Closing Market Report

- Greg Johnson, TGM TotalGrainMarketing.com
- David Lakeman, IDOA Cannabis & Hemp Div Mngr
- Drew Lerner, WorldWeather.cc
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Creators and Guests

Host
Todd E. Gleason🎙🇺🇸
University of Illinois
Guest
Drew Lerner
Meteorologist - World Weather
Guest
Greg Johnson
FS Total Grain Marketing

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

Todd Gleason:

From the Land Grant University at Urbana Champaign, Illinois. This is the closing market report. It is the July 2025. I'm extension's Todd Gleason. Coming up, we'll talk about the commodity markets with Greg Johnson.

Todd Gleason:

He's a TGM. That's total grain marketing here in Champaign County. We'll turn our attention in the middle of the show to the Hemp Research Open House held last week right here on this campus and talk about the industrial uses for hemp. And then as we close out our time, we'll discuss the weather forecast too, not only here, but across the planet with Drew Lerner at World Weather Incorporated on this Wednesday edition of the closing market report from Illinois Public Media. It is public radio for the farming world online on demand at willag.0rg.

Todd Gleason:

Todd Gleason services are made available to w I l l by University of Illinois Extension. September corn for the day at $3.91 and 3 quarters. A settlement price up 2 and a half cents. December at $4.12 and a quarter, a penny a quarter higher, and the March at $4.29 and a half, 3 quarters of a cent higher. Soybeans in the August, 14 lower at $9.67 and 3 quarters.

Todd Gleason:

September, nine 75 and three quarters down thirteen and three quarters. And November beans at $9.95 and 3 quarters, 13 and 3 quarters of a lower. Bean meal futures down a buck for the day. The bean oil, a dollar and 4¢ lower, and the wheat futures soft red in the December at $5.44 to quarter, 5 and 3 quarters of a cent lower. The hard red December at $5.42 and a quarter.

Todd Gleason:

It finished two and three quarters of a cent lower on this Wednesday afternoon. Greg Johnson from TGM Total Grain Marketing, the elevator right here in Champaign County that belongs to FS Gro. Mark now joins us to discuss the marketplace. Hi, Greg. Thanks for being with us on another Wednesday.

Todd Gleason:

Tell me about the market as you see it today.

Greg Johnson:

The market is, responding to the weather. We continue to get rains. There was some high wind damage up in parts of the Dakotas and Iowa, but the market seems to think that that was a relatively narrow band where those high winds went through. And so I think the feeling that the market is, is that the rain benefited more than what the winds hurt the crop. So based on crop ratings, we're looking at some of the highest ratings we've ever seen and some of the private analysts that use those good to excellent ratings, are coming up with anywhere between one hundred and eighty three and one hundred and eighty six bushels to the acre.

Greg Johnson:

We are nine trading days away from the next USDA report when they will probably change the yield or could change the yield, and we'll see how much they increase it from 181, see if they go to 183 or if they go even higher than that. But we're nine days away from that. Another negative, you know, the government lowered feed demand in the July report by 75,000,000 bushels. They'll probably need to lower the feed demand again. Cattle on feed numbers were 98% of a year ago.

Greg Johnson:

Trade was looking for 99. So we are feeding the least amount of cattle in over seventy years. And I know we're feeding them to higher weights, but that still doesn't make up for the lower number of cattle overall that we're feeding. So feed demand is weighing on the corn market as well. The yield is weighing on corn market as well.

Greg Johnson:

We could see that carryout increase. Maybe it's 1,700,000,000 basically today for this coming year's crop projected carryout. That could be 1.9, maybe even two point zero. Hopefully we can keep it below 2,000,000,000. Psychologically that is a big number if they, it would increase the carryout to over 2,000,000,000 bushels at this point.

Greg Johnson:

But right now, though there's rain in the forecast for us, even this afternoon, there's been rain coming across the Midwest as we speak. So it's just hard to get the market excited when it's raining as much as it's been raining and the crop ratings are as good as they are.

Todd Gleason:

Is there a different or similar story to tell for soybean?

Greg Johnson:

Well, it's different in the fact that, we don't know what the yield is gonna be on soybeans. We feel relatively confident on the corn because we're past pollination in most areas, and it appears that other than a couple of varieties that maybe got planted at just the wrong time that, you know, the tassel wrap affected a little bit of that. I think that's a relatively small amount from what I hear. So not enough to impact the overall size of the crop by very much. So the corn is probably out there.

Greg Johnson:

The beans, the jury's still out on that. We will need rain in August. If we get two to three to four inches of rain in August, I would anticipate a pretty good bean crop as well, but we don't know that yet. But the flip side is we do have some halfway decent export demand for corn, some very strong exports for corn. We do not have that on soybeans.

Greg Johnson:

That, you know, we really need to get China to buy some US soybeans. They bought a lot of beans from South America, have not bought Bushel one yet from The United States. And the recent news out of Washington is that the trade talks between US and China have been pushed back or extended, I guess is the correct word, extended for another ninety days. So if they take the full ninety days, that gets you into October and bean harvest will have already started and we don't have enough room to store both the entire corn crop and the entire bean crop. We really need to see soybeans move in the fall.

Greg Johnson:

So hopefully we can get some kind of a trade agreement worked out prior to harvest.

Todd Gleason:

How much of an issue is that for an elevator like yours? I assume you have to start to plan for it.

Greg Johnson:

Exactly. Yeah. And basis levels were extremely weak the last time that, that the trade war happened between The US and China, back in 2018, and basis levels probably weakened as much as $0.04 0 to $0.50 from normal type basis levels in the fall. Now, I'm not predicting that that's going to happen to that extent again, but certainly the path of least resistance is a weaker basis, not a stronger basis, especially if we can't move those soybeans in the fall. So, talking to farmers, we're talking about playing defense and maybe getting basis locked in, just to prevent, you know, from having to take an extremely weak basis, on October 15 when the soybeans coming across the scale.

Todd Gleason:

Yeah. So you you believe you'll have storage space because you'll put the corn outside, I assume.

Greg Johnson:

Oh, exactly. We can always put corn on the ground, but, you know, the old rule of thumb is when you start seeing corn piles on the ground, expect basis to get weaker because it costs money to put it out and to pick it back up, and you're taking the risk of that corn possibly going out of condition. So all that costs money, and so, that tends to lead to base wider basis levels, not stronger.

Todd Gleason:

Does demand in The United States remain strong for corn relatively speaking? I know you talked about, feed demand may be slipping. Ethanol looks like it should be running along nicely.

Greg Johnson:

Yeah. Ethanol's steady. You know, it's it's mandated. We have to use so much, ethanol in every gallon of gasoline. I don't think the drivable miles are increasing very much.

Greg Johnson:

And with a few more electric vehicles all the time, you know, gasoline demand is steady at best, and so ethanol demand is steady at best. So ethanol demand looks good. You know, that's not changing. Exports look good, but the biggest component of of, corn demand is feed demand. And we really need to see you know, hogs and and chickens are okay, but we really need to see cattle, numbers start to pick back up, and that's not gonna happen overnight.

Greg Johnson:

That's more like a one to two year process, unfortunately.

Todd Gleason:

Hey. Thank you much. I appreciate it. We'll talk with you again next Wednesday.

Greg Johnson:

Alright. Thanks, Todd.

Todd Gleason:

That's Greg Johnson. He is with TGM. That's totalgrainmarketing.com. You The 2018 Farm Bill provided a legal pathway for the production of hemp in The United States. Researchers here on the University of Illinois campus have been working to improve the crop and develop production techniques.

Todd Gleason:

This summer they held a hemp research open house. David Lakeman from the Illinois Department of Agriculture kicked off the event. I talked with him about how the state took interest in hemp.

David Lakeman:

Illinois has is almost perfectly designed, for hemp production. One of the things I mentioned is that, in the course of the second world war, right as The United States entered the war, many of the areas that grew hemp for industrial purposes fell under enemy control. So The Philippines and Ukraine are two of the greatest areas for hemp production, at least they were at the time. And, you know, virtually overnight in late nineteen forty one, both of those places were unavailable. So United States Department of Agriculture launched a program called Hemp for Victory, which encouraged US farmers to grow hemp and step into that void.

David Lakeman:

And and Illinois farmers stepped up in between, you know, 1942 and 1945 for almost 20,000 acres of hemp, which supported the war effort. It it can be done here.

Greg Johnson:

Hemp for victory.

Todd Gleason:

Those are the closing credits from a 1942 film by USDA titled Hemp for Victory that spurred production of hemp across the state of Illinois and the Midwest, it is something David Leichman, who is the cannabis and hemp division manager at the Illinois Department of Agriculture, hopes can be recreated.

David Lakeman:

And I want to see, you know, one more area for our farmers who are struggling, are dealing with multiple challenges to have this this crop that can is so versatile. It can grow on looser, rocky, more acidic soil that other, you know, cash crops cannot. It's it's it is great absorbing things from the soil. So if you know, before marijuana was made illegal in the thirties, farmers would line their fields with hemp because it would absorb heavy metals, lead, mercury, arsenic, pesticides, it would absorb those out of the fields so that you could grow your corn. Right?

David Lakeman:

There's a million different uses for it. And I want to make sure that Illinois not only has a thriving industry but it continues to be a leader, in industrial hemp production.

Todd Gleason:

Of course the United States government during World War two was spurring production of hemp for its fiber. What industrial uses do you believe it will have in today's world?

David Lakeman:

Again, it's virtually limitless. So to to answer your question, yes, during the war, again, rope was one of the chief uses for it. An actual battleship, so an Iowa clash battleship would use about 30,000 feet of hemp rope. And then, of course, less for a cruiser or destroyer, but, you know, something similar. We also used it for the production of uniforms, especially for exports to Soviet Union, which had used a lot of hemp grown in what is now Ukraine to make their uniforms.

David Lakeman:

Now given the state of science, there's so much more it can be used for. So you can make hempcrete, which is versatile. It is light. It is fire retardant. It is extremely useful.

David Lakeman:

You can turn it into plastics. I have in my office at the Department of Agriculture, a set of plastic silverware that is made from hemp material. You can make oils out of it. You can use it for cloth, for paper. There's a really great used bookstore downtown Springfield, and they have, you know, called the Prairie Archives.

David Lakeman:

They have, you know, all these newspapers that go back, to before Illinois was a state. And it's interesting. You go through those looks, can those papers, you can find when Illinois when they moved from making hemp paper for those newspapers to wood pulp paper. Cause the hemp paper is still clear as the day it was printed. It doesn't need all the protection that the wood pulp paper does.

David Lakeman:

It maintains its its character. It stays stable. So I mean, if if you could do that and start replacing, you know, lumber production with with hemp paper, it's both more sustainable and has the benefit of sticking around longer. It's more stable as a product. So again, there's virtually limitless applications.

David Lakeman:

And I think that's part of what, you know, that's part of why what the U of I is doing is so important. It's why, you know, this program is so important because we're just we're just now learning what all we can do with this plan, and I and I wanna continue to support those efforts.

Todd Gleason:

Why are you here to participate in a University of Illinois field day? What purpose does it serve?

David Lakeman:

You know, I think every one of the state universities now has a hemp program. They're incredible resources. They're pushing the science forward in a way, you know, that many other states are not doing. You know, there's a long history, not just here at at U of I, but also at the agriculture school in Carbondale with with hemp and cannabis research. I mean, they have a very long history.

David Lakeman:

So making sure that we're utilizing these incredible resources that Illinois has to bring to bear on it, they're here, we're here. And that's part of why, you know, the department wanted to be at this event is to show showcase our support and raise awareness of what these programs are doing.

Todd Gleason:

That's David Lachman from the Illinois Department of Agriculture. He serves as the cannabis and hemp division manager there. He attended the hemp research open house held on the University of Illinois campus in July. Let's take a look at the global growing regions. Drew Lerner is here now.

Todd Gleason:

He's with World Weather Incorporated in Kansas City. Hello, Drew. Thanks for being with us again. I like to talk about the cold weather, but let's start with just weather in general and what you're watching as we wrap up the month of July and turn the calendar to August. What things are of interest here in The United States for you?

Drew Lerner:

Yeah. In The US, probably the key is whether or not we will shift gears out of this wet bias in August. You know, is pretty much satisfied with the corn production issue with a few issues of course, but I think everyone's on the same page with the idea that the rain has been sufficient enough that whatever yield we're going to get is going to end up being locked in here. But we do see the potential that we could be drier in August. You know, this summer really has been kind of a almost normal ish summer.

Drew Lerner:

We've definitely been wetter biased in quite a few areas recently, but the Eastern Midwest has been a little bit drier biased. And when you step back and look at the upper wind pattern, there hasn't been any real serious blocking patterns. So it's been kind of a typical summertime weather or not that we know what typical is anymore. But I think that there's potential that we may see an August that turns a little bit drier with time. And it could turn a lot more drier depending on what happens in the tropics.

Drew Lerner:

And that's something that we want to watch pretty closely as we get out into the August. I think the Atlantic will fire up and we'll see a lot of weather systems lined up poised towards moving in our direction. And as a result of that, if that actually verifies, we could end up allowing for more rigidness a little farther to the east, giving us a little bit more dryness and a little less rain in the month of August. So parts of the Midwest could dry down a little bit more, you know, a normal August, if we get normal rain, we usually see some net drying. It's usually too warm in August to really be able to counter evaporation.

Drew Lerner:

So I think no matter how you slice it, we're gonna be a little bit drier at the August than we are now. And if the tropics fire up as they should for the August, I think there's a pretty good chance we may have a few greater pockets of dryness around. Absolutely not will we have widespread droughty weather. We will get back into some thunderstorm activity. I just don't think it's gonna be quite as juicy out there as it is now.

Todd Gleason:

Why at the August will we be cool?

Drew Lerner:

You know, we've been watching this forty five day cool cycle since last October. And this is one of those intra growing season patterns that only lasts for a year and it is still cycling. And because of that, we're a little bit concerned about September, but this pattern has come and gone. If you think back, we've had some shots of cool weather periodically since the middle of winter, in the spring, this was something that happened a little bit more often than what we kind of thought. And so for that reason, we've had, you know, really good crop conditions, but there's been times in the Northern Plains have seen only 60 degree temperatures in the last thirty days.

Drew Lerner:

And now we're going to see some seventies up that way, in parts of the Midwest. So a very impressive cool air mass. It should abate as we go into August and it will return, I think sometime in September. And for that reason, I think there is at least a little bit of interest that we could see some early frost and freezes in some areas, especially Eastern Canada and Eastern Canada Prairies that is, and some locations across parts of the Uppermost Midwest. But that is speculation for now, but I do think this pattern will repeat again.

Todd Gleason:

You just sent a shutter through those producers in the Dakotas and Minnesota and maybe put a smile on the face of producers in Iowa and Indiana. We'll have to wait and see what that looks like in mid September. Turn your attention though now to some other places. I haven't checked in with you for a couple of weeks. We have been watching France and then parts of the Southwestern areas or Southeastern areas of Europe, which had suffered through some dryness and droughty hot conditions.

Todd Gleason:

Have things changed in the last couple of weeks?

Drew Lerner:

Actually there hasn't been a tremendous amount of change. We did get some rain to occur very briefly in France and The UK and that helped things out just a little bit. But we're back into the hole again, and we don't expect rain of significance in France or parts of The UK for at least the next ten days. And we can say that the same for parts of the Lower Danube River Basin,

David Lakeman:

which is

Drew Lerner:

Southeastern Europe. Now that area there did just get some rain over the past couple of days. So there has been some relief in that area, but we are going to see that come to an end and go back into the same pattern that's been dominating the growing season in Europe. So we are going to continue that. Now it hasn't been real hot in parts of France in the last two or three weeks.

Drew Lerner:

So they haven't suffered quite as much as they had before, but there's still not much moisture in the ground. So the crop is still struggling in unirrigated areas. And we do expect the warmth to start coming back in again next week, probably in the second half of the week. Nothing extreme, but just enough to keep the edge of, stress on these crops for a while longer.

Todd Gleason:

Anything else that we should be watching in that part of the world?

Drew Lerner:

For Europe, probably not. In the western portions of the former Soviet Union, we also have some dryness in the Black Sea region down in Southern Ukraine and from there eastward into parts of Western Kazakhstan, including Russia's Southern region, at least the Southern parts of the Southern region. And that area is fairly important for summer crops. There's a lot of course grain and oil seeds produced in that region. The dryness has been really good for the harvest of winter crops.

Drew Lerner:

And so that moved along just fine, but there are some of those dry land summer crops that are pretty stressed at the moment. The top and subsoil moisture is pretty short and there's a lot of stress going on and to make matters all the worse between that and the ongoing war, South Eastern Ukraine is being plagued by locust infestation right now. And there's a video out there on the internet showing the population of these locust is just phenomenal, and so that's another problem that is facing some of the Ukrainian production.

Todd Gleason:

Oh my, that would be just awful to have that many insects swarming at one time, especially if it's coming on top of dry, and droughty conditions. I can't imagine anything worse as they finish off a crop that's already in poor conditions. Other places. We have not checked in on Australia for a month or two I think.

Drew Lerner:

Yeah, you know Australia's actually doing a lot better. They had a pretty decent rain distribution over the last week. It started about a week ago from today and went through this past weekend and it's now wound down, but there was good widespread rain. Now, if you recall the first several weeks of the autumn planting season for wheat, barley and canola were marked by unusually drier biased weather. And they were planting with the anticipation that it would rain eventually.

Drew Lerner:

And it did rain eventually, but it was a few weeks late and the crop has been subjected to some cooler weather. So we're not as well established as we ought to be for those three crops. And this rain that came up will actually turn out to be a great benefit when we do start to warm up a little bit more as we get into late August and September. And we believe that there is enough moisture out there now and maybe they'll get a little bit more to stimulate some new root and tiller development in the wheat and barley crop and to just help the canola crop get a little better established before aggressive Springs growth starts to occur. So I think Australia is definitely not the crop that it ought to be for this time of the year, but they do have potential for further recovery because of the rains that have occurred recently.

Drew Lerner:

But one last comment, we we still need more moisture. There's still a lot of the country that is low on on soil moisture.

Todd Gleason:

And thanks much. We'll check-in with you again next week.

Drew Lerner:

You bet. Have a good day.

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 that came to you from Illinois Public Media. It's public radio for the farming world. Don't forget to register for tomorrow's tax event for farmers related to the one big beautiful bill act.

Todd Gleason:

Bob Ray will bring you up to speed on all the changes. You'll want to get yourself registered. You can do that right now on our website. Look for the One Big Beautiful Bill Act tax webinar from the FarmDoc team in the calendar of events. You'll find it in red.

Todd Gleason:

I'm Illinois Extension's Todd Gleeson. Doctor. JACKSON: