Jul 29 | Closing Market Report
From the land to Grant University in Urbana Champaign, Illinois. This is the closing market reported as the July 2025 by my extension's Todd Gleason. Coming up, we'll talk about the commodity markets with Naomi Bloem. She's at totalfarmmarketing.com out of West Bend, Wisconsin. I'll bring you up to speed on some of the ag news for the afternoon, and we'll hear from Dan O'Brien at Kansas State University.
Todd Gleason:He'll explore with us the topic of biofuels, ethanol in particular, as well as renewable diesel, and then we'll turn our attention to the weather forecast as we work through the end of the program with Don Day at Day Weather in Cheyenne, Wyoming on this Tuesday edition to the closing market report from Illinois Public Media. It is public radio for the farming world celebrating forty years of this program and more than 10,000 episodes.
announce:Todd Gleason services are made available to WILL by University of Illinois Extension.
Todd Gleason:September corn for the day settled at $3.89 and a quarter. That was down 4 and a half cents. December at $4.11, three lower, and the March at $4.28 and three quarters down 2 and a half cents. August soybeans, $9.81 and 3 quarters, seven lower. September down three at $9.89 and a half, and new crop November soybeans, $10.09 and a half cents, 2¢ lower.
Todd Gleason:Bean meal futures down $3.20. The bean oil up 99¢. Wheat futures soft red down eight and three quarters. The settlement price at $5.50. The hard red at $5.39 and a half in the December down 7 and a quarter cents.
Todd Gleason:Live cattle futures in Chicago at a dollar 67 and a half higher. The feeder cattle $2.52 and a half cents higher and lean hogs up $2.15 that of course 400 pounds. Naomi Blohm of totalfarmmarketing.com out of West Bend Wisconsin now joins us. Thank you Naomi for being with us. The northern part of the reaches of our listening area, and you would be above that but still able to tune us in if you really wanted to listen to a lot of static.
Todd Gleason:Had a lot of wind in the area last night from the storms. Did you see any of that in your part of Wisconsin?
Naomi Blohm:So where we are, no. We had no rain specifically where I live, but what I had heard was some of the damage that was in the Northwest Corner of Iowa with some corn down, some bins with damage as well. We're trying to understand how extensive that is. But for other parts of the Midwest, it was just a nice regular summer thunderstorm. So that's why the market didn't really respond to any potential storm damage for the moment.
Naomi Blohm:Traders continue just to be focused overall on how big that crop really probably is overall.
Todd Gleason:In the last week, and going into the August 1 self imposed deadline, the Trump administration has been announcing relatively often trade arrangements, agreements, frameworks. They were in Stockholm meeting with China. What do we know, about things that have come out of there, if anything at all?
Naomi Blohm:Well, right now the rumor mill is suggesting, that we're gonna have another ninety day extension on our trade negotiations with China. So that is what came across from US Treasury Secretary this afternoon. The markets overall, you know, I think part of that might be priced into the market in a sense. That seems to be the mojo for these trade deals. Just of extend deadlines, see what kind of trade deals can happen.
Naomi Blohm:For China, of course, that would allow them time to know where our US crop is or isn't, and that might be part of the missing piece of their puzzle to know how aggressive they need to be on some of their sales. But President Trump would have to approve that, so We'll see if there's more information on that later this week, and of course, waiting to hear how, just in general, the August 1 trade tariff deadlines are going to be met and who is going to be negotiating week. So we might see grain markets continue to hold in this kind of quiet pattern for the moment till we get a better better understanding of the trade deals and what that would mean for our export demand.
Todd Gleason:This would lead the reciprocal tariffs that China has had in place, two sets actually, one, that had been in place, I think since 2018, '19, and then a new set that was put on in January for both corn and soybeans additionally added together that is. So that would put us through a large part of the marketing season particularly for soybeans to China. Do you think the trade will come to some realization of that? Should the news as rumors become news, that is?
Naomi Blohm:Well, I think traders are really gonna wanna try and more be focused on a specific quantity of export sales versus just the rhetoric of what a trade deal says from the standpoint of percentages. We wanna know how many beans China is buying because so far they haven't bought anything for the new crop beans, and that's what traders are anxious about. On August 12 WASDE report, we'll see. Is the USDA gonna stick with the number that they have for exports, closer to that 1,700,000,000 bushel number for exports out that we're gonna be sending out to the world? So will the USDA still stick with that number on the August WASDE, or are they gonna change it?
Naomi Blohm:Traders wanna see hard numbers from China and some official purchases on morning export sales and the weekly export sales.
Todd Gleason:Now let's talk about old crop. For corn particularly, there may be some soybeans left out there as well to sell. Producers, were hoping to be able to catch a seasonal. We talked about that with you, through the month of May, June, and July that did not develop primarily because the weather was so darn good in much of that time frame. Now they are faced with a futures market that is looking forward and really not worried about rationing supplies at this point.
Todd Gleason:How do they manage the local basis POPs against what they see quite likely as a futures price they are unwilling to take?
Naomi Blohm:Yeah. That's gonna be a challenge. So the futures market probably continues to drift lower. But anytime your local basis market might see a pop as far as maybe an ethanol plant wanting to just get some grain in for for the next couple weeks, that might be your best opportunity if you have corn in the bin that needs to get moved before this new harvest comes to town. With the harvest expected to be big, some of these end users are going to probably keep their basis a little bit wider for as long as they can knowing that there's a big crop coming.
Naomi Blohm:So, unfortunately, I don't have a lot of great news to be able to share, on that on that front. It would it would take a a really unforeseen disaster to show up on the yields in order to make end users panic. So whatever you can see a slight basis play, maybe use that to your advantage. But right now, from a seasonal perspective, from a technical perspective, corn prices probably continue to drift sideways to lower for another few weeks, and we'll start to look for that harvest low in the August.
Todd Gleason:So you think the contract low we have in place may not be the harvest low at this time?
Naomi Blohm:Oh, I think we're going lower yet, unfortunately. Just from a technical perspective, when I look at the daily chart of September corn futures, with today's move lower, we broke a short term support area, and the next downside target looks to be about $3.75 for the September corn chart. So, that's still, we finished today around three eighty nine, so we've got a little bit lower to go. And I think it'll be kind of just a slow drift lower, but from a technical standpoint, the RSI, the stochastics on daily charts are suggesting that there would be more room to go lower before we have a reason to turn around and get higher.
Todd Gleason:And do you have a similar set of numbers for soybeans?
Naomi Blohm:Yeah. So looking with November new support at the $10 area, my best guess would be that beans stay in a little short term range bound pattern where $10 is support and $10.25 is resistance just until we get a better idea. More of the August weather, how the pod filling might be going, and what the yield potential could be. And then a lot of it is gonna hinge on this August WASDE report. We're gonna see if the USDA just leaves the soybean yield unchanged.
Naomi Blohm:That's what we wanna watch. And we also really, of course, as I said earlier, need to be keeping an eye on the exports for soybeans. But between now and that August, WASDE, I think prices are gonna be a little bit calm, maybe a little bit benign, and just trade in a lackluster sideways pattern.
Todd Gleason:Thank you much, Naomi. I appreciate it.
Naomi Blohm:Thank you.
Todd Gleason:That's Naomi Bloom. She is with totalfarmmarketing.com. In today's agricultural news, house ag chair GT Thompson is vowing his panel will take up a correction to California's proposition 12 that forces hog producers around the nation to meet that state's sow pen size standards. The supreme court in 2023 narrowly upheld prop 12 despite the constitution's commerce clause and said it's up to congress to fix the nationwide hog industry impact of California's referendum. Thompson says his committee will try to do just that after including a fix in last year's stalled farm bill.
GT Thompson:This committee will consider a measured correction that preserves states' rights to control their internal agriculture practices, will protect interstate commerce, and preserve states' animal health regulations and laws.
Todd Gleason:The National Pork Producers Council and others fought California all the way to the supreme court. Council VP and Ohio pork producer, Patrick Hoard, told the ag committee.
Patrick Horde:I am here to say that prop 12 and an unmitigated regulatory patchwork threatens our farm. Prop 12 makes it a crime in California to sell uncooked whole pork meat from the offspring of sows that aren't raised according to the state's arbitrary housing standards.
Todd Gleason:Standards that hoard complaints raise costs for producers across the country, and the American Veterinarian Medical Association says do not objectively improve animal welfare. NPPC economist Holly Cook says producers need to sell to California's 40,000,000 consumers, but now there's less profit in doing so.
Holly Cook:For farms with group pen gestation systems, converting barns to B compliant may mean a 30 to 40% decline in production, a result of having fewer sows combined with reduced efficiencies. Farms may also face higher average costs for utilities, veterinary care, labor, and feed, and they'll have to spread their fixed costs out over fewer weaned pigs produced.
Todd Gleason:The same study by Iowa State and University of Minnesota found it would take premiums of 5 to $8 per pig to break even when funding new Prop 12 compliant barns. The USDA found retail pork prices in California are now up by more than 20% and consumption is down by double digits. Let's stay with the farm bill with more federal assistance available for specialty crop growers. Of late, the importance of getting a new farm bill completed may have eased, but only by a little bit, Riley Boucher, vice president of the Northwest Horticulture Council says, for agriculture as a whole, a new farm bill is very important and shouldn't get put off any longer.
Riley Bushue:There's been a lot of work done on getting at least a partial farm bill done, but nothing direct as it relates to specialty crops in terms of direct payment programs like this. From our perspective, crop insurance is incredibly valuable for our growers, pretty widely utilized in our industry. And so maintaining that was a priority for us, making sure that those kind of risk management tools are available.
Todd Gleason:But with all the economic challenges of late, Boucher says their focus has been more on what USDA can do to help growers right now.
Riley Bushue:To my knowledge at this moment, I mean, USDA is kinda focused on getting the rest of the mask payments out, this disaster money out as rapidly as it can. And so that's kind of front center right now.
Todd Gleason:As for the one big beautiful bill act, some of the farm bill related assistance it brought, Boucher says, that was great to see.
Riley Bushue:It's certainly good to get a good chunk of that done. We work with folks from the potato industry and others, actually, specialty crop entities through a group called the Specialty Crop Farm Bill Alliance that pursues priorities for the specialty crop industry as a whole.
Todd Gleason:Again, Riley Bouchou is with the Northwest Horticulture Council. And that's a look at today's Agricultural News. We're now joined by Dan O'Brien from Kansas State University. You can find him online at agmanager.info and KSUgrains thanks Dan for being with us today to talk about the ethanol and biodiesel industries. Let's start with, a slide that you sent to me, on ethanol prices.
Todd Gleason:What does it tell you about this marketplace? Because of course it shows kind of a dramatic drop since the 2022 timeline. Does this mean something to you other than we had much higher corn prices in that era?
Dan O'Brien:Well, I think now in the when you look at where we're at, we're a somewhat stable industry. You know, the renewable fuel standard hasn't changed for a while. We've we're aiming at about 15,000,000,000, although I 15,000,000,000 gallons annually of of ethanol production, but gen generally pretty stable. So we we've seen here since about 2024 that we're kinda bouncing around a dollar 75, dollar 76, dollar 80. So we we're we're seeing a fairly stable ethanol market.
Dan O'Brien:And, of course, we profitability or lack thereof is is on the margin in in that industry. So we're just as you look right now, we've got ethanol prices in, well, in in Iowa as kind of as a bellwether. Eth ethanol prices at about a dollar 63, and the cost of production with lower corn prices here in the especially last few months is about a dollar 55. So you you bring the the price action that you're talking about in into play with a little bit lower corn input costs, and you've got now a a profit projected for July of about 8¢ a gallon for ethanol production. That's all with corn oil in in in included on the sales.
Dan O'Brien:So that and that follows the time frame, which was it's it's consistent with the mature industry where we were losing from 1 to 16¢ a gallon for about seven, eight months prior
Naomi Blohm:to that.
Dan O'Brien:So and we could you and I were talking before we came on air about about, gosh, we're in the middle of summer driving season. You'd expect the possibility of of of something like this happening. Yet when you look back, it could have all been derailed if we'd had a dry spell and corn market had been up. But but it's not. So so we're at a situation right now where the ethanol plants are are holding up holding up decently profit wise.
Dan O'Brien:And in the in terms of corn and ethanol market outlook, you will will come into fall. We could see some weakening perhaps of the of ethanol prices, but we also could see if if unless something derails the the strong production prospects that we have for corn, probably see lower corn prices as well. So I I it looks like right now, from a judicious cautious point of view, that we're looking at about a breakeven to a bit of a profit situation and for for ethanol production heading from now into fall. A lot of that predicated on on sideways sideways ethanol markets, sideways a little bit weaker. And if anything right now again, unless we're surprised, moderate to lower corn pry moderately lower corn prices from from this point on.
Dan O'Brien:So we'll see where all that goes. The it's interesting when you break out where the what where's the profitability coming in in the terms of the ethanol plant income streams. So here for the month of July so far, about a dollar 63 per gallon for ethanol cost. Distillers grains actually contributes about 38¢ revenue per gallon by the time you you divide that out over the units involved. Corn oil, about 15¢ a gallon.
Todd Gleason:That's interesting to see how that breaks out. Thank you for that. Is there anything else that we ought to take up in the biofuels sector?
Dan O'Brien:Another thing we'd mentioned before we came on air is that with the with the recent announcement by the EPA of their renewable fuel standard changes, again, not much change in ethanol at all, but but quite a bit of improvement, quite a bit quite a bit higher goal set for the use of biodiesel. And USDA is reflecting that in the recent July 11 WASDE report. They they put put soybean crush, raised it to by 50,000,050 bushels up to 2,540,000,000.00. And, you know, so over the last several years in the 2324 marketing year, crushed about 2,285,000,000.000. The next year, 2425 marketing year, again, will start September 1 up to 2,420,000,000.00.
Dan O'Brien:Now we're projecting 2,540,000,000.00.
Todd Gleason:Hey, Dan. Thank you. That's Dan O'Brien. He is with Kansas State University Extension. You can find him online and access KSU grains or you can check out agmanager.info that's agmanager.info online.
Todd Gleason:Let's turn our attention now to the weather forecast. Dundee is here. With Day Weather, he is in Cheyenne, Wyoming. What's the weather like where you are today? I'm expecting some cool weather here later in the week.
Todd Gleason:Is it working our its way from the West to here or in some other directions?
Don Day:Yeah. No. Part of that coolness is showing up and it's forming in the form of a lot of cloud. A lot of subtropical moisture has started to come back up again, moving all the way from Central America and Mexico. And as we saw last night quite a bit of severe weather across South Dakota, parts of Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Iowa and that subtropical moisture going around the high that's over the Central and Eastern parts of The United States will continue to feed more shower and thunderstorm development here over the next five to seven days and we're also going to see, you mentioned cooler weather, it is going to allow a shift to happen across really all of North America that will lead to in the seven day period coming on up, we're just going to do going to go in reverse.
Don Day:We're going see temperatures going the other way. Temperatures look to be below average as we put an end to this current heat spell.
Todd Gleason:Speaking of the events that took place late yesterday afternoon and last night, were any of those of substantial enough problem that it created what the meteorologist would call a derecho?
Don Day:Yeah, it was a setup that causes derecho's where we had more reports of wind damage than any other reports from straight line winds. Winds gusting eighty, ninety miles an hour. More wind reports of damage than, let's say, hail. We had three tornadoes, but the just the strong wind gust kind of overshadowed the tornado activity. We may very well see a similar situation for parts of Nebraska and Western parts of Iowa tonight as there will be a little bit of a repeat performance.
Todd Gleason:Okay. Looking forward, you talked about some of the cooler weather coming in. What do you see next week then?
Don Day:Well, what we'll see is, first of all, another round of shower and thunderstorm activity, especially for the northern and northwest areas of the Core Belt. As the cooler air starts to settle in as we get here to the end of the week and the weekend and into early next week, we still see rain chances. Although I think we'll see a shift of the better rain chances more into the eastern and southern areas of the Corn Belt as initially some of this cooler air will bring in some drier air as well.
Todd Gleason:Anything else we should be watching?
Don Day:Let's keep an eye on the Southeast United States as we get out to around, let's say the August, maybe a little before then, we might very well see some tropical storm, tropical depression activity either in the Southeastern Coast Of The United States or into The Gulf.
Todd Gleason:Thank you very much, Don.
Don Day:Thank you.
Todd Gleason:Dundee is with day weather in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Joined us on this Tuesday edition of the closing report from Illinois Public Media. It is public radio for the farming world. Some things to keep track of in our calendar of events, and this first one you'll also find on the website in the articles list. The Empowering Soybean Producers webinar is tomorrow.
Todd Gleason:It starts at nine a. M. Runs through the noon hour. You can still sign up for it today or at least earlier this morning you could, and I'm sure you still can at this point. And then on Thursday, the Illinois Soybean Association will hold its Illinois soy legislative town hall in Bloomington.
Todd Gleason:There's a way through the Illinois Soybean Association to sign up for that event. And at 11AM, I'll host a one big beautiful bill axed tax changes webinar with Bob Ray, the strategic planning you'll need to take for your farming operation this year and into the future as the changes will be put into place from that legislative bill signed earlier this month. All of these details are in our website. Look into the calendar of events at the bottom of the page. They're all three marked in red.
Todd Gleason:You have a good afternoon. I'm Illinois Extension's Todd Gleason.
