Closing Market Report

The August 3, 2026, episode of the Closing Market Report, hosted by Todd Gleason, provides a comprehensive overview of agricultural commodity markets, biofuel industry developments, and global weather forecasts. Market analyst Jerry Gulke discusses the recent uptrend in corn and soybean prices, advising producers on risk management and hedging strategies to navigate changing market fundamentals. In agricultural news, a report by Stephanie Hoff highlights how the EPA's increased renewable volume obligations are successfully boosting biodiesel production and creating jobs. Driven by this biofuel policy, ADM also announced investments to expand its North American oilseed crush capacity across several states. Finally, meteorologist Mark Russo provides a weather update, noting beneficial widespread rains and moderate temperatures across the U.S. Midwest. However, he warns of a severe crop-damaging drought in Western Europe, expanding dryness in Southeast Asia, and the potential for a wet U.S. fall harvest fueled by a rapidly strengthening super El Niño.

00:58 Ag Markets with Jerry Gulke, Gulke Group
09:20 Higher Renewable Volume Obligations Fuel Industry Growth
14:19 ADM Investing in Crush Capacity
15:45 Ag Weather with Mark Russo, EverStream Analytics

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Creators and Guests

Host

Todd E. Gleason🎙🇺🇸

University of Illinois

What is Closing Market Report?

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

cmr260803

00:58 Ag Markets with Jerry Gulke, Gulke Group
09:20 Higher Renewable Volume Obligations Fuel Industry Growth
14:19 ADM Investing in Crush Capacity
15:45 Ag Weather with Mark Russo, EverStream Analytics

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Todd Gleason: From the Land Grant university in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, this is the Closing Market Report. It is the third day of August 2026. I’m Illinois Extension’s Todd Gleason. Coming up, we’ll talk about the commodity markets with Jerry Gulke; he’s from the Gulke Group. We’ll hear a report on renewable volume obligations and how they’re driving crush capacity to increase in the United States, and we’ll have an update on what ADM’s plans are for crush capacity across the US. Then, as we wrap up our time together, we’ll turn our attention to the weather forecast. Mark Russo will be here; he’s with EverStream Analytics on this Monday edition of the Closing Market Report from Illinois Public Media. It is public radio for the farming world online on demand at willag.org.

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

00:58 Ag Markets with Jerry Gulke, Gulke Group

Todd Gleason: Jerry Gulke of the Gulke Group now joins us to take a look at the marketplace. Jerry, it’s been a while. Thank you so much for joining us today on the program. I appreciate that.

Jerry Gulke: Well, thank you.

Todd Gleason: We have an up day in the marketplace, corn up 8 cents. Let’s start there. I don’t know if this was a surprise to you or if it was expected.

Jerry Gulke: Well, I expected it, with tongue in cheek, I guess. Nobody is ever right 100% of the time, but I recognize the odds and how the markets perform. Technically, it went back to an area where it should have turned around, and we have some fundamental things happening to these markets—corn and soybeans in particular, and maybe even wheat globally. That gave indications that, first of all, as I mentioned earlier to you in other emails, we started lifting hedges about June 15th and then completed them on June 30th because we had buy signals. We have proprietary stuff that I’ve used since 1982—I hate to mention it’s that long, but it works. If nothing else, it keeps a person out of trouble. When you’re brain dead and you don’t know what to do, you can get yourself in trouble by making up an excuse to buy, sell, hold, hedge, or sell something.

That told us that the risk was on the upside, not the downside. That’s been a long-standing focus I’ve had since August of 2024, when we made lows back then. That was a capitulation by the farmers. Although the media and the news highlight how bad agriculture is, we’ve been in an uptrend ever since, for corn and beans both. This was the point where, if you’re ever going to take a chance, this was it to accept risk. There’s a point where you pass off hedge risk to somebody else who thinks it’s going to go a lot higher, and you like the price, or you have an outlook mechanism that tells you to do that, which I do. Or, there is a point where you accept risk and say, “At these levels, I’ll accept the risk, because I think I know my risk,” and that would be sometimes below last week’s lows. Just like this week, if we turn out to have some positive news in the ratings and also in the WASDE, then you’d have to look back at the reversals today, which is a key reversal up in corn, almost in beans, and in bean oil.

Now you can look at it and say, “All right, if this is true and we’re going to head higher right into fall and through harvest, and right into December and into Q1 of 2027, what should not happen?” Not so much how high you are going to go, but what should not happen. You should not take out today’s lows. If that happens, you have to take it day by day. The market analyzes hundreds of fundamentals every day and depicts, in the price changes, your opinion, my opinion, and maybe half a million other people in the world, and makes votes. At the close, that decides who won or lost. That’s a simplistic view of the futures market, but it’s the best risk management tool we have.

Todd Gleason: So when you think about the market and the things that may or may not happen in the future, what is it that you watch? Is it really just the charts at this point? For instance, if the lows get taken out, then you say, “Well, I’ve got another 60 cents down or 70,” or whatever target you have for soybeans or for corn. What kinds of things do you think about more broadly in the marketplace that helps you to drive the marketplace in a direction?

Jerry Gulke: Well, of course, fundamentals are the main driver, but the smart money that’s betting millions of dollars on the market, and not a few hundred or thousands of dollars a farmer might, has a tendency to be able to foresee things much better than I do. The large specs or the funds have a lot of money at risk. How they act is money flow; it’s cash flow. It’s where it’s going to and where it’s not. Sometimes you’ll watch a market go straight up, and it starts to lose momentum. It’s kind of like a car going up a hill and it finally runs out of gas, and you just hope you get to the top before you have to start backing down the hill. You get a sense for it, and then also you develop a program, perhaps a computerized situation, that gives you a hint and keeps you out of trouble. Usually, the tops are made when they’re most bullish.

If you recall the May 13th high—and I remember it because that’s my birthday—it happened two years ago. We made the highs on February 21st, and the media that I watch and listen to was saying, “Well, we’re going to make the highs again this year in February.” They blew right through it and went on up to the conventional May 13th, which just happened to be the timeframe when the fact sheet was released on the hope that we were going to make a deal with China. I wrote on DTN that that deal wasn’t any better than phase one of Trump, where it wasn’t worth the paper it was written on. There are outs in it, and there are ways that China didn’t have to perform for various reasons, but it was a framework, and it disappointed the large specs. A lot of people actually got out of their hedges and went long once that meeting was set, and then when they found out the facts of it, down it went. Then we got all this talk about, “Well, China will never buy.” They’ve done nothing but keep their word, so to speak, on nothing more than a verbal contract.

But the fact sheet gives some openings. They’re going to meet in September to decide, “How did you do? Are we happy with you, or are we not happy with you?” The incentive for China to buy beans at a dollar or a dollar and a half more per bushel than what they can buy them from Brazil, to me, is the art of the deal. You buy beans from Jerry, and I don’t care if you dump them in Lake Michigan, just get them out of my country. For that, I’ll be nice to you from a tariff standpoint. So you’re going to invest $750 million, maybe a billion dollars in an expense in buying beans from Jerry and his friends, and you’re probably going to get a ten-to-one reward back, because they need that tariff because their economy is threatening. It makes perfect sense. If you’ve ever bought land and made a deal with a landowner, you make a deal where you walk away from the table and you’re both happy.

The market usually seems to be a lot smarter than me; it starts to give me signals in advance of something happening. I never look at how high it’s going to go. People will say, “Well, how high do you think it’s going to go, Jerry? If you’re so doggone bullish, why aren’t you long grain?” Well, I’m long in the field, long in the bin, but I don’t know how high it’s going to go. I trust in the same philosophy that I have when picking the low. The top is a lot harder. All of a sudden one day it’s over, and you just hope that you get the signal ahead of time and clip the coupon on top. It’s difficult to do if you’re a producer. I tell myself, “You just got done with harvest, Jerry, and there’s no future left in it, sell all your grain.” That’s not easy. I’ve been there and done that, and you have to have a lot of confidence.

Todd Gleason: Hey, thank you much. I really appreciate it. Look forward to talking with you again soon.

Jerry Gulke: Yep, feel free to call anytime.

Todd Gleason: We’ll do. Jerry Gulke is with the Gulke Group.

09:20 Higher Renewable Volume Obligations Fuel Industry Growth

Todd Gleason: Up next, more about EPA and the RVO. The Environmental Protection Agency’s new renewable fuel standard volumes are giving the biodiesel industry a significant boost. As you’ll hear from Stephanie Hoff, the agency raised biomass-based diesel obligations to levels the industry says more accurately reflect production capacity.

Stephanie Hoff: Clean Fuels Alliance America says the higher volumes are already helping idle plants restart, encouraging new investment, and creating stronger demand throughout the agricultural economy. Paul Winters, the Director of Public Affairs, explains.

Paul Winters: The volume that everyone agreed on was 5.25 billion gallons. That’s the production volume that everyone settled on. For the 2025 RFS volumes, EPA had set 3.35 billion gallons as the volume. That had a pretty devastating effect on our industry, combined with uncertainty over tax credits. Essentially, a lot of small producers were forced to idle production.

Stephanie Hoff: The new rule raises biomass-based diesel volumes to about 5.4 billion gallons. Winters says the impact is already being felt across the industry.

Paul Winters: Particularly for smaller producers, they were a little more nimble in responding. We saw some idled plants come back into production. We saw other small producers just ramping up to the highest volume they could manage and running full out. They’ve been doing so for several months now. Overall, the biodiesel industry is operating at 86% of the capacity that is estimated to be operable. It’s not the highest operating capacity we’ve ever achieved, but it’s certainly up there where EPA envisioned it should be.

Stephanie Hoff: Beyond biodiesel production, Winters says the increased volumes are driving investment farther up the supply chain, creating new opportunities for soybean growers and processors.

Paul Winters: The first impact you’re seeing is in the soybean processing industry. The oilseed processors have invested more than $6 billion over the past four or five years to expand their capacity by a third. The oilseed processing industry, for a long time, had capacity running around 2 billion bushels of soybeans every single year. The United States was planting and harvesting more than 4 billion bushels of soybeans every year, and there were disruptions in international markets. This year, the oilseed processing industry in the United States is scheduled to process about 2.6 billion bushels, and it will go even higher next year to 2.75 billion bushels.

Stephanie Hoff: Those investments are also translating into jobs and renewed economic activity in rural communities.

Paul Winters: We actually sent a letter to President Trump in mid-June highlighting several of those stories. We highlighted a plant in Wall Lake, Iowa, that had shut down in 2025 and had not laid off all of its employees but was definitely reducing its workforce. That plant is up operating at full capacity now and is rehiring all those employees.

Stephanie Hoff: Winters says the benefits extend well beyond biodiesel plants, supporting businesses and industries throughout rural America.

Paul Winters: It’s not just the Midwest. The benefits are flowing through to other industries like railroads. They’re opening up new markets and new avenues. These were things that EPA certainly was aware were possible as outflows from the higher volumes. They wrote these scenarios into the rule itself and said this is one of our goals: to promote this type of economic activity. We are definitely gathering all these stories. We’re definitely sharing them with EPA to show that what they did with this year’s rule is paying off in the ways that we all knew were possible.

Stephanie Hoff: Paul Winters is the Director of Public Affairs and Federal Communications with Clean Fuels Alliance America, speaking to the industry-wide advantage of the EPA’s decision to increase renewable volume obligations. I’m Stephanie Hoff reporting.

Todd Gleason: Thanks to Stephanie Hoff and the National Association of Farm Broadcasting for that report, the NAFB.

14:19 ADM Investing in Crush Capacity

Todd Gleason: Now for something a bit local on this same topic. ADM has announced a strategic series of investments aimed at expanding its North American oilseed crush capacity to meet the rising demands for renewable diesel fuel and vegetable oils, driven largely by the biofuels policy you just heard about. The initiative relies on making targeted infrastructure and throughput enhancements to existing operations, says ADM, rather than constructing entirely new plants. These localized facility upgrades will collectively unlock, it says, about 700,000 metric tons of additional annual crush capacity across the United States, generating new demand for over 25 million bushels of crops from American agricultural producers annually. The initial expansion efforts will focus on four specific US production facilities. They’re located in Frankfort, Indiana; Deerfield, Missouri; Lincoln, Nebraska; and Spiritwood, North Dakota. Planned enhancements range from storage and equipment upgrades to comprehensive debottlenecking and operational optimization, with projected completion dates scheduled between mid–2028 and early 2029.

15:45 Ag Weather with Mark Russo, EverStream Analytics

Todd Gleason: Let’s take a look at the weather forecast now. We’re joined by Mark Russo; he is at EverStream Analytics on this Monday afternoon. Hi, Mark. Thanks for being with us.

Mark Russo: Hi, Todd. Thanks for having me.

Todd Gleason: Let’s begin here in the United States. Tell me about this rainfall over the weekend. How widespread really was it, and how much do you think it helped crops out?

Mark Russo: Well, Todd, it was pretty widespread across the Midwest. By our calculation, we got around two-thirds of the Midwest corn and soybean acreage picking up meaningful rainfall. That helped to contract some of the previous dry pockets that were around. For the third of the belt that did miss out, that did include some dry pockets, namely in northwest Iowa and far southeast South Dakota, as well as some parts of North Dakota. As we’ve now moved fully into August, at least those are the dry pockets that will still need some rainfall here. But again, you’re talking about pockets versus the rest of the corn belt that is in really good shape here. As I’ll talk about here in a bit, there’s more rain coming up.

Todd Gleason: Well, tell me about that.

Mark Russo: Sure, following these bigger rains over the weekend, we are going to see a continuation of opportunities here coming up over the next few weeks. In general, when you add up the next two weeks, rainfall looks to register close to normal. So that is going to maintain or further improve soil moisture across much of the Midwest corn and soybean belt. Even for those dry pockets in northwest Iowa and eastern North Dakota, they have good opportunities to improve here. So we’d be pretty surprised if we get to the middle part of August and we’re still talking about even these pockets of dryness. You can’t rule out a very small-scale area totally missing out, but all in all, it’s looking really good here to further improve things as we move through these first two weeks of August.

Todd Gleason: Temperatures generally normal?

Mark Russo: Yes, we’re kind of done with the more significant heat here of late. All the heat is out across the western half of the country. There’s going to be a little warm-up here over the weekend and next week, especially in the western part of the Midwest. But we’re not seeing any kind of big-time heat of temperatures climbing above 95 Fahrenheit or anything like that in the core of the Midwest. So no significant heat issues are expected.

Todd Gleason: Is it the heat in the western part of the United States that drives the rainfall and the cooler temperatures, or normal temperatures, across the Midwest?

Mark Russo: Yeah, that’s certainly a part of it, with that heat associated with the ridging of high pressure, and that’s where the ridge looks to be primarily here over the next couple of weeks. At times, there’ll be a little brief surge of ridging or the ridge axis moves into the Midwest, but no sign of that moving fully over the Midwest over the next couple of weeks. And with that pattern, that keeps temperatures more seasonal, and also on the periphery of the ridge, more rain systems coming through.

Todd Gleason: Let’s return to that ridge in just a moment, but could you focus now on Western Europe?

Mark Russo: Yes, especially Western Europe. That has been the most problematic area this growing season. In fact, across the entire Northern Hemisphere, it’s France that has seen the most extreme heat and dryness. France is Europe’s largest corn-producing country. It’s also a huge dairy-producing area as well, as well as other summer crops and livestock there focused in France. Overall, that’s been where the epicenter of most extreme conditions has been, but even Eastern Europe has trended hotter and drier of late. So we’re now seeing a drop in conditions and lowering of yield potential there, but again, Western Europe is essentially a crop disaster. It’s too late for any meaningful recovery here now that we’re in August. Even the pattern over the next few weeks, it’s still hot and dry across much of Europe, and there’s just no sign of any pattern change that would begin to improve rainfall.

Todd Gleason: Any new or developing issues that we should be watching?

Mark Russo: Yeah, we’re closely watching Southeast Asia. Areas such as Indonesia and Malaysia tend to have a higher risk during El Niño events. We’ve certainly started to see that here since around July 1st, with Kalimantan, Indonesia—that is their largest palm-producing area—trending much drier. In fact, this past July was one of the driest Julys in the past 20 years across that region on the island of Borneo. Coming up here over the next few weeks, not only will Kalimantan, Indonesia, be drier than normal, but that looks to begin expanding across more of Indonesia and Malaysia. With the dryness expanding, the timing of it, and the ongoing El Niño, that continues to be an area of increasing concern.

Todd Gleason: Tell me about El Niño. Still a super El Niño?

Mark Russo: Absolutely. We’re basically at super El Niño levels right now. That’s technically defined as when water temperatures in that Niño 3.4 area achieve plus two Celsius anomaly status. There’s been an upgrade in some of the sea surface temperature datasets here of late. Whether you look at those updated indices or some of the legacy indices, we’re basically at these super El Niño levels. El Niño is going to continue to strengthen, and we do feel that most likely this is going to be the strongest El Niño ever recorded. So the greatest anomalies in that 3.4 region, and ultimately having a large range of impacts here in weather patterns around the world.

Todd Gleason: And now come back to the United States. There had been some thoughts that the fall could be wet. Are you one of those that is thinking that might be the case?

Mark Russo: Yes, we do feel that as we move into fall, the risk will be increasing for above-normal rainfall, especially in and around the Midwest. The time frame to watch is October. That has the strongest relationship between El Niño conditions in the Pacific Ocean and a wetter bias in the pattern across the Midwest. It’s not as much September, but October, so that’s going to be a time frame to watch closely in terms of potential wetness that could start to hinder harvest activity.

Todd Gleason: Thank you much. I appreciate it.

Mark Russo: You’re welcome, Todd.

Todd Gleason: That’s Mark Russo; he is with EverStream Analytics, joining us on this Monday edition of the Closing Market Report. It came to you from Illinois Public Media. I’m University of Illinois Extension’s Todd Gleason.

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