Sep 12 | Closing Market Report
From the Land Grant University in Urbana Champaign, Illinois. This is the closing market reported as the September 2025. I'm extension's Todd Gleeson. Coming up, we'll talk about the commodity markets and this morning's USDA reports with Mike Zuzula, globalcomresearch.com out of Atchison, Kansas, and Eric Snodgrass will be here to take a look at the agricultural weather forecast. Do while we're in the midst of this program, dial this number (217) 244-9455, or go to willgive.0rg, and pledge your financial support.
Todd Gleason:We're in our last afternoon at the fall fund drive. If you've not given yet, thank you for making that conversation happen today. Don't wait. Do it right now. We'll give.org or (217) 244-9455.
Todd Gleason:December corn today settled up 10 and a quarter cents at $4 and 30. The March at $4.47 at a quarter, a dime higher, and May up 9 and a half cents. It settled at $4.57. November beans at $10.46 and a quarter, up 12 and 3 quarters. January 1065 at a quarter, twelve and three quarters higher, and the March at $10.80 and a quarter, up 12 and a quarter.
Todd Gleason:Mike Zuzlow, globalcommresearch.com out of Atchison, Kansas now joins us to take a look at the USDA report numbers and what impact they had on the marketplace. Thank you, Mike, for being with us. I'm gonna run through some of the numbers very quickly. Ending stocks for this year on corn at 1,325,000,000 bushels. Harvested acres at 90,000,000 acres, that's up.
Todd Gleason:We can talk about that. And you can give us the 98.7, I think. I can't quite remember for the new planted acres, up some, more than a million acres. Yielded one eighty six point seven. That was down from the $1.88 8.
Todd Gleason:Total production at 16.814. Ending stocks now for the time we get to next fall at 2,110,000,000 bushels. They did not change the the season's average cash price. It's at $3.90. Beginning stocks for soybeans, 330,000,000.
Todd Gleason:The harvested acres at 80.3. Yield at 53.5. That's just down a tenth of a bushel. Total production at 4,300,000,000 bushels. Ending stocks for next year, remember this year is three thirty.
Todd Gleason:Next year, 300,000,000 bushels, and they dropped saving price to $10 even for the season's average cash price. What'd you think all the numbers as they came through this morning?
Mike Zuzolo:Well, the first initial reaction I had, Todd, and I sent out to clients and subscribers on a flash email was, number one, can corn go it alone with these numbers? And I didn't think it could. And number two, could corn get some help from soybeans or and or wheat? And I didn't think that was likely either, especially given the wheat number, not just domestically, but more importantly, the global number. About every exporter we have saw an increase in wheat production versus last month.
Mike Zuzolo:But, you know, swinging back and circling back to your 90,000,000 harvested and 98,700,000 planted on the corn. By the way the corn market was able to rally about a dime, it clearly led the market higher in percentage terms, and the bull spread was clearly the main feature to the post report environment. I think we can walk away from Friday and say the trade did not believe either the harvested acreage increase or the yield, but the net net of it is is that I don't think the trade sees a 2,100,000,000 bushel carryover. I think they see a sub 2,000,000,000 bushel carryover. And why I bring that up specifically is I would have liked to have had a similar price action as the 2024 in September after the September crop report where the beans really added a lot of support.
Mike Zuzolo:They did add support on Friday. I don't wanna make it sound like they didn't, but I I wonder if that was not because of The US China trade negotiations that are gonna be happening next week. So I'm walking very gingerly with this market reaction, surprised that the trade decided to, in my view, go against USDA's fundamentals unless you're talking about looking at US stocks to use ratios, which slipped in corn and and slipped in wheat as well.
Todd Gleason:Yeah. So it's almost as if you're saying, you know, if soybeans were there, it it bought us another month until we got to the crop production report in October, to have some kind of rally in the marketplace. However, without soybeans and wheat, you're still concerned?
Mike Zuzolo:Yeah. I think that's a great way to say it. And I think what we're what I'm trying to get at probably is and I'm still working through this in my own mind is, are we now going to push premium into the prices early, assuming the disease pressure in Iowa is real and it's gonna really hit us, and also assuming that the anecdotal farmer phone conversations, text messages I've been getting on soybeans, especially East Of The Mississippi River, would suggest this this corn and bean yields are both going to go lower. And I I do think that when the corn yield is looked at especially, not so much bean yield because there are some indications that maybe we'll get a little bit of a lighter a better chance of rains to maybe swing the beans back around a little bit depending on maturity. But we're still up about a percent from last year in corn yield at two nineteen.
Mike Zuzolo:We're still up three and a half percent in beans, excuse me, in in in Indiana in corn yield at two zero five, and we're still up almost 10% in Ohio at a 194. Those are the three states that haven't seen any rains, and those are the clients that I'm hearing most from.
Todd Gleason:So kind of a buy the rumor, sell the fact function going forward for the trade, which means it would be an opportunity potentially for producers to think about making sales of some sort, particularly for corn, I think, in the next month. How do you want them to play that out? And I I guess you you need some time maybe to think it through, but I I think that's what you're telling me.
Mike Zuzolo:You're right. And initially and it's so nice to be able to do interviews with you, Todd, because you can understand what I'm saying, and I'm probably not super clear today. The the key with me next week will be, yes, to answer your question, make some hedges. I did some before the report on Friday in 26 soybeans and also some off the combine 25 corn to get caught up a little bit. I'm not more than 25% sold, though, in 25 corn at this point in total when it comes to cash sale recommendations.
Mike Zuzolo:But the key to next week will be those US China trade negotiations. And I'm very nervous about those because I think the trade's thinking we might get something done. I think the geopolitics of what happened in Poland, what the European Union is being asked to do in terms of do a 100% tariffs on on China and India to cut off the flow of Russian oil, and what Mexico did, I think, at the behest of The United States, and that was put a 10 to 50% tariff on China's incoming goods. This all bodes pretty negatively for our negotiations, I think. So my my level of optimism is very low when it comes to The US and China striking a deal, and I wanna figure out and find out what the trade does if that is indeed the case by the end of next week.
Todd Gleason:Interesting. So it's all about next week in Washington and well, actually, where are they meeting? I don't recall. It's I saw it. It was someplace different than than normal.
Todd Gleason:Anyway
Mike Zuzolo:I wanna say it's Spain, but I can't
Todd Gleason:Oh, yes. Yes. It was in Spain. I believe. Yeah.
Todd Gleason:It was
Todd Gleason:I know. I know. I know. So we'll we'll we'll be keeping track of what's happening in Spain next week. It'll be in the European Union, so there probably will be some pretty good facts and factoids that are coming out of that particular meeting set.
Todd Gleason:We'll see how that plays next week. The soybean number from USDA, just down a tenth of a bushel, That okay with you?
Mike Zuzolo:Yeah. I'm okay with that. I mean, my my guess was a little bit lower than that, but not a lot. It was around 52.9, but I think it's gonna drop towards the 50 and a half, 51 when it's all said and done. The clients in Illinois along I-seventy and US 50 are essentially telling me that there's quite a few fields of double crop wheat beans that are just not going to make anything.
Mike Zuzolo:And we had big acres in double crop this year in that state. And so I do think there's some downward pressure coming on the yields for beans. It's just China is also curbing their hog production, and they're having a big meeting at the October 1, September, with 25 of their firms. It's been reported by Bloomberg to figure out exactly how much they need to cut as far as production. So I'm not so sure China is going to be needing as much as we think they will at this stage.
Mike Zuzolo:It's still an ongoing issue for me. The other thing I would mention is you noticed that the corn market was the leader to the upside, feeders the leader to the downside. Those funds, I think, continue to liquidate their positions. Long feeder, short corn We're eating into some key technical levels on the monthly charts, and so probably getting some hedges in place next week if that corn and bean market can see follow through.
Todd Gleason:No. And USDA in the supply and demand table added another 100,000,000 bushels of exports to corn. What'd you think of it?
Mike Zuzolo:I I think they're really pushing on a string at this point to see 3,000,000,000 bushels of corn exports when they raised the Brazilian corn crop for this last year, 3,000,000 tons in today's report. I'm I'm not sure that they're planning on another 10% loss in the dollar. It's about the only way I could see it happen, honestly, Todd.
Todd Gleason:Okay. Hey. Thanks, Buck. We'll talk with you again next week.
Mike Zuzolo:Thanks, buddy.
Todd Gleason:That is Mike Zuzlow. He's at global com research dot com. Stephen Long, Eichenberry Endowed University Chair of Crop Sciences and Plant Biology passed away earlier this week. He joined the University of Illinois in 1999 and quickly established an internationally recognized research program dedicated to understanding the full complexity of photosynthesis. If you listen often, you heard him talk about this earlier in the summer during this program.
Todd Gleason:Steve Long's pioneering work on photosynthesis transformed knowledge into real world impact, advancing higher yielding crops, leading the international Realizing Increased Photosynthetic Efficiency and helping create facilities such as the Energy Farm and Soy Face here on campus that continue to serve as global models for agricultural research. His scholarship earned him some of the highest honors in science, including elections to the Royal Society and the National Academy of Sciences. He was consistently one of the most highly cited scientists at the University of Illinois, reflecting the global reach of his work. The Dean of the College of ACES, Herman Bolero, this morning wrote that just as importantly, Professor Long was a mentor and a colleague whose generosity, warmth, and vision shaped the careers of countless students, postdoctoral researchers, and faculty. As many who worked with him have said, his influence reached far beyond his research.
Todd Gleason:He inspired people to care deeply about science and to take on society's greatest challenges with creativity and determination. Stephen Long, a pioneer for the modern age, passed earlier this week. His work will impact agriculture for decades to come. Let's check the weather forecast now with Eric Snodgrass at Nutrien Ag Solutions and Aggrable for the growing regions across the planet. Thanks, Eric, for joining us on the Celebrate Food and Ag weekend here for football at the University of Illinois.
Eric Snodgrass:Yeah. It's hopefully, we get another w out of it too.
Todd Gleason:Well, let's hope for a w. We were hoping for a w in the let's get some rain column, but, yeah, that didn't happen. So let's start there with how dry it is in our part of the world and other places across the Midwest.
Eric Snodgrass:Yeah. I mean, Todd, it's it's it's pretty bad, honestly, and it's taken the top end off of this crop. And we've not yet seen, I think, the kind of reaction I think a lot of us would have hoped to have seen. But the reality is is we've got places as you get into parts of Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas that have gone more than fifty, five zero, fifty days without rainfall. And now we see the Mississippi at five feet below low stage.
Eric Snodgrass:In fact, Todd, every late summer and early fall time period since 2019, okay, so not including 2019, so 2020 and beyond, the Mississippi has done this. And we've really found ourselves in this position a lot lately. Now I've been trying to link it up to something, trying to understand what's going on in the pattern. And there seems to be a pretty strong relationship with how warm the Gulf Of Alaska gets. So that pattern tends to give us a lot of storms in, you know, June, July, August, and a lot of dryness afterward.
Eric Snodgrass:But I'm just concerned about it, Todd, because this fifteen day forecast is terrible. Like, no one's gonna wanna see what I have to share. There's maybe a chance of some storms this weekend, but they're not gonna bust the drought. And they're gonna be coming in as the daytime highs plow into the low to mid nineties, which is gonna be quite unpleasant. So if you're going to that football game, you know, be prepared, especially if you're tailgating.
Eric Snodgrass:Have sunscreen, drink a lot of water, because it's gonna be a hot weekend and dry one for most of us.
Todd Gleason:So not the humidity that we've been used to early in the summer, but hot. As the Nebraskans would say, it's hot, but it's dry. So the dry heat's better than humid heat, I guess. I guess. I suppose.
Todd Gleason:We'll we'll see. Good luck to the Illini, of course. Let's talk about that dryness and what you think it might mean to the crops across the Midwest. USDA, of course, released its set of numbers for crop production today and increased acreage and yield both. Well, I'm sorry.
Todd Gleason:Increased acreage, but dropped yield, not as much as the trade had expected, though.
Eric Snodgrass:Yeah. I mean, I don't ever know what to expect them to do. But I I I'll just say this. Most of the growers, I think, around, that area I just described as silver every dry are going to be just continuing to find, you know, I think just more disappointment than earlier anticipations were. Right?
Eric Snodgrass:I think we saw this crop in July and early August just being incredible, and then then we started to get into the dryness. And, Todd, I mean, there's been a fifteen, one five, a 15% increase in drought area in the country in the last four weeks alone. That's huge. And most of it has been in Illinois, Missouri, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas. Right?
Eric Snodgrass:That that's the epicenter of where this dryness has really come in place. So I I am I wish I could have dialed it up differently, Todd, but but it doesn't seem to be that way.
Todd Gleason:And as we look at the numbers just offhand, because we probably already talked about this a little bit, USDA still putting our crop size in Illinois at 219 bushels to the acre, just down nine tenths of a cent, bushel from the previous month. That's a big number. They also have Iowa down, and they're now also at two nineteen. They were leading Illinois, about two of them still at 219 bushels to the acre. For corn, I want to talk a little bit about further out, and what harvest might look like because harvest in hot weather, the problems are are difficult, particularly if it gets a little windy, and there might be some issues related to, you know, there's a lot of equipment on the field and fire start fairly easily.
Todd Gleason:We can talk about that and what you think might come. And then what the end of the month would bring when really the bulk of the Midwest begins to harvest its corn crop.
Eric Snodgrass:Yeah. Yeah. So I you know, last Sunday morning, I got a text from a colleague of mine. His name is Judy. Lives down in kinda Southeastern Illinois.
Eric Snodgrass:It's like, I am inspecting all my bearings. And it's just he's he's in the epicenter of this drought, and and I think every one of us should just to make sure that we are doing everything to be as safe as we can given how high the fire risk is gonna be because the heat's coming back in, so evaporation rates continue to go up. Corn's gonna dry down very quickly as our beans. And then as we begin to harvest, there is just there's just no moisture. And as a result, we have pretty high fire risk.
Eric Snodgrass:But the question is how long does heat last? Because it is coming in. It's gonna be hot through this weekend and early next week. But there are some signals, and Todd, do not hold me to this because I'm I'm getting a little speculative here. But I think we could see the September into the October mimic what we saw during the August into the September, which was much, much cooler east and very, very hot west.
Eric Snodgrass:There are some lead indicators that suggest that could happen. But as we get into that time period of harvest, I I don't know that that's necessarily gonna be a bad thing overall. And the rest of fall, to be honest, unless we can get something cooking in the tropics remember, it's the peak of the hurricane season right now, and we've got one little area we're watching that's got, like, a 40% chance of going. I think it's gonna be more attention paid in the second half of the season to The Gulf, the Bay Of Campeche, The Caribbean as a potential source region. And Todd, you would not believe the number of people that have texted or emailed or called and said, hey, what's it gonna take to break this drought?
Eric Snodgrass:Can you just dial me up a little weak hurricane? And I'm like, we're at the point we're praying for hurricanes, so it's, it's concerning. And I think we need to pay a lot of attention to where it goes in the next, six to eight weeks.
Todd Gleason:Yeah. Now one of the things that we will talk about because we'll start to stop talking about the Midwest and turn our attention entirely to South America by the time we get to, I don't know, November unless we have just you know, we start to mud it out for some reason here. It doesn't feel like that's gonna be the case. So what do you see in South America at the beginning of their growing season?
Eric Snodgrass:Yeah. So I mean, there's been planting, right? We know they're going and after this weekend, everyone has permission to plant. So the question is which model is gonna be right? You got the GFS, which is just bone dry and it would suggest they're gonna have to sit on their hands until October.
Eric Snodgrass:Then you have the European model, which just wants to provide rain to the key states that want to plant early. And everyone asks, well, which one is right? I actually think neither is right. Until I get a good signal for the monsoon, I'm gonna have to rely on historical precedent, which is, Todd, you know, go back over the last fifty years, October has been becoming drier for much of Brazil. So the monsoon's gonna come in in fits and starts, and we really just need to pay attention to the numbers by mid October to late October to see if their crop calendar's all compressed or if it's gonna open up.
Eric Snodgrass:And I will tell you one more thing, Todd. I've been bugged by something in the Northern Hemisphere that might outdo La Nina, and that is the warmth in the North Pacific. So just put this in the back of your head for winter. If we keep the really hot water in the Gulf Of Alaska, we might have a legit winter around here with some snow to push around, but that's all predicated on one feature in the Gulf Of Alaska. And but that's how we do.
Eric Snodgrass:Right? We we hone in on these in these things and try to see if they have any sort of longer term implications.
Todd Gleason:You still have two. Right? Two snow throwers, don't you?
Eric Snodgrass:Yes. And you can sell one now. My son tried to sell one in the middle of summer, but guess what? No one bid on it, and so it's still sitting in my backyard.
Todd Gleason:Well, if you sell it, there'll be a lot of snow. You wish you and your son could move it together. Okay. Hey. Thank you much.
Todd Gleason:I appreciate it. We'll talk with you again next week.
Eric Snodgrass:Alright. Thanks, Doug.
Todd Gleason:That's Eric Snodgrass. He's at Nutrien Ag Solutions and Agrabelle joined us on this Friday edition of the closing market report from Illinois Public Media. It is public radio for the farming world. Do make sure you visit our website at willag.org, and there's a donate button up at the top of the page, or just go to willgive, that's willgive.0rg, or dial this number. With your pledge of financial support, we try to bring you absolutely the best agricultural programming you can find on the radio.
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