Aug 07 | Closing Market Report
From the Land Grant University in Urbana Champaign, Illinois. This is the closing market reported this August 2025. The Illinois State Fair is underway in Springfield. I'm University of Illinois Extension's Todd Gleason. Tomorrow is Ag Day on the fairgrounds.
Todd Gleason:Coming up, we'll talk about the commodity markets for this Thursday with Matt Bennett. He's at agmarket.net out of Windsor, Illinois, and we'll take a look at the weather forecast with Mike Tenure at t storm weather. That's tstorm.net online. And along the way, I'll update you on what's been happening in the world of agricultural news. US Grains Council has a new name, and biofuels have some related issues.
Todd Gleason:So we'll talk about that too during this edition of the closing market report from Illinois Public Media. It is public radio for the farming world online on demand at willag.0rg.
announce:Todd Gleason services are made available to WILL by University of Illinois Extension.
Todd Gleason:September corn for the day settled at three eighty four and a half, up four and three quarters. December at four zero seven, five and three quarters higher. And the March up 5 and a quarter cents. Settlement price there at $4.24 and a half. September beans, $9.74, up 8 and a half cents.
Todd Gleason:November, new crop, nine ninety three and three quarters. Soybeans up 9 and a quarter cents. And January futures at $10.12 and a half cents, up 9 and a quarter. Bean meal, $3.50 higher. The bean oil, 22¢ lower.
Todd Gleason:Soft red winter wheat in the December, up nine and three quarters. The hard red up 10. Matt Bennett from agmarket.net now joins us to take a look at the marketplace. You are in the state of Nebraska today?
Matt Bennett:Yep. I'm out here doing, one of their technology events. They've got these all over the place now, and it's it's it's a big event. Probably 1,500 growers out here, between Lincoln and, Grand Island. So it's a pretty interesting event.
Todd Gleason:That's a big field day. Do they have you outside or you under a tent?
Matt Bennett:I'm in a tent actually. They've got, you know, their facilities indoors as well, but they turn for, presentations and stuff like that. So they've got plenty of room for it. But, yeah, it's a little warm, but you know, it's not good.
Todd Gleason:Did you fly or did you drive? And if you drove, what did you see?
Matt Bennett:Well, I actually flew, and, that that was actually kind of a nice experience, to be honest with you. But, we could see the crops, and, about everything that we've seen looks awfully good. It's just Everything looks green as can be. So I do know some of the growers we've talked to in certain areas have had too much rain, especially some of the guys that we've talked to from Iowa. But bottom line is the crop looks really good overall.
Todd Gleason:I gather the farmers in Nebraska must be ecstatic about the size of their crop. They're thinking something north of 200.
Matt Bennett:You know, we've talked to a lot of growers, I'd say that on average, that's the case. There's a handful of them that say that they, they really need rain, like in the South Central part of the state. A few of them have said that. I've got to think, though, that Nebraska overall is gonna end up, you know, be it pushing a record. You know, you look at everything that we've looked at, and it just looks fantastic.
Matt Bennett:So and again, the variety of growers is pretty happy about what they're looking at.
Todd Gleason:Tell me about what you're discussing with them as it's related to the marketplace.
Matt Bennett:You know, just trying to be cognizant of, you know, what it's gonna look like if we get into a situation this fall where, you know, where we get forced into going to the elevator with some bushels. Know, what what would basis look like, in an area where you've got record county yields? And I think we all know it could be a bit of a challenge to navigate that. So we're trying to talk to them a little bit about not getting locked into a situation they don't want to be in this fall. And if they want to stay long, you know, try to do so maybe on a limited risk basis, a call or a call spread.
Matt Bennett:Maybe try to get out to spring because, you know, I think I've heard across the board at the events I've been at that most of these, growers and the teams that are working with the growers, you know, they feel like you're gonna see a little bit of a shift, in acreage towards, soybeans. I know from a profit standpoint, neither one look fantastic, but I just think, whenever you look at the balance sheets, both US and world, you can make a little better case maybe for corn than what you can for soybeans. And so I would like to plant corn personally, but the functionality of it, unfortunately, from a liquidity standpoint, a lot of growers are feeling the pinch.
Todd Gleason:Have you been able to follow the markets today and to give me a reason why it popped?
Matt Bennett:Yeah. I mean, you know, in all honesty, that corn market yesterday made the the third, straight day in a row of contract low. But then we had a nice close yesterday. You know, we reversed off that low. We didn't close higher, but we certainly came well off the low.
Matt Bennett:We've been under $4, come in today with some buying. I think that there's a lot of folks that are just of the opinion that maybe we've heard some of the highest private estimates that we're going to hear. There are some people calling in and talking about all the tip back and disease they've seen. So, you know, maybe the shine of, the crop has been taken off just a little bit. I know it's gonna be an awfully large crop, I'd say easily a record.
Matt Bennett:It's just how much of a record. And so, you gotta think the funds that have been short for all this time, in some cases, might decide, you know what? It can't get much more various than this for now. Maybe we'll just take some profits and see what happens here on this August report.
Todd Gleason:I know you probably already talked with Stonex and Arlen Suderman about their 188.1 bushel to the acre yield guess for corn. What's agmarket.net looking forward to?
Matt Bennett:Yes. So we're at a 184.8 for the estimate. I mean, in essence, what we're trying to do is we're trying to guess what the USDA is gonna come out with. As you know, Todd, I mean, in August, we shaved some bushels off. There's a fair amount of growers we've talked to in the last three days that need rain.
Matt Bennett:I would say we've got a big crop in Central Illinois, but we could sure use another rain to finish this thing off and make it a record. But, you know, I think that, 01/2008 for me is a comfortable place to be. I feel confident they'll come in above last year. I just don't think they're gonna get carried away to the upside with how we saw that yield drop from August out till, you know, January. I think they're maybe gonna be a little more hesitant to go hog wild on on a yield estimate.
Todd Gleason:Anything we should discuss from the soybean market? It gained 9¢ for the day.
Matt Bennett:Yeah. I mean, the soybean market essentially has struggled as well here lately. But at the same time, you know, overall, you've got to think that, August weather is gonna play the biggest role here. And clearly, some guys have been blessed with decent rainfall. But I'd say overall, August hasn't, relative to July, hasn't been near as wet.
Matt Bennett:You know, and beans are an August crop. So, I think there's probably a little hesitancy in pushing the sell button until we get a little better idea of how's this bean crop gonna finish. You know, I think up in your neck of the woods and my neck of the woods, we could have a massive soybean crop, but we're not gonna do so without some rainfall.
Todd Gleason:What else have you been following we need to be aware of?
Matt Bennett:I'll tell you what, the cattle market is absolutely on fire still. Feeders up $56 and fat's up at an all time high again today. It's just an incredible move that we've seen after the debacle on Thursday. You come back and make new highs. This is actually the fifth day in a row we've closed these cattle markets higher, so, it's quite a market to follow.
Todd Gleason:I can only imagine that the folks in Nebraska are excited about that. How are their basis levels holding up for grains and oilseeds?
Matt Bennett:You know, their basis for fall looks a lot better than a couple of places that I've been here. If I look at basis, right here close to Gainor, Nebraska, which is where their facility is, you know, they've actually got a, posted anywhere from 12 to 25 under, and, that looks better than a lot of places I've been. So fairly high demand area, a lot of cattle in, this part of the world and west, and then, of course, they've got some ethanol plants. So definitely a good demand area, and it's been reflected in that basis.
Todd Gleason:That much corn in Nebraska is likely to cause a problem for the railroaders in Illinois that try to ship westward.
Matt Bennett:Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there's no doubt that they'll be able to fill a lot of their own needs and, you know, some of these guys that, you know, have shipped out here for know, we we saw a huge huge amount of corn come west whenever they had their drought a couple years ago. That's probably not gonna happen here this year, so it's gonna be a little bit of a different setup.
Todd Gleason:Thank you much, Matt. We appreciate you taking time out of your day at the Becknology. That's the Beck Seed Field Day in Gainor, Nebraska today to talk with us.
Matt Bennett:Oh, absolutely. Thanks for having me, Todd.
Todd Gleason:Matt Bennett is with agmarket.net, joined us here on the closing market report. Just a quick reminder that the Illinois State Fair starts today in Springfield. I hope you have the opportunity to visit the fair sometime between now and Sunday the seventeenth. If you've not ever made a trip for the Illinois State Fair, you certainly are missing something. It's a great event.
Todd Gleason:It really is. I have gone for decades now. I grew up nearby and worked the fair for the bulk of my life starting at a very young age with the American Legion selling lemonade from a stand there with my father and brothers and all the folks from the good town of Elkhart, Illinois. So if you get a chance, make sure you visit the State Fairgrounds in Springfield sometime between today and Sunday, August 17. In today's agricultural news, we'll start with the value of farmland.
Todd Gleason:US chief economist Seth Meyer says the latest farmland values and cash rent numbers indicate a cooling in year over year growth.
Seth Meyer:Cash rents showing flat value changes year over year, but we're seeing the farmers assessed value of their agricultural real estate increasing by 4.3%.
Todd Gleason:In breaking down land values by croplands and pasture.
Seth Meyer:If we separate it out into cropland, still producers assess that cropland increased 4.7 in 2025 to $5,830 an acre. So assessing that cropland is increasing at a greater rate than overall ag land and pasture land showing an even larger increase at 4.9% hitting $1,920.
Todd Gleason:Meyer noted farm real estate values by state reflected year over year increases in each of the lower 48 states. They were led by an 8.4% farmland value increase in North Carolina. Looking across the Midwest, the average value of farmland in Indiana was up four percent year over year, 2.6% in Illinois, 3.9% in Iowa, 4.2% in Nebraska, 6.8% in South Dakota. Their average was $2,970 By comparison, the Illinois and Indiana were in the high 8,000 figure. Iowa was at $9,790 an acre.
Todd Gleason:We'll stay in Washington DC but move from survey results to policy issues. September will bring another funding cliff for USDA and the rest of the federal government as the two parties fight it out over presidential funding clawbacks, which by the way are personal here, at Illinois Public Medium where some $1,500,000 of our budget was clawed back earlier in the year. The house and the senate USDA spending bills are almost $4,000,000,000 apart, and the house must still pass its bill before a compromise can be struck and taken up again in both chambers. But standing in the way is a September budget shutdown. Senate majority leader John Thune is considering whether or not he should use a stop gap measure.
John Thune:I think a lot of that depends on, how cooperative the Democrats are in trying to get the appropriations process moving forward. But what I can tell you we are gonna look for ways to keep the government funded and open and operating.
Todd Gleason:For his part, the top Democrat in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, first threatened a government shutdown after Republicans passed the $9,000,000,000 in Trump spending clawbacks. That's what the IPM clawback is all about. But then let a handful of bills pass, USDA.
Chuck Schumer:When one side tries to do it all, it creates big problems. We are pushing hard to get the appropriations process moving continuing to move forward, and that's why we're cooperating with the bills they're putting on the floor.
Todd Gleason:But Schumer and top house democrat Jeffries are now demanding republicans end clawbacks and spending freezes to get cooperation to keep the government funded. Senator Chuck Grassley isn't buying it.
Chuck Grassley:This is a cover your rear end sort of an approach. This is their way of saying, well, if the government shuts down, so Republicans fall. We're not gonna fall for that.
Todd Gleason:That was Iowa senator Chuck Grassley. Well, uncertainty surrounding US biofuels policy and continued trade tensions pushed second quarter profits to multiyear lows for multiple crop trading companies, including ADM and Bunge. Ag equipment manufacturers also warned customers that increasing trade tensions will cause increased equipment prices in the 2025. Reuters says ADM posted its lowest second quarter profit in five years as trade challenges and uncertain biofuel policies slowed sales and hurt trading and crop processing margins. The company said the full year 2025 adjustment earnings could drop to around $4 a share, the lowest since 2020.
Todd Gleason:ADM, Bunge and Cargill have reported eroding profits in recent quarters because of ample crop supplies and thinning margins. Bloomberg reported adjusted earnings at $1.31 per share for the three months ending in June, the lowest point since 2018. AGCO Corporation and CNH Industrial also say customers will soon feel the impact of tariffs due to higher prices. And finally today the mission is the same but there's a new name for the US Grains Council or USGC. After sixty five years, it will now be known as the US Grains and Bioproducts Council.
Todd Gleason:Nebraska corn grower Jay Reiner is vice chair of the organization and says it's about positioning the council to get recognized as a leader in more than grains.
Jay Reiner:Not only are we producing ethanol out of these ethanol plants, but we're getting so much more products that are being derived from ethanol and corn products. You know, like, for example, we're getting plastics. We're getting chemical biochemicals being made now. That's why we changed our name, so it just kinda flows in with what our mission is.
Todd Gleason:Reiner says there's big potential for the council, but the name has been holding them back internationally.
Jay Reiner:We've heard from our international offices that's they wanted a name change. That's what pushed this whole thing the last couple years. We've been talking about this for at least two years. And so, yeah, it was all led by you know, if it was just The US, we wouldn't know anything about it. But our overseas offices, they, they are really pushing for this.
Todd Gleason:So what had been known as the US Grains Council is transitioning to the US Grains and Bioproducts Council in an attempt to better reflect that it's more than grain. And that's a look at today's agricultural news. You're listening to the closing market report from Illinois Public Media. It is public radio for the farming world online on demand at willag.org, illag.0rg, where today you'll find information on nitrogen rates and application timings from the webinar I hosted along with Laura Gentry from the Illinois Corn Growers Association and Gary Schnitke from the FarmDoc team earlier this week about 70% of producers are applying more nitrogen than they need to maximize their yields in any given year. You probably are among them when was the last time you changed your application rates or even timings you can find out more about how to do that and how to use the MRTN that's the maximum return to nitrogen in rate calculator available online.
Todd Gleason:It's all on our website at willag.org. Take time right now to visit and learn more. Now let's turn our attention to the weather forecast. Mike Tenure is here. He is with T Storm Weather.
Todd Gleason:That's tstorm.net online. Hi, Mike. Thanks for being with us. I'd like to take some time today in the Midwest to talk about the weather in part because the Illinois State Fair starts today, and during the fair, oftentimes, we'll get, depending on the August pop up weather systems, those thunderstorms that roll through. They're periodic.
Todd Gleason:They're sporadic. I'm wondering if that's in the offing for this state fair and the month of August in general or if there is a different type of pattern in place.
Mike Tannura:Well, sure. Pop up thunderstorms are very typical of August. The thing that's different though about what we're seeing this August is that we've seen some major thunderstorm clusters form in parts of Iowa over the last two days. One of those happened last night and this is not a typical type of setup. The types of storms you're talking about just are kind of small and they just kind of pop up in the afternoon and they go away and then that's it.
Mike Tannura:Maybe they last an hour. What we've seen in Iowa though over the last two days are some pretty major clusters have formed overnight and then they really blossomed into the morning before they finally dissipated around lunchtime. That was the case today and we are going to see some more like that more than likely over the next two days. The real question though is where are these going to form? The waves of energy that are triggering these thunderstorms are almost undetectable.
Mike Tannura:They're extremely small and they're just kind of floating around as we speak. We think one of them may well end up being in Wisconsin and into Northern Illinois tonight and into tomorrow. But pretty much anywhere from Illinois on West is fair game for one of these things to form. So we'll be watching that. Part of the reason this is happening is because it is turning much warmer as we speak.
Mike Tannura:Hot air mass is building in from the Southwest and these storms are kind of forming on the leading edge of the hot air. Now that heat is going to start to stick around because even though there is a cool front that'll move through early next week, and I know a lot of people are kind of banking on that, helping things out and preventing things from getting too hot, all signs are that this front is going to move through in a weakening phase. And a weakening cool front moving through a hot air mass is not a way to get a big pattern change. It's just a way to drop temperatures from the nineties in the afternoon and the seventies at night to maybe the eighties and the sixties and seventies at night. But once we get beyond early next week, another surge of heat is coming in, and this one will probably be stronger.
Mike Tannura:So the main theme for the next ten to fourteen days is that it will be much warmer than normal in most of the Corn Belt with high temperatures mostly in the nineties, lows mostly in the seventies, and with some of these thunderstorms around. Again, they're going to be hit or miss, but where they do hit, they're gonna hit pretty heavily.
Todd Gleason:Are there areas in the Midwest or maybe across other regions of The United States that we need to be concerned about the weather? I'm thinking possibly of the Mid South.
Mike Tannura:Well that would certainly be the first area to look at. Now we've been talking about how this is one of the wettest growing seasons in many years, and we just went through the wettest July since 1993 in the Corn Belt. Now the only area that's been missing out on all this is in the Mid South. If you look at Arkansas and the areas of Western Tennessee and the Mississippi, they've been very dry over the last six weeks. And the rain chances there are pretty low going forward.
Mike Tannura:So you can just kind of do the math and say to yourself, well, if I don't get too much rain for eight weeks, what is my crop going to look like? The thing that's a little challenging though down there is that they do irrigate pretty heavily, so that will certainly help out a little bit. But as irrigated farmers know, you always can get a really big crop if you have big rains even without irrigating, and they're not really seeing that. So that is one of the challenging things to figure out is what's happening in the Mid South. Probably the other thing to consider is that at this time of the year, generally would like to see cool weather.
Mike Tannura:If it's cool, then that allows these crops to fill and reproduce and do all the things they like to do with a stress free environment. That's not going to be the case though as we move through mid August. There will be some temperature stresses in pretty much all growing areas at one point or another. So all this tide is just kind of taking what's probably been a pretty fantastic growing season and maybe not ending it perfectly. But even if we get through the next two weeks and it cools off after that, you know, maybe that'll offset some of this.
Mike Tannura:But there are some things to think about for a change this year.
Todd Gleason:Thank you much, Mike. I appreciate it. Yeah. For sure, Todd. Mike Tanura is the president and CEO at t storm weather.
Todd Gleason:Find him online at tstorm.net. You've been listening to the closing market report from Illinois public media on this Thursday afternoon. Don't forget, we'll record our commodity week program today. Post it to the website at willag.org, willag.0rg, by about 6PM this evening. You'll be able to hear all of that program tomorrow on our home station, and many of these radio stations will carry it over the weekend as well.
Todd Gleason:You have a great day. I'm University of Illinois Extension's Todd Gleason.
