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- Mike Zuzolo, GlobalCommResearch.com
- Eric Snodgrass, NutrienAgSolutions.com
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- Eric Snodgrass, NutrienAgSolutions.com
Creators and Guests
What is Closing Market Report?
Celebrating 40 Years | 10,000 Episodes
Established 1985
The Closing Market Report airs weekdays at 2:06pm central on WILL AM580, Urbana. University of Illinois Extension Farm Broadcaster Todd Gleason hosts the program. Each day he asks commodity analysts about the trade in Chicago, delves deep into the global growing regions weather, and talks with ag economists, entomologists, agronomists, and others involved in agriculture at the farm and industry level.
website: willag.org
twitter: @commodityweek
From the Land Grant University in Urbana Champaign, Illinois. This is the closing market report. It is the September 2025. I'm extension's Todd Gleason. Coming up, we'll talk about the commodity markets with Mike Zuzlow.
Todd Gleason:He's at globalcommresearch.com out of Kansas, and Eric Snodgrass from Nutrien Ag Solutions and Agrabull will be here to discuss the weather forecast for the global growing regions including right here in The United States and of course South America. Along the way, I'll bring you up to speed on a little of the ag news for the day. And if you can stay with us for the whole of the hour, you will hear all of our commodity week program with our panelists Naomi Bloem, Arlen Suderman, and Brian Stark. If not, you'll hear a portion of it and you can always hear it online right now at willag.org. That's willag.org.
Todd Gleason:It's public radio for the farming world online, on demand, anytime you'd like to listen.
Announce:Todd Gleason services are made available to WILL by University of Illinois Extension.
Todd Gleason:Mike Zuzolo at globalcommresearch.com out of Atchison, Kansas now joins us to take a look at the marketplace. Thanks, Mike, for being with us. Can you review this week for me? It was busy, simply because there were so many different policy statements that were coming out of Washington DC on a slew of topics. What did you make of them all?
Mike Zuzolo:Yeah. I would say the most important policy statement that was put out that was market moving, at least for for what I've seen, Todd, from Monday through Friday was president Trump's UN speech where he directly talked about Russia, and then he talked about Ukraine being able to gain back all of their prior territory before even the beginning of the war back in the mid twenty tens. That seemed to really shake up the market. And and at the same time, when he talked about the weakness of the Russian economy, he also was validated in that by Russia putting on a value added tax increase and also raising their wheat export tax one and a half times from the previous week. And so, you know, they're really uncompetitive right now in the wheat market.
Mike Zuzolo:And their July through September wheat exports actually coming out now down about 29% at about 11,000,000 tons. And so it seems between the crude oil sanctions and the drone attacks with Ukraine hitting oil infrastructure in Russia and then those policy moves by the president, we really turned it around on Thursday. It was pretty disappointing Friday that some of the gains were given back. So that was the main thing in the policy front. A lot of screwworm talk.
Mike Zuzolo:I think that got straightened out on Friday with USDA essentially saying, no, Mexico. We're not on track essentially for a November border reopening. You didn't have proper cattle controls in place, and those traps that you promised to check daily are not being checked. So that kinda, I think, brought the feeder cattle market back around along with the hogs and pigs report showing a tighter supply. So me personally, Todd, and what we've talked about analytically is we've been on a very strong track with last year at this time.
Mike Zuzolo:I started to see some some fault lines in that, some fracturing in that. It's gonna make Monday very important with the stocks report, the wheat production report, end of month, and end of quarter.
Todd Gleason:Yeah. Monday. And then, of course, the grain stocks report will be released. That, I believe, is on Tuesday the thirtieth at 11AM. You can find those numbers on our website at willag.org.
Todd Gleason:So Monday trade important after the weekend, and everybody has a chance to really think about what the president said at the UEN. Who has the best option to fill the the marketplace that is and will likely be vacated by Russia because of this excise tax that they have on wheat?
Mike Zuzolo:Well, the big thing I think for the wheat market would be it's probably gonna be and it's already starting to show up. We're starting to see a little bit more aggressive nature by Australia and Argentina. And, you know, that kinda covers wheat and Russia. And then on the opposite policy front, that's obviously probably the number one feature in the row crops along with the dry weather. We we went home a week ago thinking we're gonna be very wet this week.
Mike Zuzolo:It's just been the exact opposite, and that took away a lot of steam for the corn to be able to make a seventh straight week higher or close. But the big thing I think policy wise was Argentina's policy with them letting go of their export tax on soy and grains. I mean, I've heard as high as 40 cargoes now have been bought of Argentine beans. I'm hearing that China bought more than 20 now of those 40. And I think that really put a damper on the trade mindset along with the open harvest window.
Mike Zuzolo:I I actually thought Friday was very impressive for beans that they stood up as well as they did given what they had to go through, this week. And maybe it was just spread trade because of the, cattle or, excuse me, the hogs and pigs report. Maybe it was just a situation where the, this grain stocks report is starting to be traded a little bit too.
Todd Gleason:I'm wondering when you listen to what producers have been saying about their corn harvest, what are you hearing? What what is the tone of this? Is it, well, it's not what I thought it would be, but it's still good. It's not what I thought it would be, and it's off. Where where what do you think we're headed towards for for that marketplace and how that might be reflected going forward, maybe even in the October USDA figures for WASDE in crop production?
Mike Zuzolo:Yeah. That's a great question. And I would say I I will qualify it with the fact that what I'm hearing universally on the western side of the corn belt is we're really running corn hard, and the eastern side of the corn belt barely touched corn and really running beans hard. And it's just a night and day difference this year, which is kinda surprising to me. But what I'm hearing pretty strongly right now is those that have gotten into the corn pretty heavily actually feel like the August weather hurt them more and that those light test weights, that girthiness, the the the issue with the colonel depth, it is real.
Mike Zuzolo:Many are saying it's no better than last year. Many are saying it's 10 to 30 bushels under last year. There are pockets, say, from Attica, Indiana up to Cabery, Illinois, maybe all the way up to DeKalb and over towards Rochelle on the West Side Of Illinois. It's got some really nice record high corn yields from what it sounds like. But I would say both sides of the corn belt are suggesting, and the basis I think would suggest this as well, that there's an issue with corn more than there is beans at this stage of the game.
Mike Zuzolo:And clearly, the stocks report is going to be a big deal when it comes to how tight are we in supplies if those corn yields don't hold up because this demand, this export demand just really hasn't backed off.
Todd Gleason:Yes. The numbers for corn usually are pretty good. The numbers for soybeans because there is a good accounting, not from only from USDA, but other sources of usage are usually really good. What are your expectations for that quarterly stocks report?
Mike Zuzolo:Yeah. You know, they've got the beans, I think, plenty low at 323,000,000 average trade gas. I I guess I would be up towards the higher end at $3.60 just because of our export demand at this stage, and a lot of producers surprisingly having more beans than corn right now than what I thought they did. Corn, the average trade grass around 1,300,000,000 bushels. That compares to 1.76 last year.
Mike Zuzolo:That seems to be about right. I'd say 1,400,000,000 stocks number would be kind of where I'd lay out at.
Todd Gleason:Once we get through that, we'll look forward again to that crop production and Bozzi report. These will roll right into that. You'll be able to forward figure actually what ending stocks would look like if no changes were made. Mhmm. I know you will do that.
Todd Gleason:What are the things you'll be watching?
Mike Zuzolo:You know, I guess the and I I'll watch that, but I think in the most in the shorter term, it goes back whether we can stay hooked up to that 2024 price action because we really made a strong high in the October 1. And I'd like to see if the near term fundamentals support that idea or whether we can extend that move to the upside. But it's been very clear to me for the past, you know, couple three weeks, even going back to the August crop report, it's really hard to get corn, beef corn above four twenty five without soybeans and wheat at least supporting and definitely not fighting the corn market. And I think that's still very, very important. And I remain as concerned as I have been about another leg down in soybeans with this new Argentine move that we saw this past week.
Mike Zuzolo:I mean, we're losing 9,300,000 tons of soybeans a month of the 112,000,000 that's supposed to be imported into China. And I think the clock is ticking here now that we're running hard and and now that Brazil is planting hard. And that's probably more important to me right now than those supply demand figures on the October WASDE.
Todd Gleason:On that note, we'll let you go. Thanks much. We'll talk with you again next week. Mike Zuzlow is with globalcomresearch.com. In today's agricultural news, a series of announcements came from secretary of agriculture Brooke Rollins at this week's AGGRIPULSE Forum held in Kansas City.
Todd Gleason:Rollins announced more farm disaster payments were on the way.
Brooke Rollins:Today, I'm excited to announce that the remaining 2,000,000,000 of ECAP funding will be delivered within the week.
Todd Gleason:ECAP was passed with bipartisan support during the lame duck session and signed by president Biden at the time. Rollins also announced separately a joint USDA Department of Justice effort to bring down farm costs through antitrust action.
Brooke Rollins:USDA and the Department of Justice signed a memorandum of understanding this morning that aligns a joint commitment by both of our agencies under attorney general Pam Bondi and myself to protect American farmers and ranchers from the burdens imposed by a high and volatile input costs such as feed, fertilizer, fuel, seed equipment, and other essential goods.
Todd Gleason:USDA, meantime, discontinued use of its farm labor survey for setting government mandated wage rates while the labor department will now centralize handling of h two a paperwork. Rollins also says there will be new money for trade promotion particularly through the McGovern Dole and the Food for Peace programs.
Brooke Rollins:Today, I'm proud to announce that USDA will purchase 417,000 metric tons of commodities from American farmers immediately to support these programs. To put that in perspective, the amount we're purchasing is equivalent to over 16,000,000 bushels of our row crops.
Todd Gleason:And the secretary says USDA will deal head on with foreign ownership of US farmland, announce a new strategy to revitalize cattle inventories, and ban cattle imports from Mexico until it fully combats new world screwworm.
Brooke Rollins:100% compliance must be demonstrated by Mexico before a border reopening plan will even be considered.
Todd Gleason:Now as US ag secretary Brooke Rollins, she made her comments during this week's AGGRAPULSE forum held in Kansas City, Missouri. You're listening to the closing market report on this Friday afternoon. Our theme music is written, performed, produced in courtesy of Logan County, Illinois farmer Tim Gleason. Do visit our website. The address is W I L L A G Dot 0 R G.
Todd Gleason:Let's take a look at the weather forecast for the growing regions across the planet. Eric Snodgrass from NutriNag Solutions in Daggerbil is here as usual for a Friday afternoon. Thanks, Eric, for being with us again.
Eric Snodgrass:Yeah. Thanks for having me back on.
Todd Gleason:Yeah. Well, we've had a little rainfall here, and I think I might need to stress a little rainfall. Sort of depends on where you are. There were some inch plus rains. I didn't get that at my home in Mohammad.
Todd Gleason:That's for sure.
Eric Snodgrass:Me neither. No. I was really disappointed. So what was that? Tuesday night watching the rain come across.
Eric Snodgrass:And I was in, Southwest Champaign, which is one of the spots that did get good rainfall. And in fact, I was with a group of friends there. We just opened the window to listen to the rain come through. But then I got back home, checked my gauge after it was all done, we had under six tenths. And I mean, you go up to Ford County, there was nothing really out of this.
Eric Snodgrass:And I know farther south, some places really got a lot of rain. Parts of Missouri, Southern Illinois, there were some sections of the Midwest and Mid South that were very dry that got much, much needed rain. But the reality is is that the hydrologic cycle's pretty fast, and it's been quite mild. And if you saw the next two week forecast, it's gonna be great for harvest, but terrible for bringing any sort of moisture back into the pattern. Just there's a big ridge planted in the middle of North America.
Eric Snodgrass:I mean, Todd, we we're not we're not only gonna see some warmer temperatures for this time of year, but I saw some places like sections of Montana may touch 90 in the next couple of weeks. And boy, that's just a stagnant pattern that doesn't wanna move. So long story short, no frost threat coming, Mild overall, warmer than average overall, and we're back onto the drier cycle again.
Todd Gleason:I was just about to yell, hooray. The river will be up, and we won't have a problem. I guess maybe I could be right or wrong. No? No.
Eric Snodgrass:No. I mean, it came up two feet with the recent rains, but it went from down seven and a half feet to down five and a half feet. And the reality is it's gonna lose that water pretty quickly as we go back into this drier time
Mike Zuzolo:period.
Todd Gleason:We're not shipping beans to China anyway, so it doesn't make any difference. Actually, I we need the river regardless. Yeah. Are you
Eric Snodgrass:gonna cut that out after what you
Todd Gleason:I am not. I absolutely am not. I'm gonna leave this all in. Okay. So we we we we have a river that is low.
Todd Gleason:We've had some moisture. You're kinda telling me the next two weeks doesn't look that great. Is that everywhere across the Midwest? Will anybody get slowed down?
Eric Snodgrass:I think there's a chance that the Western Corn Belt could have another shot at some rain, but it's not until, like, late next week. And outside of that, I mean, it's it's pretty dry. This morning, the European model for the next fifteen days put a goose egg over us for rainfall. So I mean, they just didn't have anything. But the West Coast is wetter, and the Southeast is possibly gonna be extremely wet.
Eric Snodgrass:And they've been just as dry as we are, if not drier, believe it or not. And, of course, we're watching this tropical system that's trying to get out of The Bahamas this afternoon on Friday and could possibly intensify and become our next name system. So we have Umberto out there spinning around. It's gonna miss The United States, but this next one could get the name Imelda. And some of the forecasts are putting up to 15 to 20 inches in parts of the Carolinas.
Eric Snodgrass:So they are gonna go from about a thirty five day long drought, where most of those of the Carolinas saw nothing, to possibly getting between seven and twenty inches of rain, depending on where you are in the Atlantic Coastal Plain. And that's going to be devastating to agriculture in that area. I mean, absolute mess is expected because of this tropical system. So what we need is for the models to be wrong and over the next about eighty four to ninety hours about that timeframe, we need these models, we need the forecast to start to shift the system further south and east, which means we'd only get the outer rainfall bands, which would be great to get out of this system. I'm not expecting to be strong.
Eric Snodgrass:It's a flood threat overall.
Todd Gleason:Yeah. Thanks for reminding them with the Cooseneck comment. I appreciate that. But but I do wanna talk a bit more about, the Carolinas. Sure.
Todd Gleason:Because the dry conditions means that this this doesn't come in and and salvage them really quickly because it just No. Doesn't soak in right away. There's there's an issue there where the first part of it's probably just gonna run. Correct?
Eric Snodgrass:Yeah. You know, they did some areas just in the last twenty four hours got some showers, and that'll start to take the soil and bring the water level up. Because you know as well as I do, if you got a little bit of water in the soil, it can take on more more easily. If it's panhard and dry in concrete, everything that falls on it runs off initially. You have a big, you know, mud flurry that runs away rather than water soaking in.
Eric Snodgrass:So this is a this is a worst case scenario, honestly, for a flood threat in The Carolinas for the regions that haven't gotten any rain lately.
Todd Gleason:Tell me about the month of October, what you're looking for in The United States.
Eric Snodgrass:Yeah. It's drier overall, but the driest region is gonna be down in the Delta, which means that river we just talked about is gonna continue to see problems maintaining its levels going through the month of October if the models are right. There's one part of the October that I'm gonna watch carefully. There are some signals that we could finally see something coming into The Gulf in terms of some tropical activity, but that's not till October 11 through the fifteenth that that signal begins to show up, like, of in earnest. And so I you know, we've had most of our storms stay out in the open ocean maybe in the month of October, which is still a busy part of the hurricane season.
Eric Snodgrass:We could be watching something coming up out of The Gulf. If it doesn't, then this drought monitor, which has already gained 23% area in the last five weeks, could continue to see more gains, which is not what we wanna see going into late fall.
Todd Gleason:In Argentina and Brazil, what are you watching for South America?
Eric Snodgrass:Yeah. There's a big sweeping front that came through from Argentina through Paraguay, Uruguay into Southern Brazil and finished up in the Serrado just yesterday. And with it, it brought rains, and it brought up the moisture levels enough that I think we're gonna start to see some very rapid planting progress numbers here in the next two weeks. But the next two weeks are very dry, so there's going to be some concern. So open up the planting window, they're going to get in there and get after it fast, but then they're going be begging for some rain.
Eric Snodgrass:And most of the models are very dry throughout Brazil, which is the spot that's actively planting the soybeans right now. I think there could be a concern that'll pop up by mid October if the rains don't return, but typically, they do by that point. So they're gonna make a gamble and probably go fast over these next two weeks.
Todd Gleason:It's dry. It's hot. Their soils really don't hold water very well. That's why they can have so many rains and and continue to, grow a crop, I guess. Dry conditions would would really catch up with them quickly.
Todd Gleason:Right?
Eric Snodgrass:I think it can this time of year, but I'll be honest with you, Todd. I don't think there's such thing as dry conditions in Brazil December through December through March if you're in, like, Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sol Goias.
Todd Gleason:Alright. Hey. Thanks much. I appreciate it. We'll talk with you again next week.
Eric Snodgrass:Alright. Sounds good. Thanks, Todd.
Todd Gleason:You're welcome. That's Eric Snongrass. He is with Nutrien Ag Solutions and Agrabal joined us on this Friday 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 willag.0rg.