Sep 24 | Closing Market Report

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The September 24, 2026, edition of the *Closing Market Report*, hosted by Todd Gleason for Illinois Public Media, focuses on harvest progress, fertilizer management, and agricultural weather while soliciting donations for the station's fall fund drive. Matt Bennett of AgMarket.net opens the broadcast discussing highly variable corn harvest yields, tile drainage performance, and market expectations surrounding U.S.–China trade negotiations and Chinese commodity buying commitments. University of Illinois soil fertility specialist John Jones then reviews best practices for fall anhydrous ammonia applications, advising growers to delay applications until 4-inch soil temperatures drop below 50°F and are cooling, while explaining the utility of nitrification inhibitors, the nitrogen efficiency gains of spring applications, and proper use of the Maximum Return to Nitrogen (MRTN) calculator. Finally, Mike Tannura of Tstorm Weather outlines near-term harvest delays across the western Corn Belt due to heavy rainfall in Iowa, favorable planting moisture conditions across Brazil and Argentina, and the positive historical correlation between an emerging strong El Niño pattern and U.S. hard red winter wheat yields.

00:48 Ag Markets with Matt Bennett, AgMarket.net
06:40 NH3 Applications this Fall and Next Spring
16:07 Donate Now 217-44-9455 or willgive.org
16:56 Ag Weather with Mike Tannura, Tstorm.net

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Todd Gleason: From the Land Grant University in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, this is the Closing Market Report for the 24th day of September 2026. I’m Illinois Extension’s Todd Gleason. We’re in the midst of the final day of our fall fund drive. Have you dialed in your support yet? 217–244–9455 or willgive.org. If so, thank you. If not, dial now again. That’s 217 Big WILL or at willgive.org. Today we’ll talk about the commodity markets with Matt Bennett. We’ll hear from John Jones, soil fertility specialist, about fall nitrogen applications and something interesting about doing it in the spring. Then we’ll turn our attention to the weather forecast with Mike Tannura as well from Tstorm Weather on this Thursday edition of the Closing Market Report.

00:48 Ag Markets with Matt Bennett, AgMarket.net
Todd Gleason: Matt Bennett from AgMarket.net now joins us to talk about the marketplace. A quick note that Matt and I are talking around 10:30 AM in the morning, as I need to be away from the office this afternoon with John Jones, whom you’ll hear in just a moment, talking about fall application of anhydrous ammonia and spring application, too. Hi, Matt, thank you much. You’re in the combine today, I take it, and how is the corn?

Matt Bennett: Yeah, corn’s pretty good where we’re at today. Some of the corn that we’ve been in has been super variable. We’ve seen everything from some of the best numbers we’ve seen on the monitor before to, in the same pass, less than 50% of that. So it’s super variable. Of course, a lot of it has to do with: is it a low-lying area, is it a place where water gets off? Yields overall, I think I’m happy with considering all things, but it’s definitely a long ways from a record this year for us.

Todd Gleason: Now, I don’t know what your soils are like. Are most of the fields pattern tiled, and is there a difference between places that are tiled and those that are not?

Matt Bennett: Yeah, I mean, most of what we’ve been in so far has been pattern tiled. Whenever you look at, like for instance where I’m picking right now, it’s not. But there is some tile in this ground, and in all honesty, this ground’s got more roll to it that I’m in today, and I’m not so sure it’s not going to be better than what our pattern tiled was. And the thing about it, of course, is the pattern tiled ground—the flat black ground—that’s the kind of ground that sells for a heck of a lot more money than where I’m at right now. But I’m pretty sure the ground that we’re on right now is going to net out better by far than what the black flat tiled stuff is.

Todd Gleason: The trade is awaiting whatever the results might be from the Trump-Xi meeting that’s taking place today in Washington, D.C. as it’s related to agriculture and trade. Do you have any expectations?

Matt Bennett: Not really. I know that Secretary Bessent said that the talks were going well and that they’re talking about things other than soybeans. They feel pretty good about what they’ve done so far on beans, but that they’d made that original agreement that they were going to do $17 billion of additional agricultural goods, and they don’t feel at all like they’ve made any progress there. So he said there would be some announcements made, and so we’ll have to see. The thing is that in the past all we’ve seen is these gentlemen’s agreements, and the market hasn’t really known how to necessarily take those gentlemen’s agreements, if you will. But if they come out and say, “Hey, they are going to buy some corn,” and maybe put some numbers on it, I do think that’ll be very well received. That’s my hope anyway, but as far as knowing what they’re going to come out with, that’s a pretty tough call.

Todd Gleason: So, as of the agreements, and I’m going to add it up between last year and this year simply because the 12 million metric tons that they thought about for the last calendar year, the 25 million metric tons for this calendar year—that’s 37 total since what, October of last year—that the Chinese were hopeful that they would buy by January 1 of this year. They’re still only about 50% of the way there. Do you think that they can manage the rest of it by the end of the year?

Matt Bennett: We had another export sales announcement this morning. It certainly seems like they’re committed to doing that. And I know that most of the trade has felt really good about what they’ve done so far. If we remember a year ago at this time, they really hadn’t bought any beans at all. So we’re definitely in a better spot than where we were before, but are we going to get to that 25? That’s a big question. I think the trade is making the assumption right now that they are, and if they weren’t making that assumption, clearly I think that some of the price action we’ve seen lately maybe wouldn’t have been the case. So I think that at this point you’ve got to feel good about them getting to that 50%. That was kind of a number a lot of people floated—that they were kind of urged, “Hey, we’d like to see you halfway there at least by the time this meeting happens.” So we’ll see what happens throughout the fall, but historically they’ve bought a lot of beans during the fall time frame—bought them and shipped them. And so we’ll kind of see, because we know that that window will close, for the most part, once you get out—if Brazil plants on time, that is—but that’ll close probably by the end of February as far as how many shipments that we send out.

Todd Gleason: Anything else before I let you go?

Matt Bennett: No, just be careful. I know everybody’s trying to get after it. It’s been frustrating having all this cloud cover in our part of the world. So those of you that are going at it, just be careful and have a safe harvest.

Todd Gleason: Thank you much, Matt.

Matt Bennett: Yep, absolutely.

Todd Gleason: Matt Bennett is with AgMarket.net, joined us on this Thursday edition of the Closing Market Report. Have you dialed in just yet? I hope so. If not, maybe you can join Scott and Carol, and many others who have made their donations already to 217–244–9455 or willgive.org in support of the ag programming that comes to you from Illinois Public Media. If listening to Matt and the whole list of all the rest of the brokers and analysts that we talk to each and every business day of the year makes a difference in your operation, please share some of that difference with us. It’s 217–244–9455 to make that donation. Do it right now, or willgive.org, and remember to tell them “in support of agriculture.”

06:40 NH3 Applications this Fall and Next Spring
Todd Gleason: Farmers in the upper two-thirds of the state of Illinois will be making their fall nitrogen application decisions. They may have already. What things should they keep in mind?

John Jones: Well, if we’re talking about nitrogen, the most important thing to keep in mind right now is the calendar, and what we’re seeing relative to soil moisture conditions and soil temperature conditions. The governing information that we like to really focus on is soil temperature—specifically trying to wait to apply anhydrous ammonia or nitrogen fertilizer in the fall until after the soil at about a four-inch depth is at 50°F and cooling. And the “and cooling” part is important so that if we experience one day of cool soil temperatures or cool air temperatures leading to that, and then we get a warm-up period after that, that’s not necessarily ideal. And so we want to really see that soil temperature trend cooling at 50 degrees and past 50 degrees. More often than not, that ends up being in the later part of October into early November for, again, as you mentioned, the northern two-thirds of the state.

One of the things that we can do to extend that period is look at using nitrification inhibitors. These would be products that would have a focus of trying to delay the conversion from ammonium to nitrate after anhydrous has been applied to the soil. Right now, we’re fortunate where the majority of the state has received ample fall moisture, and so I expect, as long as we’re not really mudding it in, the physical efficiency of our anhydrous applications, proper slit closure, and considerations about the physical condition of the soil should be pretty good compared to some of the dry falls we’ve had.

Todd Gleason: You mentioned the inhibitors. What’s the latest on their performance? Do we have any recent studies or information?

John Jones: Large amount of inhibitor—and we’re talking about nitrification inhibitors, so we’re really focusing on preventing, more realistically delaying, the nitrification process or that conversion of ammonium to nitrate. The focus of a lot of nitrification inhibitor research has been on yield response, so trying to evaluate corn yields with and without nitrification inhibitor application. That research has been around for certainly longer than I’ve been alive, but for a handful of decades. And the general benefit to those inhibitors, again, is in the time frame of days or weeks. And so the process of trying to utilize that or use that technology is to essentially give you a little buffer before, again, soils start to really cool. Using a nitrification inhibitor is not necessarily a replacement for applying fall anhydrous at proper soil temperatures. So we want to use both of those to your benefit, not trying to use one to replace the other.

There are questions about using inhibitor products with spring-applied and even into sidedress applications with liquid nitrogen application, and the yield response is a little mixed—certainly in soils that are a little coarser textured, where we would expect there to be a greater propensity of nitrogen to transform and move throughout the soil, essentially not being able to hold ammonium as well, then you usually see a larger benefit to those nitrification inhibitor products. There’s new research that’s going to be going on in the state of Illinois that our lab is a part of, but led by Dr. Andrew Margenot, funded by the Illinois NREC program, to evaluate nitrification inhibitor performance relative to nitrogen loss, but also yield response as well. So I’ll say with that answer, there’s also more data to come.

Todd Gleason: Tell me about the nitrogen rate calculator, or N-Rate Calculator, that you and many other states across the Midwest ask producers to use, as it points them towards the maximum return to nitrogen. What is it and how does it work?

John Jones: The philosophy around identifying the maximum return to nitrogen, or the maximum economic return to a nitrogen application, really comes from needing to evaluate, first, yield response to nitrogen rates. That evaluation, or that process, does the lion’s share of the work getting from what rate do we need to apply to what rate leads to the most economic profit from that nitrogen application and that decision to apply a rate. So we look at hundreds of data points representing on-farm trials around the state that look at what is the maximum yield we can obtain, and then what’s the N-rate that led to or produced that.

We then take that relationship between the maximum bushels produced and the rate that provided that, and then we really just adjust for pricing conditions so that the last pound of nitrogen applied pays for itself, or you can think of the last bushel produced paid for the last pound of N applied. Now, you may think that those two philosophies of maybe going for max bushels versus max ROI, we’ll call it, are contrasting or conflicting each other, but we really find that they’re not. Across over 800 trials—and for example, even last year across 73 trials we ran around the state—the difference between the yield that was the maximum bushels versus the yield that maximized profit was about 1.3 bushels. So not a massive sacrifice in bushels to have a more profit-focused decision of nitrogen rate. And usually the difference in that N-rate was around 14, 18 to 20 pounds of N that was reduced.

Todd Gleason: Clearly, year in and year out, there are many variables that come into play when making these fall fertilizer decisions. There may be some other variables this year. What is the most important factor, do you suppose, before making those fall applications? What should producers think about as it relates to management?

John Jones: I would certainly think about the production levels that some of your fields have seen in the last few years. Likely around the state, based on numbers, we’ve seen some very good production levels. This year might be a little more variable or down, depending on where you are in the state. If you’re thinking about fall applications of nitrogen, for example, again think about what we’re trying to do in terms of raise the efficiency of that application, or optimize and maximize the efficiency of that application. So soil temperature, nitrification inhibitors in the fall, and then if you can, splitting that application—even some in the fall if that’s what your system is going to do, but applying some in the spring would certainly see a benefit. We do see a difference of about 16 to 20 pounds of N per acre lower optimum N-rate of anhydrous used in the spring compared to the fall. We don’t see a large yield difference, though.

Todd Gleason: Again, can you remind me of something you just said related to the difference between fall application rates and spring application rates, and how farmers adjust those?

John Jones: What we’ve seen with published research is around a 16 to 20 pounds of nitrogen per acre lower optimum N-rate with spring-applied anhydrous compared to fall-applied anhydrous. Now, this is with the majority of the N for that corn crop coming from the anhydrous application, so things shift when you start to split—maybe use sidedress after a base rate. But if you’re just relying on that anhydrous ammonia for the primary N source, we do see a shift towards higher efficiency for spring-applied anhydrous for nitrogen compared to fall. We do not see a big difference in yield. So the benefits are slightly leaning towards spring application for yield, but not a large differential. But when we look at the amount of N needed, there is a significant difference between spring and fall-applied anhydrous.

Todd Gleason: Finally, John, can you return to the N-Rate Calculator online? What is it that farmers should consider as they look at the number it produces?

John Jones: The N-Rate Calculator looks at a total N regardless of your source applied or used, so the main output is a total nitrogen value. What’s important about that is it does consider, or it does include, things like fall-applied N with your phosphorus fertilizers, any N that’s applied within that system, and broadcast pre-emergence applications. We want to make sure to do a detailed accounting for any N that’s applied before that corn crop because we’re looking at total N that’s been applied.

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

John Jones: Great. Thanks, Todd. Hope everyone has a safe harvest.

Todd Gleason: John Jones is a soil scientist and an extension field crops fertility specialist located on the Urbana-Champaign campus of the University of Illinois. If you’d like to use the N-Rate Calculator this year, that’s easy enough to do. Search out N-Rate Calculator on Google, and you’ll find it for every state in the Midwest.

16:07 Donate Now 217–44–9455 or willgive.org
Todd Gleason: You’re listening to the Closing Market Report from Illinois Public Media on this Thursday afternoon. I hope that you have dialed in by now with your support for the ag programming that comes to you from Illinois Public Media. If not, 217–244–9455 or willgive.org. If so, thank you. For instance, to Dustin from Frankfort, Indiana, we sure appreciate that you made that phone call yesterday. Won’t you join him and do it right now in support of ag? 217–244–9455 or willgive.org.

[Music: Fall Fund Drive break]

16:56 Ag Weather with Mike Tannura, Tstorm.net
Todd Gleason: Let’s turn our attention to growing conditions across the planet and what they look like. Mike Tannura is here today. He is with Tstorm Weather and the president and CEO there in Naperville, Illinois. Hi, Mike, thanks for being with us again.

Mike Tannura: Hey, Todd. Well, thanks a lot for having me.

Todd Gleason: Let’s start here in the United States. What are conditions like on the ground for harvest?

Mike Tannura: Well, they’re very wet across Iowa. About 13% of US corn production had at least three times its normal rainfall over the last 15 days, and most of that is comprised of Iowa, with some small areas of Northwest Illinois and parts of Indiana and Ohio also included. So these areas do not need any more rain. Unfortunately, Todd, there’s a lot more rain coming up for the western Corn Belt. A couple of systems will move through over the next few days, but there’s a bigger system early next week. And between all of that, we’re looking for one to three inches for the western half of US corn and soybeans, and that does include the entire state of Iowa. So unlike recent years, we think there is going to be a notable harvest delay across the state of Iowa. And the only way out of that would be if it was completely dry after we get through 5 to 7 days from now. And it does look like there’ll be at least a few showers around, so we’re not overly excited about a complete dry-down.

Todd Gleason: Anything else for the United States that you’ve been thinking about?

Mike Tannura: Well, just that it’s also wet to the east of Iowa, as we noted. And the rain chances from Illinois to the east are not all that high for about 5 days. Then that same system will move through and bring some rain to those areas, and we think we might even see a little bit more after that. Not heavy rain, but even just a tiny bit of rain in Northern Illinois and Northern Indiana, and pretty much anywhere in Ohio, would also lead to some harvest delays. So we think that will be a bit of a story 5 to 10 days from now.

Todd Gleason: We will check with you then to see how it has developed. Turn your attention to South America, begin with soybean planting in Brazil. How do you see it proceeding?

Mike Tannura: Well, they’ve had a lot of rain for the month of September, and that stormy period is going to continue right into October. Typically in Brazil, you need to get rains early to get things planted, and it looks like this will be one of those years. At this point in time, we’re pretty much looking for wetter-than-normal weather for the entire soybean belt across Brazil all the way through the first week of October. And as long as that happens, they’ll be able to plant soybeans without too many problems coming up over the next two to three weeks.

Todd Gleason: And finally in Argentina, corn planting should be underway at some point?

Mike Tannura: Well, yeah, they’re around 20% planted on early corn at the moment. That’s only about 7 to 8% of their total corn, but nonetheless, corn planting is starting, and this is pretty typical for this time of the year. It has been very dry there over the last few months, though, and because of that, they need a round of rain. It looks like that round of rain is going to start up on Sunday and Monday, but then beyond that, we see more chances for rain going all the way into October. So kind of the same story for Argentina, with widespread rainfall expected, a pretty big area to be at least a little bit wetter than normal. And even though that might slow down corn planting just a little bit, their planting window extends all the way into November, so there’s plenty of time to get the crop planted. And probably the bigger point is that they’re going to see a nice soil moisture boost from all of this.

Todd Gleason: One last thing, Mike: we have been following the hard red winter wheat in the United States, sowing season there, and what conditions have been like. How do you view it?

Mike Tannura: Well, they were pretty dry until very recently. You might recall that they had high temperatures way into the 90s and 100s for quite a long time leading up to about a week or two ago. And with all that heat and the lack of rain, conditions were pretty dry across most of the hard red winter wheat belt. Things are changing, and they’re changing pretty rapidly. The reason for that is that a system moved through overnight, and that brought some nice rains to parts of Western Kansas. But the bigger picture is for two or three systems to pass all the way through Monday and Tuesday, and that’ll turn that entire region quite a bit wetter as we get into next week.

Now, once we get beyond a week from now, it doesn’t look completely dry, but it also doesn’t look super wet. So we think they’ll have a pretty nice setup for planting and growth going forward into October. And one thing to keep in mind, Todd, we’ve been pointing this out to our customers for quite a while now: we’re moving into a strong El Niño. The strong El Niño already exists. It’ll peak maybe four to eight weeks from now, and then next year we’ll be coming out of that El Niño. If you look historically at US hard red winter wheat yields following a strong El Niño, most of them, if not all of them, were fine, and several of them were the very best on record. And so we just think that we’re probably going to have a pretty fantastic season for hard red winter wheat yields coming up. This may or may not be a part of it, but historically, you get real nice crops when you have this type of setup.

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

Mike Tannura: Sure thing.

Todd Gleason: That is Mike Tannura. He is with Tstorm Weather at tstorm.net online. You’re listening to Illinois Public Media. It is public radio for the farming world where the bulk of our budget—the overwhelming bulk of our budget—is contributed by you. And hopeful—actually, I know you will—the ag audience can make a donation today. Right now. Don’t wait. 217–244–9455. We’re wrapping up our fall fund drive today, so today’s the day. We’re under the gun to make our goal of $75,000. We need your help. We’ll make it, but please make that donation today: 217–244–9455 or willgive.org, and either tell the person on the phone line or put it into the comments section online that you are calling or making that pledge in support of agriculture. I’m Illinois Extension’s Todd Gleason. Thank you.