlook near-term though is still erratic for these showers and thunderstorms, so it’ll take another week to 10 days to get enough moisture to really start some serious planting, but that planting usually occurs in the second half of September anyway. So the stage is being set for some good progress there. And farther to the south, it’s much wetter. And so Parana, parts of Sao Paulo, Paraguay, southern Mato Grosso do Sul, those areas have almost too much moisture and frequent rains coming up. So that is always my greatest area of concern. I think that they will have a lot of excess moisture down that way this season.
Todd Gleason: It will slow them down and just cause problems that they can’t overcome, you suppose?
Drew Lerner: I do think, I think it’ll come in spurts. And I think they’ll get into the fields and get going pretty good, and then suddenly they’ll get hit with a big rain, and they’ll lose some of the crop, they’ll have to plant it again. And I kind of think that’ll happen at least once if not twice over the planting season.
Todd Gleason: Turn your attention to the southwestern part of the United States, parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas. What concerns do we have for seeding the wheat crop in those areas?
Drew Lerner: Yeah, it’s just been crazy hot. I’ve been doing this for a long time and 1980 and I think 2011 were the two years that stand out in the history books as being persistently hot and dry in that area from Kansas to Texas, and we have certainly matched that this year. And again this past week since we talked last, I don’t think we’ve had any days that there weren’t 100-degree temperatures scattered across that region. Maybe in Kansas, they had a little bit of a relief, but anyway, we are looking at several more days of upper 90 and lower 100-degree readings that’ll probably take us a full week down the road, and then we will probably start getting a little bit more serious with some better cooling taking place later in the month.
Now showers and thunderstorms are occurring in Kansas and Nebraska and parts of Colorado, and it looks like we’re going to push some of that down into Oklahoma briefly, maybe a part of the Texas Panhandle. The problem is it’s so hot every day that we’re evaporating the moisture out almost as quickly as we make it rain. So they’re not making a lot of progress, but there’s at least moisture here that when we do start to cool down they’ll do a little bit better. So not a lot of fieldwork right now except for in irrigated areas, but the stage will be set for improvement down the road.
Todd Gleason: Row crops are maturing throughout the corn belt, any concerns across those regions?
Drew Lerner: You know, Iowa just got clobbered with a couple of big rain events late in the holiday weekend. Western Iowa saw some impressive one to three-inch rain, some locally greater amounts. And last night we saw the southern part of Iowa get hit with two to six-inch rain. So the Des Moines area getting some of the greater amounts. So that’s just a small part of the corn belt, but a very important one obviously. Fieldwork is going to be sluggish in that area. We are not done with precipitation in Iowa, and what we’re going to do over the next week is probably expand that wetter bias to include areas from eastern Kansas and Missouri through Iowa and parts of western and northern Illinois into Wisconsin and maybe western Michigan. So a larger portion of the Midwest is likely to get quite a bit of rain, and that’s going to slow down the maturation process, and perhaps create a bit of concern about harvest progress. I don’t think this is going to last too terribly long, but for now that’ll be the big concern.
Todd Gleason: There were extraordinary rainfalls in parts of Illinois and Indiana during the month of August, and it is hard to say that we might want to have a little of that rain once in a while here, do you see anything in the offing for us?
Drew Lerner: You know, I think that we will see some scattered showers for sure across most of the production area at one time or another over this next 10-day period. So there will be an opportunity for that. I think that it’s going to be much more varied once you get out of that corridor I just described, but yeah I don’t see anybody being persistently dry, except for parts of the Delta and portions of the southern plains. Those areas will continue to have a real tough time getting meaningful moisture. As far as too much moisture is concerned, I really think it’s going to be concentrated on that area from Kansas to Wisconsin and parts of Missouri and northwestern Illinois, and I don’t think they’re going to see too much of a problem elsewhere.
Todd Gleason: Okay, now turn your attention to the Canadian prairies. I hear they may have had some rainfall over the weekend?
Drew Lerner: Yeah, big storm system. It turned out to be much larger than anticipated, and multiple inches of rain occurred across Saskatchewan, southern Alberta, and portions of Manitoba. And for some areas in Saskatchewan, it was already too wet in the east. The southwest was pretty dry along with southern Alberta, and the rain that occurred in those areas certainly set back fieldwork, which was already behind because of the cold, wet spring they had. And so there’s a lot of chatter out there now about what happens next.
Well, the good news for the previously dry-biased areas in the southwest prairies is that the ground will absorb that moisture fairly quickly and they’ll get back at it. I don’t think there’s going to be a lot of problem in Alberta or in southwestern Saskatchewan. But the rest of Saskatchewan, they saw rain totals run from two to six inches there as well, and it is going to turn cooler now. A risk of some frosty weather coming up, these crops are not mature, and between the rain and the cool weather coming up, there’s a potential that there’s going to be a notable quality decline, and that’s the big concern. They’ve got to have drier weather. It looks like it’ll get drier but it’s going to be a slow process that will take place over the next couple of weeks. So we’ll keep an eye on that up there.
Todd Gleason: Okay, thanks much. I appreciate it. We’ll talk with you again next week.
Drew Lerner: You bet.
Todd Gleason: 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 to listen to us. Go to willag.org. That’s willag.org where you’ll find our daily programming, the Opening Market Report, Closing Market Report, everything in between, along with our weekly commodity week discussion and information from the agricultural economist, the crop scientists, and the animal scientists right here on the Urbana-Champaign campus of the University of Illinois. I’m extension’s Todd Gleason.
This episode of the Closing Market Report, hosted by Todd Gleason, provides a comprehensive update on commodity markets, the beef industry, and global agricultural weather. The program begins with Greg John from Total Grain Marketing, who discusses pre-report estimates for upcoming USDA crop production figures, noting expected yield drops for corn and soybeans, alongside the potential market impacts of Chinese commodity purchasing. Next, University of Illinois extension beef specialist Travis Meteer analyzes the current cattle cycle, explaining how meatpacking plant closures and low herd inventories are shaping the industry while cattle are being fed to all-time heavy weights to compensate for lower head counts. Finally, Drew Lerner of World Weather Incorporated delivers a global weather outlook, highlighting the erratic early-season showers in Brazil, persistent heat in the southwestern United States, harvest-delaying rains across the Midwest, and a large storm system threatening crop quality in the Canadian Prairies.
01:43 Ag Markets with Greg Johnson, TotalGrainMarketing.com
11:10 Thoughts on the State of the Beef Industry
14:46 Ag Weather with Drew Lerner, WorldWeather.cc
---
Todd Gleason: From the Land Grant University in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, this is the Closing Market Report. It is the 9th of September, 2026. I’m extension’s Todd Gleason. Coming up, we’ll talk about the commodity markets and the pre-report estimates for USDA’s crop production figures with Greg John at TGM, right here in Champaign County. Then we’ll turn our attention to the state of the beef industry in the United States. And as we wrap up our time together, we’ll talk about the weather forecast too in the Americas, from South America—Argentina, Brazil—all the way into Canada and the United States as well. We’ll do that with Drew Lerner at World Weather Incorporated in Kansas City on this Wednesday afternoon edition of the Closing Market Report from Illinois Public Media. It is public radio for the farming world online at willag.org.
announce Todd Gleason’s services are made available to WILL by University of Illinois Extension.
Todd Gleason: In Chicago, December corn finished 5 and 3/4 lower at $5.27 and 3/4 of a cent a bushel. The March at $5.43 and a quarter, down 5 and 3/4. And May 5 and a half lower at $5.51 on the settlement price. November soybeans $13.09 and a half a bushel, 6 and 3/4 lower. January $13.25 and a quarter, down 6 and 3/4 as well. Bean meal futures $1.80 higher. The bean oil down 14 cents. Wheat futures in the December soft red down 18 and a quarter at $7.28 and 3/4. The hard red at $8.06 and a quarter, 12 and 3/4 of a cent lower. Live cattle down $1.17 and a half. Feeders up 37 and a half. And hogs $1.17 and a half lower.
01:43 Ag Markets with Greg John, TotalGrainMarketing.com
Todd Gleason: Greg John from TGM, that’s Total Grain Marketing here in Champaign County. The elevator system now joins us to talk about the marketplace as we head barreling towards Friday and the 11:00 a.m. Central time USDA report. We have numbers from Bloomberg, and from Reuters, and from StoneX. Both Reuters and Bloomberg were below the 180.7 that USDA delivered in August for the average corn yield. StoneX was above that number. What are you thinking about all of them?
Greg John: Yeah, it kind of feels like the consensus of traders and analysts going into the report on Friday is that corn yield may be lowered by about two bushels to the acre. Soybeans may be not quite a half a bushel, three-tenths to a half a bushel. So the weather to finish the crop was not quite as ideal as what we were hoping for. I think in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, maybe the crop maintains. I don’t think we see a big drop in those individual states. But the Dakotas and Minnesota, they really turned off hot and dry in August, and it feels like that’s where we’ll see the yield drop come out of that extreme north, northwest part of the Midwest. So that’s what traders are expecting.
I always remind people that yield is one component of this production number; the other is acres. USDA last year increased corn acres in both the August and September report. So far this year, they did increase the acres again in the August report. Will they do that again in September? I guess we’ll find out on Friday, but that’s something to keep in mind, is that it’s all about production. Whether they find it in the yield or in the acres, it all adds up to production. So traders are, I think, looking for a slightly smaller production number on both corn and soybeans, and so that’s keeping people friendly a little bit, keeping farmers from selling too much. On the flip side, we are at almost three-year highs in soybeans. We are at three-year highs in corn. So these are good prices. The question is, will we see even better prices post-harvest?
Todd Gleason: Just on the acreage, it’s important to remember that USDA in its March and June numbers is primarily using surveys of farmers first as to what they expected they were going to plant, June of what they have planted, and what they may or may not yet plant still. And then in August, they’ve already begun to get some of the FSA numbers in, and that’s when they started really to begin, in just the last couple of years, to change the numbers. Those continue to come in, of course, and they adjust them. Prior to this, it was generally October before we got any changes in the acreage figures. They’re just coming sooner now than they have, and they’re based on data coming in from FSA and what farmers have actually put into the ground. Now, tell me about this week so far, Greg. As it relates to price, it appears that they’re still worried not so much about weather, but what’s happening in the Middle East, but almost marking time before this USDA report on Friday.
Greg John: Exactly. Yeah, the report’s going to take center stage on Friday. After that, we go back to talking about the war between Russia and Ukraine. Reports this morning were that Ukraine bombed one of the Russian grain ports, and according to infrared satellite photos, there were fires. So it sounds like they made a hit, and that may curtail grain exports out of that port for some time. So that continues to be something to keep an eye on.
The big news probably, at some point in time, will be the wild card in this whole thing. And I think we’ve talked about this several times, is China. According to my numbers, China bought some more beans this morning, another flash sale was reported to China. That puts them, according to my calculations, at almost 50% bought of the 25 million metric tons that they supposedly agreed to buy from the US. So they’re on the right path of buying that 25 million. The question is, will they buy less than 25 million, will they start slowing up, will they buy more than 25 million, or will they buy exactly 25 million? And then the follow-up question is corn. Will China buy corn? According to this agreement per Trump, China has committed to spend $17 billion worth of money on US commodities other than soybeans. If any of that is corn, with a lower yield and increased demand because of the situation in the Middle East and the Black Sea, that could be the next impetus for higher corn prices. But Trump and Xi meet supposedly in late September if that doesn’t get pushed back. So maybe we’ll have some more details here at the end of the month, but that’s certainly worth keeping an eye on.
Todd Gleason: September 23, 4, and 5 you are talking about marketing year numbers, so for new crop corn and soybeans?
Greg John: Correct. That’s exactly what we’re talking about.
Todd Gleason: Okay, now what do you think producers should do other than to go out and take some counts and look to see when they’re going to harvest?
Greg John: Well, I think it boils down to percentages here. It feels to me like there’s just as much upside from these prices as downside, with the wild card being China. So if you’ve got inside information on whether China is going to buy or not, that would tell you whether to hold or to sell. But really, if you’re less than 25% sold, what’s wrong with getting a little bit more corn sold and more beans sold at three-year high prices? If you’re already half sold, I think you can afford to be patient and see this thing play out. We may sell off a little bit into harvest. We may see a little harvest pressure as we get into the harvest and farmers rewarding this rally, but again, if China shows up, we could make that up in one day. So I think it all boils down to percentages. The bottom line is I think we can make money even with the higher input costs, and so the whole idea of marketing is not to predict the high of the market or the low of the market. The idea is to lock in profits, and if you can lock in profits, there’s nothing wrong with locking in some profits on some of your bushels.
Todd Gleason: I know it’s very early, but have you been listening or hearing anything out of South America as it relates to the number of acres that Brazil might put into the ground, whether they will make expansion this year, and how soon they might decide that they can really begin to run the planters?
Greg John: That’s an excellent question. I have not heard anything yet. Early on we had heard that acres actually might be flat for the first time in 15, 20 years, that Brazil may not expand their soybean acreage even though there’s millions of acres that could be brought into production. But that was back when the prices weren’t near as high. Now that we’ve had this rally, I would certainly expect Brazil to increase acres, maybe another million, million and a half more acres than what they planted last year, as a response to $13 prices. I haven’t seen anything in print or any surveys out of South America, out of Brazil or Argentina, but common sense and the law of supply and demand would say Brazilian farmers should be more willing to grow some more acres at $13 than they were at $11.
Todd Gleason: Hey, thank you much, we appreciate it. We’ll talk with you again next week.
Greg John: Hey, thanks, Todd.
Todd Gleason: You’re welcome. Greg John is with TGM. Now StoneX, by the way, has released its estimate of the size of the US corn and soybean crops. The numbers are based on a survey of the company’s customers and carried out by the Des Moines office, says researcher Mike Castle.
Mike Castle: I do think it’s kind of worth pointing out, I know it’s not necessarily what folks want to hear, but it is, you know, pretty solid historically speaking. Obviously, last year was a good example of that. That first print at 188, everyone kind of got upset, freaked out about that, and then USDA came in above that at 188.8. It ended up at 186.0 and then USDA’s final was 186.5. So it does have a good track record.
Todd Gleason: This year the StoneX put the corn yield at 148.8 in August. Its September estimate has dropped, and that number is now 182.9, which is still two bushels better than the USDA’s current estimate. The company has the Illinois corn crop at 212 bushels to the acre, Indiana 203, and Iowa at 214. USDA’s next crop production report, of course, is due Friday at 11:00 a.m. The agency currently has the US corn crop pegged at 180.7. Again, the StoneX number 182.9 pre-report, Bloomberg at 178.1 on the average, and Reuters at 178.2.
announce: You’re listening to the Closing Market Report from Illinois Public Media online on demand at willag.org. Our theme music is written, performed, produced, and courtesy of Logan County, Illinois farmer Tim Gleason.
11:10 Thoughts on the State of the Beef Industry
Todd Gleason: Now up next we’ll hear a portion of an interview that our colleague Cesar Delgado from the National Association of Farm Broadcasting did with extension beef specialist Travis Meteer. He asked Travis about the US-Mexico border plant closures, the United States meatpacking plants, that is, and where we might be in the primary beef cycle.
Travis Meteer: I think it’s obviously sending a signal. We understand that we’re in the part of the cattle cycle where we do have lower numbers, and so we have reduced fed cattle numbers. We’ve seen the Mexican border closure that probably exacerbated that situation, and so the signal was sent. The packing sector is consolidating and shutting some of these plants down because of the reduction in numbers of head available. Now we’re feeding these cattle to all-time heavy weights. So beef production and the pounds of beef were able to kind of compensate by taking these cattle to heavier weights, and that’s happening. But as far as just sheer number, there are less cattle to be bid on.
If we remember back during COVID though, the packers making a tremendous margin on these fed cattle, and so I would say as an industry, there’s all these ebbs and flows. And so while right now there’s not as much need for the capacity because of where we are in terms of the cattle supply, with the cow herd numbers being at an all-time low, we were just getting to the point where we were seeing some profitability in the cow-calf sector. And that generally sends, as history tells us when we’ve got profitability in the cow-calf sector, our cattle producers are good at adding cows and growing the cow herd back to produce more calves that enter the feedlot. So it is a cycle. We’re just in a spot of the cycle where we’re at low inventory, low cow herd inventory numbers. And the closure of the Mexican border has really kept the feeder cattle supply to all-time lows. I wish we didn’t have any government intervention. I wish we’d let the markets work. I wish we’d let the profitability signals to the cow-calf producer grow the cow herd, and we would come back. I just think there’s been some things here in the last year and 16 months that from a policy standpoint has kind of intervened. Unfortunately, we’re just dealing with the repercussions of having less cattle around. Hopefully, we can grow the cow herd here subtly over the next couple of years and bring back some numbers of head of cattle and grow the beef herd so that we can increase our harvest-available cattle.
Todd Gleason: That was a portion of an interview that Travis Meteer did with Cesar Delgado, a colleague of ours from the National Association of Farm Broadcasting. Thanks to Travis and to Cesar for making the audio available to us. Travis is an extension beef specialist at the University of Illinois.
14:46 Ag Weather with Drew Lerner, WorldWeather.cc
Todd Gleason: Let’s turn our attention to the global growing regions. Drew Lerner is here to talk about the weather and weather forecast for each of them. Hi Drew, thank you for being with us. I think we have quite a bit of ground to cover today, we usually do, but I want to stay with the Americas. We’ll begin in South America, particularly with Brazil, Mato Grosso center west, and how things have progressed. Last week you told us there were some scattered showers that usually happens as they move from the dry season into a wetter season. They do need rainfall in order to have enough moisture to put a crop in the ground. How do you think things are progressing there?
Drew Lerner: Well, they’ve had a couple of additional bouts of scattered showers and thunderstorms in center-west Brazil over the past week, and most of it has still been quite erratic, mostly light, but it’s pretty unusual to get such a frequency of rain to occur in the first days of September. So this is a positive thing for the farmers there, maybe not so great for here at home from a marketing perspective. But the situation is going to continue to be favoring scattered showers. I know there’s been a lot of chatter in the marketplace, “Oh, there’s going to be trouble in South America this year,” and there may well be a little later down the road, but they’re certainly looking at a potential here to get into the fields nice and early, and that would be good for both the soybeans and the safrinha crops later in ’27.
The outlook near-term though is still erratic for these showers and thunderstorms, so it’ll take another week to 10 days to get enough moisture to really start some serious planting, but that planting usually occurs in the second half of September anyway. So the stage is being set for some good progress there. And farther to the south, it’s much wetter. And so Parana, parts of Sao Paulo, Paraguay, southern Mato Grosso do Sul, those areas have almost too much moisture and frequent rains coming up. So that is always my greatest area of concern. I think that they will have a lot of excess moisture down that way this season.
Todd Gleason: It will slow them down and just cause problems that they can’t overcome, you suppose?
Drew Lerner: I do think, I think it’ll come in spurts. And I think they’ll get into the fields and get going pretty good, and then suddenly they’ll get hit with a big rain, and they’ll lose some of the crop, they’ll have to plant it again. And I kind of think that’ll happen at least once if not twice over the planting season.
Todd Gleason: Turn your attention to the southwestern part of the United States, parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas. What concerns do we have for seeding the wheat crop in those areas?
Drew Lerner: Yeah, it’s just been crazy hot. I’ve been doing this for a long time and 1980 and I think 2011 were the two years that stand out in the history books as being persistently hot and dry in that area from Kansas to Texas, and we have certainly matched that this year. And again this past week since we talked last, I don’t think we’ve had any days that there weren’t 100-degree temperatures scattered across that region. Maybe in Kansas, they had a little bit of a relief, but anyway, we are looking at several more days of upper 90 and lower 100-degree readings that’ll probably take us a full week down the road, and then we will probably start getting a little bit more serious with some better cooling taking place later in the month.
Now showers and thunderstorms are occurring in Kansas and Nebraska and parts of Colorado, and it looks like we’re going to push some of that down into Oklahoma briefly, maybe a part of the Texas Panhandle. The problem is it’s so hot every day that we’re evaporating the moisture out almost as quickly as we make it rain. So they’re not making a lot of progress, but there’s at least moisture here that when we do start to cool down they’ll do a little bit better. So not a lot of fieldwork right now except for in irrigated areas, but the stage will be set for improvement down the road.
Todd Gleason: Row crops are maturing throughout the corn belt, any concerns across those regions?
Drew Lerner: You know, Iowa just got clobbered with a couple of big rain events late in the holiday weekend. Western Iowa saw some impressive one to three-inch rain, some locally greater amounts. And last night we saw the southern part of Iowa get hit with two to six-inch rain. So the Des Moines area getting some of the greater amounts. So that’s just a small part of the corn belt, but a very important one obviously. Fieldwork is going to be sluggish in that area. We are not done with precipitation in Iowa, and what we’re going to do over the next week is probably expand that wetter bias to include areas from eastern Kansas and Missouri through Iowa and parts of western and northern Illinois into Wisconsin and maybe western Michigan. So a larger portion of the Midwest is likely to get quite a bit of rain, and that’s going to slow down the maturation process, and perhaps create a bit of concern about harvest progress. I don’t think this is going to last too terribly long, but for now that’ll be the big concern.
Todd Gleason: There were extraordinary rainfalls in parts of Illinois and Indiana during the month of August, and it is hard to say that we might want to have a little of that rain once in a while here, do you see anything in the offing for us?
Drew Lerner: You know, I think that we will see some scattered showers for sure across most of the production area at one time or another over this next 10-day period. So there will be an opportunity for that. I think that it’s going to be much more varied once you get out of that corridor I just described, but yeah I don’t see anybody being persistently dry, except for parts of the Delta and portions of the southern plains. Those areas will continue to have a real tough time getting meaningful moisture. As far as too much moisture is concerned, I really think it’s going to be concentrated on that area from Kansas to Wisconsin and parts of Missouri and northwestern Illinois, and I don’t think they’re going to see too much of a problem elsewhere.
Todd Gleason: Okay, now turn your attention to the Canadian prairies. I hear they may have had some rainfall over the weekend?
Drew Lerner: Yeah, big storm system. It turned out to be much larger than anticipated, and multiple inches of rain occurred across Saskatchewan, southern Alberta, and portions of Manitoba. And for some areas in Saskatchewan, it was already too wet in the east. The southwest was pretty dry along with southern Alberta, and the rain that occurred in those areas certainly set back fieldwork, which was already behind because of the cold, wet spring they had. And so there’s a lot of chatter out there now about what happens next.
Well, the good news for the previously dry-biased areas in the southwest prairies is that the ground will absorb that moisture fairly quickly and they’ll get back at it. I don’t think there’s going to be a lot of problem in Alberta or in southwestern Saskatchewan. But the rest of Saskatchewan, they saw rain totals run from two to six inches there as well, and it is going to turn cooler now. A risk of some frosty weather coming up, these crops are not mature, and between the rain and the cool weather coming up, there’s a potential that there’s going to be a notable quality decline, and that’s the big concern. They’ve got to have drier weather. It looks like it’ll get drier but it’s going to be a slow process that will take place over the next couple of weeks. So we’ll keep an eye on that up there.
Todd Gleason: Okay, thanks much. I appreciate it. We’ll talk with you again next week.
Drew Lerner: You bet.
Todd Gleason: 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 to listen to us. Go to willag.org. That’s willag.org where you’ll find our daily programming, the Opening Market Report, Closing Market Report, everything in between, along with our weekly commodity week discussion and information from the agricultural economist, the crop scientists, and the animal scientists right here on the Urbana-Champaign campus of the University of Illinois. I’m extension’s Todd Gleason.