Aug 20 | Closing Market Report
From the Lend Grant University in Urbana Champaign, Illinois. This is the closing market report. It is the August 2025. I'm Illinois Extension's Todd Gleeson coming to you from the site of the Farm Progress Show. It's media day.
Todd Gleason:The Farm Progress Show kicks off next Tuesday right here in Decatur. Coming up, we'll talk about the commodity markets with Greg Johnson. He's at TGM, Total Brain Marketing. We'll check-in on the eastern and the western legs of the Pro Farmer Midwest crop tour, and we'll decide what the weather's gonna be like for next week's Farm Progress Show with Drew Lerner on this Wednesday edition of the closing market report from Illinois Public Media. It is public radio for the farming world.
announce:Todd Gleason services are made available to by University of Illinois Extension.
Todd Gleason:Greg Johnson from TGM. That's Total Grain Marketing now joins us. Thank you, Greg, for being with us. I suppose you've been following the pro farmer crop tour all week. What have you thought of it so far?
Greg Johnson:Well, I guess we were hearing some private stories, you know, isolated areas that, you know, farmers were disappointed, you know, tip back and disease pressure and all this, but, you know, pro farmer is certainly not finding a lot of that. I think they're finding variable yields, for instance, in Illinois yesterday and today, but in general, it's certainly not a disaster by any stretch. It's an above average crop. It's probably not a record crop. You know, we're off of last year's numbers, I think, in Illinois, but some of the other states that they've been through, a very good number.
Greg Johnson:South Dakota's been higher than last year. Nebraska higher than last year. Ohio higher than last year. Indiana higher than last year. So I think the USDA is onto something.
Greg Johnson:I think we can probably safely assume that it's not 188.8, but I think the trade is probably somewhere in that 184, 185 camp right now. But even a 184, 185 number gives you a 2,000,000,000 bushel carryout. So nothing real friendly in the corn market based on the pro farmer results so far. But, you know, the crop is there and, before you know it, we'll be after harvest and we'll have to look ahead to buying acres next year. So corn, hard to come up with anything real friendly based on Pro Farmer, but the soybean numbers, know, could be a little friendly.
Greg Johnson:Mean, pod numbers, the pod counts are there showing that we have potential for a very good bean crop, but we also need some rain in August to fill those crops out. And a lot of areas have missed a lot of rain here in August, not everyone. It's a hit and miss, just like all summer. So if you could extrapolate out, you know, the possibility that we have a half bushel less yield on the soybean crop, the carryout's already an extremely tight $2.9 that would get it down close to 2.5 So, you know, I think there's some
Greg Johnson:potential friendly news in soybeans, but of course it takes demand, and you know, we can get by with a smaller crop if we don't have demand, and that leads us into The US China trade talks, which have been extended for ninety days. We may not get a resolution until November, and by then harvest will have wrapped up. And so I think all this kind of boils down to the fact that we're gonna have to store a lot of this crop, both corn and beans, more so than what we normally do since we won't have the export market, it appears. So farmers need to get ready to store a big crop. Basis levels could be wide, DP rates could be a little bit higher, and that's just the reality that we're dealing with when we don't have a robust soybean export program in the fall.
Todd Gleason:So I want to follow-up on that, but I'm going to start with corn, actually, because I was thinking about this, and it feels to me as if basis is going to do the work to break as opposed to the futures possibly going into harvest. Is this your opinion or do you think both will go down?
Greg Johnson:I think both could go down. December corn's above $4 and like I say, the trade is probably discounting, you know, anticipating a little bit of a reduction in that yield from 188.8, maybe down to 185, but even so, 180 5 is a big number. Last year, December corn got down to $3.85. I think a lot of traders are, you know, targeting that last year's low number as a place to go. You know, as we get closer to $3.85, $3.90, then you'll see some of these traders that are sellers up to that point become buyers.
Greg Johnson:But at above $4 I think there's still going to be pressure on this market to at least see, as long as the yields hang in there good, I think we could still see some pressure on corn one more time and see the futures price, as well as the basis, like you talked about, under pressure as well. The corn basis, there is good demand for corn, but if we're gonna store an extra amount of beans versus normal, that takes away from some of the space that the market was planning on storing corn. So I think the bean basis is the one that gets extremely weak, but you're right, the spillover pressure could be, you know, result in a little bit weaker corn basis as well.
Todd Gleason:Particularly because there is the ninety day extension, if there really isn't any movement until the end of that ninety day period, I suppose that the trade has braced itself for China to do another twenty eighteen, nineteen kind of thing where they just don't buy soybeans from The US?
Greg Johnson:Exactly. Now we did see some export sales announcements to Mexico. So if China is buying all of Brazil's beans, then the countries that typically were buying beans from Brazil will have to go somewhere else, and Mexico probably can make that work logistically to buy them from The U. S. So we will see a little bit of replacement demand from some other countries.
Greg Johnson:But by and large, think for the quantity that we've got, we really do need China to come back into this export market to help support U. S. Soybean.
Todd Gleason:Thank you much. I appreciate it, and I hope you have a great week. Are you going to make it to Farm Progress Show, by the way?
Greg Johnson:I'm not sure. We are putting in a new scale system, so I'm not sure if if I'm gonna be able to make Farm Progress Show or not. So put me down as a question mark, I guess.
Todd Gleason:Alright. Well, hopefully, you'll get a chance to make Farm Progress Show. And if you do, and then you get to the beer garden, you'll be able to find a Riggs beer there with a Farm Progress Show can I saw today here at Media Day? It is a fantastic can. I hope you get one.
Todd Gleason:Thank you much, Craig, for taking the time with me today.
Greg Johnson:Hey, thank you, Todd.
Todd Gleason:That is Greg Johnson. He is with TGM, totalgrainmarketing.com. Let's check-in on the eastern leg of the Pro Farmer crop tour. We're now joined by Oliver Sloop. He is with Blue Line Futures.
Todd Gleason:Thank you, Oliver, being with us again today and all week this week. Thanks much for that too. It was good to see you in Bloomington last night, and I bet you enjoyed again getting together with all the crop tour scouts on the Eastern leg.
Oliver Sloup:Yeah. It was great great to see you as well and always good to kinda come together at the end of the day and talk about what what everyone saw on their routes. And, you know, I I think a big takeaway was is you asked 11 different scouts what they saw, and you're probably gonna get 11 different answers. When you and I spoke yesterday afternoon, we were just getting out of our first two counties in McLean, Illinois, and, man, did it look good. And I I was talking about how good things looked.
Oliver Sloup:And then as soon as we hopped off, we ran into a field that just just wasn't wasn't there. And so that kind of brought some variability into the end of yesterday's tour, and that pretty much where we picked off picked up on today is is variability and things kind of being all over the place.
Todd Gleason:So you headed from Bloomington to Macomb and picked up your crop tour there. That first stop looked like it was a pretty good one. What did you find there and for the rest of the morning?
Oliver Sloup:Yeah. It was pretty pretty good shape. We had a good yield check there. You know, the further west that we are going, it has it has dried out quite a bit. So that's something of note.
Oliver Sloup:I think a lot a lot of the variability that we saw was early in our route in McConne and then Christian County, just kinda all over the map there. But, starting to move a little bit further west, things are starting to dry out, but we are starting to see the yield come in a little bit better. Although, again, it's a
Todd Gleason:big a lot.
Oliver Sloup:I think this goes back to expectations and what to meet those expectations. That's gonna be the big question. You know, with the USDA coming in at two twenty one above last year's two seventeen, I think about eight or nine stops in. Our average is about two zero two. Now that's just one specific route on the eastern leg.
Oliver Sloup:And we've talked about, you know, going into these fields. It's a lot of random samples. You're only picking three years. But I think it's one of those things where you get enough randomness combined with each other and and you start to make something out of it. So I think that's what the whole objective is is this week is get enough data points and samples to try to formulate a story and give a ballpark of where things might be in these counties and and states as a whole.
Todd Gleason:You're traveling through Western Illinois. Where will you cross into Iowa, and will you take Iowa samples today as well?
Oliver Sloup:Yeah. So we'll be, meeting up with the rest of the scouts in our team in Iowa City and kinda go over the data. And, again, the nightly meetings are great. It it makes for a long day, but it's really worth worth time to to get together, come together, go over all the data points, talk with people about what they're seeing on their routes. So as you know, you know, being in the Midwest, things change, very quickly, whether you're, you know, a 100 miles away or even just five miles down the road from somebody else.
Oliver Sloup:So it'll be interesting to see what other folks are seeing out there.
Todd Gleason:Hey. Thank you much, Oliver.
Oliver Sloup:Thanks, Todd.
Todd Gleason:Oliver Sloop is with Blue Line Futures. He's on the eastern leg of the Pro Farmer crop tour. On the western leg is Sherman Newland. He's traveling with Karen Braun today. And Ted Seifried from time to time as well with Zanerag Hedge.
Todd Gleason:Of course, the Zanerag Hedge groups have merged in some form with risk management commodities. Thank you, Sherman, for taking some time with me today. You've been through both Nebraska and Iowa, I think, the last twenty four hours. Tell me about what you've seen.
Sherman Newlin:Yeah. Nebraska yesterday was was good. You know, it was pretty wet in some spots, you know, actually really wet in a few spots, but it was good. It wasn't quite as good, you know, as what I was maybe expecting. I mean, I think we were up a little bit on the corn and the bean but the bean pod count was down.
Sherman Newlin:I think it was 23% from last year. So, you know, we didn't see anything spectacular. Right? But they came up with pretty good numbers, you know, overall when they added everything together for Nebraska. Now this morning in Iowa, we're on our way to Spencer, Iowa today.
Sherman Newlin:And until the last stop, we didn't have anything average under 200 bushel on corn. But the bean pods count has been, let's see, sixteen eighty four has been the average. That's up 20, up 12% from last year and up 38% from 2023. Corn average so far today have been two twenty up, two twenty eight up 11% from the same same stops last year and up 45% from 02/2023. So, you know, I think we're seeing things that are significantly better today.
Sherman Newlin:Now one thing I have noted was some of the ear counts are seem to be kinda low in some areas. We're also seeing a lot more southern rust today. You know, it's coming out in this, you know, on your hat, on your shirt, on your pants, on some feet. And my others aren't weren't too bad, but it was it was more prevalent today than what I'd seen, like in South Dakota or some in Nebraska as well.
Todd Gleason:Make sure you wash all those clothes before you get back to the farm here in Illinois. We'd appreciate it.
Sherman Newlin:We'd all be a carrier.
Todd Gleason:Yeah. And the truck too, That would be very nice. Yeah. Yeah. So do you think that the southern rust, at least at this point, has caused an issue?
Todd Gleason:It it could still, I suppose, but it depends kinda on how far along the crop is.
Sherman Newlin:Right. Exactly. A lot of the corn's, you know, in the ant or close to it, and a lot of the rust other than a couple of fields are down, you know, below the year, so it wasn't up in the canopy. That doesn't mean it can't spread more, I suppose. But I I mean, it could, you know, hurt it a little bit, but I don't think at this point it's gonna be Huawei's seen significant enough to bring the average down a whole lot.
Todd Gleason:Of the tour to date, have you been impressed?
Sherman Newlin:Yes. Yeah. Better than what we've seen a lot of years. I mean, especially when you think about South Dakota. I mean, like I said, our our, you know, tour yesterday was just I'd say just, you know, a little above average, you know, corn wise, below average for sure on beans.
Sherman Newlin:I mean, everything's, you know, still pretty lush and green. I mean, we're walking in fields with not a lot of, you know, shortness of moisture for these fields out here. You know, I don't know. You know, some more rain probably wouldn't hurt, but the cool weather is really going to help things immensely with everything here for the next two or three weeks as well.
Todd Gleason:You think the finish will be early for them?
Sherman Newlin:I don't know. I don't I don't foresee it being too early. You know? I mean, some of it, of course, depends on when you got it planted, but I think it's just going to be more of a normal type finish and start to harvest, the way it looks to me.
Todd Gleason:Have you talked to many farmers in the area, and what are they telling you?
Sherman Newlin:Just about every day. Seems like now, last year, we didn't hardly talk to any, but, you know, we just talked to one a while ago. We talked to two or three yesterday. They seem to be pretty satisfied with what their crop is. You know, some are looking for some really good yields, and some are a little bit surprised from, you know, what, you know, maybe the numbers were that we told them, maybe down just a little bit.
Sherman Newlin:But it's the one thing I do notice, though, is ear counts compared to what we do in Illinois are just seem to be always a little bit lower. I don't I'm not sure why, but I just just the way it is. I mean, so but overall, the farmers seem to be pleased with the crop. They're not real happy with prices, but that's part of it.
Todd Gleason:Right? Yeah, it is. I think if you had asked, I bet their population planting population rates are lower as well. I think that's just generally what
Sherman Newlin:happens Yes, do. I mean, yes, that's a 100% right. I mean, do start out with just a little bit lower population to begin with. So I mean, it is what it is, you know, from that standpoint.
Todd Gleason:Hey. Thanks much. I appreciate it. One last question. Your route, if I remember correctly, kind of parallels Interstate 29, but you're, I don't know, 40 miles east of that going up the West Side Of Iowa.
Todd Gleason:Is that correct?
Sherman Newlin:Yes. Correct. We're actually heading into Cherokee, Iowa right now. So, yeah, we kinda come up, then we go west, and we go back east, you know, and then we end up on 20 Ninth and then Spencer.
Todd Gleason:Alright. Thank you much. We'll talk with you again tomorrow.
Sherman Newlin:You bet. Thanks.
Todd Gleason:Mhmm. Sherman Newland is with Risk Management Commodities. It is a division of Zaner Ag Hedge. You're listening to the closing market report from Illinois Public Media on this Wednesday afternoon. We're coming to you from the Farm Progress Show site in Decatur where next week on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, you can come and see the largest outdoor machinery show in The United States and visit the College of tent.
Todd Gleason:When you come in the main gate, just turn to the right, and we're only about a block. You'll see a great big orange sign on the end of the tent that says College of Aces. We hope that you will visit us now. Let's check-in with Drew Lerner at World Weather Incorporated in Kansas City. Drew, I think we'll just skip, you know, what the weather for the Midwest is going to be like for the crops, because I want to know what Farm Progress Show weather's going to be like.
Todd Gleason:Gosh. It looks like it should be fantastic. What do you think?
Drew Lerner:Yeah. It definitely will be. We are looking at a potential here for it to be just dry, low humidity, a light northerly wind at times and temperatures that'll probably be in the seventies. I mean, you can't ask for a better deal than that. There is a possibility that there might be a few areas in the Southern parts of the region that may get up into lower eighties, but it's gonna be very autumn like for just a bit.
Drew Lerner:Our nighttime lows could get down into the fifties. I think they're probably gonna be looking at upper fifties, lower sixties during the coldest period. So this the cool shot that's coming on for next week comes in two waves. So the first one comes through already this weekend, and that one will just clear the air of the moisture, and it'll feel good. It won't be quite as cool as it will be when the second wave of coolness comes through, and that arrives right about midweek next week.
Drew Lerner:So that's when we'll see the coolest weather.
Todd Gleason:You know, I know I asked you specifically about Decatur, Illinois, but do those numbers kinda play out across the whole of the Corn Belt?
Drew Lerner:They really do. Obviously, it'd be colder to the North and warmer in the South. So, some areas up near the Canada border, I would not be surprised to see temperatures maybe touch on upper the border there in the upper thirties, lower forties for a quick one morning. That'll probably be on Tuesday. I don't think that's gonna reach into crop country.
Drew Lerner:We're talking about Northeastern North Dakota right at the border in Northern Minnesota. But the northern part of the Midwest in general will be seeing temperatures in the forties and lower fifties, and then the Lower Midwest will see those lowest temperatures in the fifties. There may be a few lower sixties when you get down near and south of the Ohio River. Those are nighttime temperatures. Our afternoon highs in the Midwest in general will be sixties nor sixties and lower seventies north and seventies south.
Drew Lerner:So it will be just a delight. Absolutely.
Todd Gleason:Alright. So we probably ought to check-in on other parts of the planet where maybe the weather is not quite a delight. Are you still worried about parts of Europe?
Drew Lerner:Yes. I am. I and it's pretty late now, so I'm not quite sure we can induce much improvement. France, though, still has not seen good rain. It's been weeks really since a big part of that country has had a decent rainy event.
Drew Lerner:They've had some showers around, but it's way too dry in unirrigated areas. Now the irrigated crop is probably doing okay. There hasn't been too many days of excessive heat. They certainly have had a couple of rounds of that. And so the crop is not in the best shape.
Drew Lerner:That's for sure. But unirrigated fields, it's it's a sad situation. And we've seen dryness in parts of The UK. It may be still in some spots in Germany. I think most of Germany, though, has had some timely rain recently.
Drew Lerner:And then it's the Lower Danube River Basin in the Southeast part of Europe as well as the Black Sea region that are all continuing to see below normal precipitation and unirrinated crop stress.
Todd Gleason:I know it is early, but I am sure producers, farmers in Brazil have pulled their planters out in preparation for the planting season. It'll get started sometime in September. How are things setting up for them?
Drew Lerner:It looks very good at the moment. Now you've probably heard and discussed with others maybe about this potential for La Nina to return or La Nina like conditions to develop as we get into the fourth quarter of this calendar year. If that happens, there is going to be a tendency to have some lighter rains once again in Southern Brazil and Eastern Argentina during the initial weeks of the planting season. I'm going to stop right there and give my opinion. I don't think we're going to see a full blown La Nina event.
Drew Lerner:That's the first thing I want to get off my chest. I do think we'll have La Nina like conditions perhaps for a little while. What that translates into for Brazil is that they will definitely have a lighter than usual rain volume if you will, during those weeks from late September through October. And, but it won't be like last year, you know, last year we saw the rains just fail and basically it's kind of spit and spat a little bit and then they just didn't, didn't do anything for quite a while. So we got way behind on planting.
Drew Lerner:I don't think that'll be the case this year. I think that we will get into the fields. I think there will be some periodic rainfall occurring. It's just going to be lighter than they would like to see. But I think the crop will get in the ground and come up.
Drew Lerner:As we move later into the growing season in November and December, I think the precipitation will become much more routine, and it may still be lighter than usual in Southern Brazil as well as Eastern Argentina. And we'll have to keep an eye on it to make sure they don't get too much heat and cause a problem with moisture shortages. But I think we'll get off to a good start. And and then it's gonna be a question as to, you know, how well that rain's gonna be distributed once they've got the crop in the ground.
Todd Gleason:Thank you much. We'll talk with you again next week.
Drew Lerner:You bet. Have a good week.
Todd Gleason:You too. That's Drew Lerner. He is with World Weather Incorporated in Kansas City. Joined us on this Wednesday edition of the closing marker report that comes to you from Illinois public media. We're on the site to the Farm Progress Show today for media day.
Todd Gleason:Farm Progress Show is next week, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday in Decatur. Drop by the College of Aces tent. When you enter the main gate, just turn to the right, and we'll see you on one of those days. I'm University of Illinois Extension's Todd Gleason.
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