Sep 03 | Closing Market Report
From the Lende to Grant University in Urbana Champaign, Illinois. This is the closing market report. It is the September 2025. Coming up, we'll talk about the commodity markets with Greg Johnson. Allendale just released its farmer yield survey.
Todd Gleason:We'll have the results and discuss those with Rich Nelson, and we'll turn our attention to the weather forecast. Cold, maybe even frost, possibly freeze, says Drew Lerner. Stay with us right here on the closing market report. December corn for the day settled at $4.18. It was a nickel lower.
Todd Gleason:The March down four and three quarters at $4.36. May four and three quarters lowered $4.46. November beans at $10.31 and a half down 9 and a half cents. And the January $10.50 down 9 and a half cents as well. Greg Johnson from TGM, that's totalgrainmarketing.com now joins us to take a look at the marketplace.
Todd Gleason:Hi, Greg. Thank you for being with us again this week.
Greg Johnson:It's good to be with you, Todd.
Todd Gleason:Are you busy getting ready for the harvest season?
Greg Johnson:We are. This dry weather has really sped things along. I think we will probably see a little bit of harvest activity next week and for sure the following week, I think we'll see a lot more people, up and running, that week of the, fifteenth.
Todd Gleason:You did not take the soybean field that I saw was coming off yesterday, and I take it in that case because I saw one, and it looked like it was ready. They were parked when I when I came by, but it was interesting that there was one off. I talked to my brothers and I said, you know, we're coming to come early here, and you just go 80 miles straight west. And they're still thinking it'll be September 20 before they even think about it. So just depends on where you are and how much rainfall you've gotten.
Todd Gleason:But I I also wanna know what you think that means across the state of Illinois as it relates to to yield for corn and soybeans.
Greg Johnson:Unfortunately, think here in Central, East Central Illinois, we're probably responsible for bringing the statewide average down. I think based on a lot of the private crop tours that we've seen go happen here along some of the county farm bureaus here in East Central Illinois, we're down about 10 bushels from last year's numbers, which isn't a disaster, but with these prices, we certainly would have liked to have had more bushels to offset the lower prices. So I think we're 10 bushels lower than last year on corn, but that's here in Central Illinois. Northern Illinois, I think is gonna be above average. I think they're gonna be above last year.
Greg Johnson:They could be five bushels higher than last year. So when you take five bushels higher in the northern part of the state and 10 bushels lower here in the central part of the state, East Central part of the state, I think the Illinois number may be five bushels too high. I could believe that. I could agree with people that are saying that. The problem is that's just one state.
Greg Johnson:If you look at other areas that have gotten plenty of rain, Northern Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, the Dakotas, probably the yields are gonna be pretty good in those areas. And if just a relatively small region here in East Central Illinois is lower, I'm just not sure if that's a big enough area to get the market to move higher.
Todd Gleason:In just a bit we should talk with Rich Nelson from Allendale. They released the results of their surveys, on they cover about 87% of total corn production, 84% of, total soybean production with their survey. Of the 12 states in the Midwest, they came up with higher yields than USDA in Iowa, Minnesota, both of the Dakotas and Nebraska, and those were already big numbers. It just shows that they've had a lot of rainfall this season and came through as you suggested with really big numbers. That'll back up, I would think, in into our part of the world where we may need some more.
Todd Gleason:There might be some call. We've talked a lot about bases. Will your bases be better, do you think, because of the 10 bushel shy that you think we're we're looking at in this area?
Greg Johnson:If it was just based on the corn yield, would say yes, there would have been a chance for better basis. The problem is we still don't have a bean export program going on. China has still not bought any beans and they're responsible for a big chunk of our soybean export program. Without that, beans just aren't going to move this fall like they normally do in the fall. And so beans are going to have to be stored and that's going to take away from some of the storage space that normally is allocated to corn.
Greg Johnson:So even though the corn yield is a little bit smaller, the fact that we're gonna be storing more beans in the fall as a as a nation probably, would make me think that basis levels will continue to be under pressure throughout most of the fall harvest.
Todd Gleason:What have you been watching most attentively this week? I know the Farm Bureau numbers some of those crop tours that are coming in later in the season. What else?
Greg Johnson:Well, really, we need to see this rain. The soybeans are the one thing. I think corn's far enough along that even if it doesn't rain anymore, I think you could say the corn is what it is. You know, maybe a little bit of test weight might be lost or gained if we get some rain or if we don't get some rain, but the soybeans are the ones that really the yields could really be affected. It's been dry for at least three weeks and if we don't get this rain here today, there's not much rain in the forecast for the next seven to ten days.
Greg Johnson:So these soybean yields could be very much lower than what were hoping for. The pod counts were extremely high, Pro Farmer and others are all finding extremely high pod counts. So, you know, the potential is there, but we need some rain to fill out those top pods. If we get the rain, I think we could still have a decent bean crop, but every day that doesn't rain, we're probably losing a little bit of soybean yield, especially here in East Central Illinois.
Todd Gleason:Yeah. Are you continually getting calls, more calls from farmers as the dryness continues in the area, that are worried that they just didn't sell enough for upfront, and now they don't have the extra bushels that maybe they thought they did as of August 1?
Greg Johnson:Exactly. Yeah. You know, normally we get a summer rally. We didn't get one this year, so farmers tended to hold on waiting for that rally and didn't get one. And in hindsight, we probably should have sold at those prices, which weren't great, but as it turns out, they were the best prices we saw.
Greg Johnson:So yeah, it's a gonna tough year because the rally, if we get one, probably won't come until after harvest. And so if you've got bins, obviously bins will pay for themselves this year, but if you have to pay either high DP charges or put it on a wide basis or pay extremely high prices for options, it's it's gonna be tough to make money if you don't have bin space.
Todd Gleason:Now Ed did tell us yesterday, ag economist from University of Minnesota, that, the carry in the market was something he thought producers, especially if they were behind, and he knows that they are, should take advantage of. You kind of just told us that as well. But he's saying if you're gonna do it, actually need to look and take take advantage of it, make a cash sale or do something to to capture that carry.
Greg Johnson:Exactly. I mean, July corn futures are trading over $4.50. So rather than sell corn at sub $4 if you've got bins, you can sell July corn today for $4.50 on the board. Now the basis, you might have to take 10 or 20¢ off of that, but it's still gonna be 40 to 50¢ better than what the cash bid is. And again, if you've got bin space and you sell that carry, you can capture that carry and it may not be a extremely attractive price, but it's, like I say, it's 40 to 50¢ better than where we are today and it doesn't cost you 40 or 50¢ to store it if you've got your own bin.
Greg Johnson:So that's something that farmers definitely should take a look at.
Todd Gleason:You know, there are a couple of things that sort of I was looking at the weekly charts for both December corn and November beans earlier today. Beans since January, and they made a contract low, I think, in in that time frame, or a low. I have been trading been trading from, I don't know, $9.80 to $10.60. We were close to that $10.60 mark, in the last few days in a range. Corn, however, has just been steadily declining through that whole period despite the fact that we've had just really, really, really good consumption.
Todd Gleason:Any good ideas why that would be the case?
Greg Johnson:You know, that that one eighty eight yield from the USDA really
Todd Gleason:Yes. It did. Yeah.
Todd Gleason:I I suppose I mean, it's obvious. Right? It it it was the acreage up front and the one eighty eight on nearly 189 from USDA both, wasn't it?
Greg Johnson:Yeah, and even if you take the yield down to 185, which is very, very believable once they get out in the field and actually do some hand sampling, you know, 185 is still gonna be a record yield by four bushels. Know, the old record was 181 and you know, anything above that is still gonna be plenty of corn. Like you said, with the extra 2,000,000 acres on top of that, we've got plenty of corn. So we need good exports, we need good feed demand, which we don't have, and we need good ethanol demand, which is kind of steady. So yeah, we we need good demand to get rid of all this extra corn.
Greg Johnson:That's the bottom line.
Todd Gleason:Interesting that you said we need good fin feed demand, which we don't have because USDA says we do have it. It'll be interesting to see how right? It'll be interesting to see how all that plays out. Hey. Thank you much.
Todd Gleason:I appreciate it, Greg. We'll talk with you again next week.
Greg Johnson:Hey. Thanks, Todd.
Todd Gleason:Greg Johnson is with TGM. That's totalgrainmarketing.com. I told you we'd be talking with Rich Nelson from Allendale. They released their annual survey of farmers and yield expectations. He's now with us.
Todd Gleason:Hi Rich, thank you for taking some time with me. You give me a quick history of this survey? How old is it and how accurate might it be?
Rich Nelson:Certainly, so we've completed the results of a thirty sixth annual Allendale Nationwide Yield survey. This one in general is a two week survey of producers. It's covered in the last two weeks of August with an attempt and a general idea here to see what we can do as far as matching up with USDA's own September release of yield numbers. Now as far as the accuracy here goes over on the corn side in the past fifteen years we've generally been within about two bushels I want to say about 12 here it is 11 of those past fifteen years we've been within two bushels of USDA's September yield number. Data four years range from 2.3 to 4.6 bushels off.
Rich Nelson:So overall, for the survey, and certainly for a survey in September, very very close to what USDA may show. Numbers on the soybeans in terms of the past fifteen years, we've been within 1.5 bushels an acre of USDA's number 10 of those years. And really interesting to point out, last year was extremely accurate. We were only 1.1 bushel off USDA for corn and 0.1 for soybeans.
Todd Gleason:What did the survey results show for this year?
Rich Nelson:So USDA gave the trade a bit of a surprise here with their August numbers. They put yields at 188.8 around The US for corn and they suggested a 53.6 number here for soybeans and the the corn number was the bigger surprise of those two. Our survey actually suggested we may not see that much of a break on this coming report. For corn 187.5% and for soybeans 53.3 for nationwide numbers.
Todd Gleason:You do break these out by state. I made note that Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota, the two Dakotas were all higher than the USDA August figures.
Rich Nelson:Sure is right and we really found a pattern which did kind of match up with that August rainfall discussion. Eastern Corn Belt did see very light declines in yield as well as Missouri due to that dryness situation. But keep in mind for most of the West they did have some good rainfall overall and so we did see those numbers likely boosted. Yes, a net decline in yield was minimally but overall lower in the East and a little higher in the West.
Todd Gleason:Were you surprised that the Iowa number which was really big from USDA at two twenty two bushels to the acre was bigger in your survey by a full bushel at two twenty three?
Rich Nelson:I was a little bit and one thing I will say and people may want to criticize this survey and say well does this include the REST issue, the disease issues we heard so much about? The issue which we probably will see is those may not really play into USDA's own numbers or our survey number, maybe until October, maybe until we see November for instance. Overall on the Iowa side, yes, we did push numbers on the corn. One bushel over USDA soybeans two bushels over USDA.
Todd Gleason:In Illinois you, have a break from 02/21, from USDA down to 02/16. That seems like that's probably in line. Where were the places that were really good in the state and those that were not so much?
Rich Nelson:You know, of course, we're gonna have a discussion about some of the drier areas on the East Central Side. That's probably where we saw the larger of the hits. And the people on the Northwest Side who did participate in that generally very good July rainfall, that certainly was our distinction right there. So certainly for the eastern third and specifically the East and South southern portions, that's where we did see the problem show up here.
Todd Gleason:Anything else out of the survey that we should talk about or can we discuss what you're thinking as it's related to marketing for just a moment?
Rich Nelson:Let's discuss one additional thing which we do include with our survey and We do ask producers questions regarding their marketing. How much they have marketed for old crop and new crop. I will point out here, new crop corn sales only 15% complete. Over the prior five years those numbers range from 21 to 35. Is not a surprise to anybody.
Rich Nelson:Certainly the point is we've got some very low new crop marketing. For soybeans 16% of new crop has been sold. The prior five years were from 20 to 34%. So not a big surprise to anyone but certainly those numbers do give us a bit of concern here for us.
Todd Gleason:At this point I think most are suggesting that particularly for corn but for corn soybeans and wheat if you've not marketed enough that trying to capture the carry in the marketplace is something you should do. Would you agree?
Rich Nelson:Certainly right. So of course in big crop years with large crops the market does put in additional premiums in those back month futures. Even though we may not like this near term price perhaps we can capture the carry by selling for instance the March or the May contracts accepting that higher level of a premium.
Todd Gleason:Alright. Hey. Thank you much. I appreciate it.
Rich Nelson:Thank you much. I appreciate it.
Todd Gleason:That's Rich Nelson with Allendale. It just completed its annual yield survey done with farmers across the nation. Let's check the weather forecast now with Drew Lerner at World Weather Incorporated in Kansas City. Thanks, Drew, for taking some time with me again today.
Drew Lerner:Absolutely. It's a beautiful day to be with you.
Todd Gleason:It has just been magnificent. The weather was great for Farm Progress Show last week. Do you think well, we've been dry here, suppose, for three weeks, and it shows we'll have an early harvest. But do you think that we can continue a good fall across much of the Midwest?
Drew Lerner:Yeah. You know, we will, but we also have a few bumps in the road to deal with. Now first of all, let me address the dry issue first. And a big part of the Lower Midwest and the Northern Delta and the Tennessee River Basin are chronically dry at this point, both top and subsoil running very short. And I don't see enough moisture coming up over the next couple of weeks to really change that perspective at all.
Drew Lerner:Maybe a few showers that might moisten up the topsoil, settle the dust a little bit, but it's pretty late in the year. So it's not like we're going to really make a big difference, but some of these crops are pretty stressed right now. And I think that that's going to continue. In the meantime, it's still pretty moist in the Northwestern half of the Corn Belt and we have a lot of green crops still up that way, which raises an interesting question in my mind. You know, we're looking at a succession of three cold air masses coming out of the Arctic, into Canada.
Drew Lerner:And, this is building a very large pool of colder than normal air. And of course, everybody's aware that the temperatures are going to be below normal for the next five to seven days. But I think that there's a tendency here for folks to underestimate the intensity of this cold. Some of the computer forecast models have kind of just suggested, oh yeah, middle and upper thirties is as cold as it's going to get. Well, I don't buy into that.
Drew Lerner:I think it's going to end up being colder. And I do think we're going to see some freezes across North Dakota, portions of Minnesota and Wisconsin and Upper Michigan. And we may see frost all the way down into parts of Northern Iowa possibly. And this all is going to occur from Friday into Sunday, maybe some frost still lingering on Monday. And I just find it interesting that the majority of the forecasters out there are not really making much out of this.
Drew Lerner:And it just seems like every day we come in and there's just a little bit higher volume of cold being advertised and there has been a trend in the model data to suggest that the temperatures are going to be lower than they were a day or two earlier. So there's a trend here that we need to pay attention to. I am concerned about immature crops in those states that I mentioned. It may not be that big a deal because we do have such a large crop, but if you're a producer in one of those areas and you're gonna see some freezing temperatures, you're not gonna be very happy with the outcome.
Todd Gleason:So when you talk about the pool of cold air, it gathers there and then eventually it sort of dumps out and it's gonna dump out across the Northern Plains and into the Northwestern Corn Belt at that point. When you're watching this, as this cold air gathers, what what is it that tells you that it's gathering and and that it's becoming a potential problem? How big does it have to get in order for it to cross such vast of areas that have been, I guess they've been cooling down, they're still fairly warm and and not pick up just radiant heat from the earth?
Drew Lerner:Yeah. And that's that's the key. That is exactly the key. Earlier this week and even late last week, the model data was suggesting, oh, there's going to be one, you know, shot of cool air. It will come and go.
Drew Lerner:It'll be quick and it's not gonna not gonna have much of an impact because of what you just said. There's so much heat in the ground that, you know, it won't have an impact. But then earlier this week, I think it was Monday, there was all of a sudden two surges of cold air. And also with those two surges of cold, there was also a more significant upper level trough of low pressure evolving over Ontario. And now in today's data and starting last night, there is a third surge of cold and all three surges will come down.
Drew Lerner:The first one will obviously moderate greatly because of the radiant heat, as you mentioned. The second one is the more intense and more deep cold. And so it'll really drop the temperatures quite a bit. And again, the air mass will moderate a little bit, but not as much as the first surge of cold. And then we get the third surge to come in and reinforce that second.
Drew Lerner:And so you've got this broad area of cold air that is in Saskatchewan and Manitoba centered on the backside of this deep trough of low pressure that'll be over Ontario. And because the trough doesn't move much through the weekend, the cold will just kind of pool up in those areas and eventually a surface high pressure system that will be fairly strong in size will develop on the backside of that trough and we'll start pushing the cold into The US. So that's what I'm seeing here. And the trend has to reverse if we're going to back out of this without having a little bit more significant frost and freezes in these states that I've mentioned. So at the moment we're only getting colder and not warmer.
Drew Lerner:And I think we're running out of time. It's already Wednesday. We've had our first frost and some freezes in Saskatchewan this morning and temperatures were about a degree colder than expected this morning. Now you may think a degree doesn't matter, but when you're talking about frost versus freezes, it does become a significant feature. Since the next surge of cold will be more intense, and I'm a little concerned that the temperatures will already be colder biased on Saturday and Sunday when the coldest air finally pools into the region.
Todd Gleason:Well, next week when we talk on Wednesday, you'll be both the hero for predicting it and the villain if it comes true. And if it doesn't happen, we just won't talk about it at all.
Drew Lerner:Well, that sounds like a good plan to me. Maybe you don't even bother to call me.
Todd Gleason:That's right. And then one last item. Very quickly, South America, Mato Grosso has started to move today and depending on where you are in the in Brazil, I should say, in Mato Grosso, I think, the fifteenth. What what do you see for the beginning of their season?
Drew Lerner:Yeah. We're gonna start off with a little bit of a drier tendency. There'll be a little nervousness, especially since some of the, computer forecast models out there are suggesting La Nina or a La Nina like environment may evolve. But one of the words of caution I wanna leave you with is that in order to have those really poor early season rain events, taking place in late September and October, because of a La Nina, you'd really need the La Nina event to be already developed when you go into August and early September. And we don't have that today.
Drew Lerner:And so really looking at the South America rainfall pattern over the past few weeks and including the big rain that just occurred in Argentina this past weekend tells me that the atmosphere is still operating in a normal fashion and that there is no bias at the moment with a La Nina. So I think we're gonna get to late September and we'll start off a little bit dry, but I think that we'll start seeing the pop up showers and thunderstorms occurring as they would normally. But I do think that as we get into the latter October and early November, there may be less than normal rain in places like Eastern Argentina, Uruguay, Rio Grande do Sul and parts of Paraguay. But I think the showers that occur in Mato Grosso and Goias will probably occur relatively normally with maybe just a little less than usual amounts of rain.
Todd Gleason:Hey. Thank you much. We'll talk with you next Wednesday.
Drew Lerner:Alright. Have a good week.
Todd Gleason:You too. Drew Lerner is with World Weather Incorporated in Kansas City joined us on this Wednesday edition of the closing market report. It came to you from Illinois Public Media. I'm Todd Gleason.
