Closing Market Report

cmr260916

The September 16, 2026, edition of the Closing Market Report, hosted by Todd Gleason from Illinois Public Media and University of Illinois Extension, covers current commodity markets, agricultural farm management, energy infrastructure, and global weather patterns. The broadcast begins with a commodity market recap featuring Greg Johnson of Total Grain Marketing, who discusses grain and livestock price action, market volatility tied to rumors concerning Chinese President Xi Jinping, CONAB’s Brazilian crop projections, and strong spec fund positions amid the early U.S. harvest. Gleason then previews a farmdoc report and upcoming webinar by Gary Schnitkey and Nick Paulson analyzing Illinois county cash rent trends for 2026 and projections into 2027. Transitioning to rural infrastructure, Stephanie Hoff reports on how electric cooperatives are managing the surge in electricity demand from large-scale data centers, featuring insights from NRECA CEO Jim Matheson on permitting hurdles and grid reliability. Finally, meteorologist Drew Lerner of World Weather, Inc. provides a global crop weather update, reviewing drought conditions in the Southern Plains, wet field conditions slowing harvest across portions of the Corn Belt, historically dry waterways impacting grain transport in France and Europe, and early-season planting rainfall across South America.

02:38 Ag Markets with Greg Johnson, TotalGrainMarketing.com
11:10 farmdoc Updates Illinois Cash Rents by County Map
12:52 Data Centers and Electirc Cooperatives
16:10 Ag Weather with Drew Lerner, WorldWeather.cc

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Todd Gleason: From the Land Grant university in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, this is the Closing Market Report. It is the 16th day of September, 2026. I’m Extension’s Todd Gleason.

Coming up, we’ll talk about the commodity markets with Greg Johnson from TGM. We’ll hear about tomorrow’s webinar hosted by Nick Paulson and Gary Schnitkey, members of the farmdoc team, looking forward into 2027 and setting cash rents. If you can go online now at willag.org or to farmdocdaily.illinois.edu, you’ll also find the article they posted yesterday that has the cash rent maps by county in the state of Illinois. Either way, check out the maps and join us tomorrow at 11:00 a.m. Central Time for that webinar. More details on that just a bit.

And then as we continue our program, we’ll talk about data centers and how electric co-ops are dealing with them. Then we’ll turn our attention to the weather forecast, too. Drew Lerner will be here from World Weather, Incorporated, in Kansas City on this Wednesday edition of the Closing Market Report from Illinois Public Media.

Announce: Todd Gleason’s services are made available to WILL by University of Illinois Extension.

Todd Gleason: December corn for the day settled at $5.34 and a quarter, a penny and a half lower. The March at $5.48 and three-quarters, down 1 and a half as well, and the May contract down a penny and a half at $5.55 and a quarter.

November soybeans, $13.20 and a half, up a penny and three-quarters higher. January up 2 at $13.37 and a quarter, and the March at $13.45 and a quarter, 2 and a quarter cents higher. Bean meal futures 80 cents higher at $360.90. The bean oil, $69.19, down 69 cents.

Wheat futures, soft red December contract, $7.30 and three-quarters, up 2 and a quarter cents. The hard red December at $7.99 and a half, up 3 and a quarter cents.

Live cattle futures in Chicago finished at $220.20, that’s down $3.15 per hundredweight. Feeders at $329.65, down $4.20. And lean hogs at $60.95, up 30 cents for the day.

Crude oil at $102.16 a barrel, $3.67 lower. Diesel fuel at $4.99, down a penny and nine-tenths of a cent. And gasoline a penny and eight-tenths lower at $3.22 and seven-tenths of a cent per gallon. Crude oil in the Brent trading at $105.59, down $3.16.

02:38 Ag Markets with Greg Johnson, TotalGrainMarketing.com

Todd Gleason: Greg Johnson from TGM, TotalGrainMarketing.com, now joins us to take a look at the marketplace. The thing I didn’t have on my bingo card today was something with Xi Jinping in India at the BRICS conference, but apparently that’s what has moved the market. Just a rumor first off. So, tell me about that, Greg, to begin with.

Greg Johnson: Yeah, soybeans were trading double digits higher. I think we were 14 cents higher in beans early this morning. Cash beans were over $13 once again. And then the rumor came out that President Xi had had a either some kind of a health-related issue problem, maybe a possible minor stroke. He was not in the pictures when the world leaders took their group photo at the BRICS summit in New Delhi this morning. So that led to the rumors that there was something wrong with his health, and that possibly the U.S.-China meeting that’s supposed to start next week may get pushed back.

And so, as a result, beans went from 14 cents higher to just slightly lower. Not a lot lower, but, you know, that’s about a 15- to 20-cent drop in bean prices this morning. And I would guess we could attribute that almost entirely to the President Xi rumor.

Todd Gleason: Again, just a rumor, but the futures markets do trade on what happens in the future. And so we’ll have to wait to hear more from the Chinese government about President Xi Jinping and then what will or will not take place next week.

It is important to note, though, at this time that next week’s meeting still has not—and this is not particularly unusual—been confirmed by the Chinese government. It wasn’t a month ago. I checked again this morning, and it still had not been confirmed that Xi Jinping would be coming. The United States is doing all the prep work for it, so we’ll see how that turns out.

Yesterday, let’s turn back to some facts, CONAB came out with their numbers looking at last year’s crop and the size of the upcoming crop. Which numbers did you find of most interest?

Greg Johnson: Well, they’re not raising the acreage number all that much. They are increasing—I would have thought with $13 beans that we would have seen a big increase in Brazilian intentions to plant more soybeans, but that’s not really the case. I guess we’re up slightly, but not dramatically. They are increasing the projected yield, which normally would make sense. Trendline yield is higher, but it is an El Niño year. And I think the trade has that in the back of their minds, that you can forecast a better yield, but the likelihood of a super El Niño, especially in the Southern Hemisphere, seems to have more of an impact on the crop down there than it does in the Northern Hemisphere.

So I think that’s something that traders are going to keep an eye on all during the growing season down there. So, slightly more acres, projected higher yield, which would be, you know, 181-, 182-million-metric-ton crop if it all comes to fruition, which is higher than this year’s 180. But a lot of things have to fall in place in order for that to happen.

Todd Gleason: The other thing, and on the rumor notes, sometimes translations don’t come across quite right. And I was translating—I was having Google Translate for me one of the documents in Portuguese from CONAB. They do point to a 2026–2027 corn crop that is likely to be 10% larger than it was in the last year, suggesting that that was mostly due to the expansion of both the livestock and ethanol sectors and likely would be used and consumed inside the country. So, other things that we’ll have to confirm over time and make sure that the translation is right.

Still, the marketplace is long corn at this point, if I remember correctly. Is that right, too?

Greg Johnson: Yeah, the funds, spec funds, are a record, all-time record long in corn as of the numbers that came out last Friday. They’re not record long beans, but they’re near a record long in the soybeans. So obviously they can stay long for an extended period of time. And if China would happen to come in and buy corn or buy more beans, for example, the funds could stay long and actually even add to their length.

But at some point in time, you know, the fear is that what the funds buy, eventually they will sell. And so when exactly that will be, obviously nobody knows. But the fact that they’re as long as they are already, and the fact that we’ve had a nice rally in both corn and soybeans—we’ve had a 25% rally in corn, we’ve given back roughly 5% of that, but that’s still a 20% gain in corn prices since the 1st of July. We had a 15-cent rally in beans, and we’re only 1% off of the high, so we’ve still had a 14% rally net in beans since the 1st of July. And wheat, we had a 30% rally in wheat prices since the 1st of July, and we’ve given back 10% of that. So net gain of 20% higher in both wheat and corn, and about a 15% higher increase in the bean prices just since June 1.

So, something to keep in mind: we have had a nice rally. And not that we can’t go higher, but we have had a nice rally up to this point.

Todd Gleason: This all in the face now of impending, actually getting started on the harvest across the United States, too.

Greg Johnson: Exactly. Around here, we’ve seen a little bit of corn come off. Some of the downed corn, farmers wanted to get that out. We’ve started to see a few beans come in. But for most people that planted their beans first and then planted corn, the corn is still probably a week to 10 days away. So we’re not seeing a lot of activity, a lot of harvest activity here in central Illinois.

But I think as you go south, the farther south you go, the farther along they are. In fact, some farmers are reporting well over half done. So harvest activity is taking place to the south, but around here we’re still about a week away from really getting revved up.

Todd Gleason: What do you think farmers should take away from the trade so far this week and the last couple of days last week?

Greg Johnson: Well, I think we’ve had such a good run-up, there’s a little bit of a cushion in there. And I think that’s why farmers aren’t selling as much as maybe what they would in other years. They know that there’s a cushion in here, that even if beans or corn prices drop, you know, 25 cents or so, they can still sell at those lower levels and still be much higher than probably what they were forecasting even a month ago.

So I guess my takeaway would be draw a line in the sand. You know, there’s nothing wrong with selling. We just don’t want to see this whole thing slip away. I do think we can see higher prices. I still think I’m in the camp that China could come in and buy more corn and soybeans. So I guess I’m friendly, but I also would want to caution people to draw a line in the sand. And if it does start to slip and go the other way, get something sold at those prices, because even if it’s lower than where it is today, it’s still higher than what most producers anticipated that they would get a month or two ago.

Todd Gleason: Speaking of lines in the sand, most of those who are managing money for nations have begun to raise interest rates. Will the Federal Reserve follow through?

Greg Johnson: Well, if Federal Reserve Chairman Warsh wants to keep his short-lived job, he probably won’t. But I think he will. I think the Fed will raise rates. I think there’s like an 80-some-percent chance that they will raise rates at the conclusion of their meeting this week.

So I guess I’m looking for an increase, but I know President Trump is really lobbying hard to not have interest rates raised at the meetings this week. So we’ll see how that all plays out.

Todd Gleason: As it happens, there has been movement at the Federal Reserve, and they did raise the rate a quarter of a percent. It’s the first time that that’s happened, Greg, in the last three years, and the vote to hike interest rates was unanimous.

Hey, thanks much. We appreciate you taking time with us today.

Greg Johnson: Thanks, Todd.

Todd Gleason: That, of course, is Greg Johnson. He is with TGM, TotalGrainMarketing.com.

11:10 farmdoc Updates Illinois Cash Rents by County Map

Todd Gleason: The farmdoc team has released its “Illinois Cash Rents in 2026 and Outlook for 2027” article. It shows that in 2026, the average cash rent for farmland in the state of Illinois took a slight dip for the second year running. While the average rents varied by county, more counties saw lower rents in 2026 than in 2025 compared to those with increases.

The good news, writes the farmdoc team this week on their website, is that higher prices for corn and soybeans have made the return outlook for this year and next look better than in the last three crop years. Plus, producers can expect a payment from the 2025 ARC/PLC program in the next month. Still, the expected returns are lower than the long-term averages. The team, in conclusion, believes cash rents in the state will remain steady into 2027.

Now, if you’d like to read more and see maps with the USDA NASS average cash rents by county in the state of Illinois, you may do so on the Farmdoc Daily website or on willag.org. The farmdoc team, including Gary Schnitkey and Nick Paulson, will also present a webinar on the subject this Thursday at 11:00 a.m. Central Time. Visit farmdocdaily.illinois.edu for that one to find the complete details and to register. You can look under the Webinars and Events tab.

You’re listening to the Closing Market Report from Illinois Public Media. It is public radio for the farming world, online, on demand anytime you’d like to hear us at willag.org, w-i-l-l-a-g.org. Our theme music is written, performed, produced, and courtesy of Logan County, Illinois, farmer Tim Gleason.

Now up next: data centers are driving new demands on the electric grid. Can the grid keep up? Stephanie Hoff has the story.

12:52 Data Centers and Electric Cooperatives

Stephanie Hoff: More data centers are bringing new challenges for utilities across rural America. Jim Matheson joins us. He’s the CEO of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, which represents more than 900 not-for-profit, consumer-owned electric co-ops. He says these co-ops are seeing unprecedented demand from large-scale data center projects, and they’re weighing how to meet that demand while protecting existing customers.

Jim Matheson: Electric demand growth historically has had a certain amount of predictability to it where it’s incremental. But you go to a rural electric cooperative that has a certain load of existing consumers, and you bring in a new 800-megawatt data center, and that can be triple what all the other consumers in that electric cooperative consume. So these are significant amounts that are added all at once in sort of a step function for demand.

And they require some interesting consideration about: Where the power is going to come from? How do you continue to deliver it in a reliable and affordable way? And how do you make sure that your existing consumers are protected from upward price pressures and cross-subsidization?

Stephanie Hoff: Matheson says utilities have been preparing for higher electricity demand coming from manufacturing growth and electric vehicles, for example, but he argues that the ability to build new infrastructure is being slowed by permitting challenges.

Jim Matheson: One of our concerns about this growing demand that we face is it is very difficult to get permitting to build things in this country these days, not just electric assets, but for many industries. And so from a public policy standpoint, we’ve been advocating for reform of our permitting process in this country to create a more predictable, reasonable process. We’re not saying get rid of permitting, but let’s have something with a predictable timeline, with a defined process for who’s in charge of making decisions, and open communication and transparency to make sure the process is moving in a direction that either leads to a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down, but doesn’t lead to just more uncertainty in the future.

Stephanie Hoff: Despite the growing debate around data centers, Matheson says the issue is not whether or not communities should support them.

Jim Matheson: People often ask me, as a national association, “Are you for or against data centers?” And I say, “That’s not the right question.” But what we are for is making sure that our utilities have the ability to make the decision that’s right for them in their local community. We don’t like one-size-fits-all mandates on data centers or any other policy, quite frankly, that’s out there. Because different geographic locations have different characteristics, different capacities, different needs, and different challenges.

Stephanie Hoff: Jim Matheson along with us. He’s the CEO of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association. I’m Stephanie Hoff reporting.

Todd Gleason: Our thanks go to Stephanie Hoff and the National Association of Farm Broadcasting for providing us with that report.

16:10 Ag Weather with Drew Lerner, WorldWeather.cc

Todd Gleason: Let’s turn our attention now to the growing regions across the planet. Drew Lerner is here from World Weather, Incorporated, in Kansas City. I’d like to start in the hard red winter wheat growing regions of Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas. What can you tell me about conditions today?

Drew Lerner: Well, there’s it’s not a pretty picture for a large part of the Southern Plains, Texas and Oklahoma. Away from West Texas, the heart of Oklahoma and the north-central parts of Texas still just chronically dry. I don’t think there’s a grazing grass out there that’s that’s anything but brown.

And winter wheat, planting has occurred in several areas, mostly irrigated fields, and it’s been so hot that I don’t think the crop is emerging very well. So the biggest issue there is that they’ve got to cool down. Well, the good news is they will cool down. We’re in a short-term period of a sort of cooling right now, but temperatures are going to be in the 90s. That’s not very cool in my book.

We will see a more definitive cool-off over this coming weekend, though, and temperatures will get into the 70s in the Central Plains, 80s in the Southern Plains. There may even be some 60-degree readings in Nebraska; we had some of that yesterday. The cool-down is really, really important.

We are going to get some scattered showers and thunderstorms to occur over the next week to week and a half. It’s not good, solid, soaking rains, but it will be locally beneficial. And we’ll see little pockets here and there that’ll pick up some good moisture. But as far as a general rain for this region, I don’t think we’re going to run into that, at least not through the first week in October. So it’s a long ways down the road. We’ll get some pockets of improvement, but, you know, no general change.

Todd Gleason: The Delta region of the United States should be in the midst of harvest, way into harvest, actually.

Drew Lerner: Yes, and, you know, for late-season crops, the late double-cropped beans there in particular really suffered from all the heat and dryness this late summer. And it’s still that way. We’re seeing temperatures in the 90s every day, high humidity, a terrible environment for human and livestock existence. It is very dry. It is good for harvesting, you’re absolutely right, but we did hurt some of the crop down that way because of those conditions.

Todd Gleason: Now make your way northward into the Corn Belt. Tell me about conditions across it.

Drew Lerner: Yeah, you know, it’s got to rain some place if it’s not raining in the South. So it is going to be raining frequently across parts of the Midwest. As you know, Iowa’s already seen a lot of rain in the past couple of past few weeks, actually. And talked to one gentleman not far from Ames, Iowa, and was telling me that it was wetter than it was in the summer of ’93, which was that terrible flooding year that occurred. But not all of Iowa has been involved like that, but that particular location had.

But we are going to see frequent rains occurring from South Dakota, eastern Nebraska, parts of northeastern Kansas, and from there to the Great Lakes region, probably including northern Illinois, northern Indiana, and in a fair amount of Michigan. These areas will see frequent occurrences of rain all the way through the next full week and maybe eight or nine days. And then we will see some improvement.

Now, the ground is going to be exceptionally wet in some pockets. It’s already getting that way, and I do fully expect it to expand over this next week. So field work is not going to advance very quickly, and we will have to look for some better drying conditions. We’ll get it for a little while, but I’m a little concerned that when we get into early October, we’ll go back into a wetter bias for a little while.

Todd Gleason: In France, they’ve not been able to buy a rainfall for most of the year. Just any tidbit there to tell me how dry it is?

Drew Lerner: Yeah, I was checking that out myself not too many days ago, and I went back and did a six-month assessment of moisture. And it turns out that west-central France has had only 25% of normal rain since March 17th. And the rest, the middle two-thirds of France, has had less than half of normal rain over that same period since March 17th. And it is extremely dry, no doubt.

Now, the rivers and streams are really quite low as well, and we’ve been hearing all kinds of interesting, almost horror stories about the water supply across some of that region. But specifically, there was a friend of mine that was taking a river tour on the Rhine about a month ago, and he told me that he had to get out of the boat that he was on, walk downstream, and get in another boat in order to continue the tour. That’s how poor the river flow is right now across that region. And that was a month ago, and it hasn’t rained. So the situation is really critical. It’s the Rhine and the Danube both are really quite low, and using barges to transport grain is going to be really difficult this autumn until it rains, and we don’t see anything for 10 days.

Todd Gleason: Now let’s transition to South America. We need to catch up on where they are. Have they been getting some rainfall to get the planting season started?

Drew Lerner: Yes, absolutely. The southern parts of soybean country and early corn country has had quite a bit of rain, and they’re plenty wet. If anything, they’re going to have some delay later down the road.

But there’s been a lot of chatter about Center-West Brazil, that’s Mato Grosso and northern Mato Grosso do Sul and neighboring areas of Goiás. And took a little assessment on that area just yesterday, and it turns out there is probably about 45% of that region has had 2 or 3 inches of rain since the beginning of September. So some field work is underway. But the other 60% of that region has not seen that much moisture, less than an inch over the two-week period, and it is still quite dry.

So over the next few weeks, there’s a big need for more timely rain. The forecast charts are suggesting that we probably will go 10 days without seeing that rain, but as we get into the last days of this month and into early October, we should start seeing better shower and thunderstorm activity.

Todd Gleason: Hey, thank you much, Drew.

Drew Lerner: You bet. Have a great day.

Todd Gleason: You, too. That’s Drew Lerner. He is with World Weather, Incorporated, in Kansas City, and joined us on this Wednesday edition of the Closing Market Report that came to you from Illinois Public Media. It is public radio for the farming world, online, on demand at willag.org, that’s w-i-l-l-a-g.org. I’m University of Illinois Extension’s Todd Gleason.