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- Matt Bennett, AgMarket.net
- BioProcessing & Nat'l Security
- Mike Tannura, Tstorm.net
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- BioProcessing & Nat'l Security
- Mike Tannura, Tstorm.net
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 to 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 Matt Bennett from agmarket.net. We'll hear about a commission looking at biotechnology.
Speaker 1:This was formed by the United States government in 2022, and they visited last week the campus here in Urbana Champaign. Paul Archangelis is a commissioner there. We'll discuss, their mandate and how the university is playing into that and some things that I think you'll find of interest as well. And then as we close out our time together, we'll take a look at the weather forecast with Mike Tanoram. He's at t storm weather.
Speaker 1:That's tstorm.net online. All on this Thursday 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 services are made available to WILL by University of Illinois Extension. December corn for the day settled at $4.23 and 3 quarters, 3 lower.
Speaker 1:The March down three as well at $4.41 and a half a bushel and the May corn at $4.51 and a half down two and three quarters of a cent. November beans, $10.37 and a half down six and a quarter. January, October and a half down 6 and a half cents, and the March soybeans at $10.71 and a half down six and a half. Bean meal 90¢ lower bean oil 67¢ lower wheat futures soft red into December down four at $5.24 and a quarter the hard red December down six and a quarter at $5.10 live cattle up a buck 47 and a half, and lean hogs a nickel higher for the day. Matt Bennett from agmarket.net now joins us to take a look at the marketplace.
Speaker 1:He's in the combine cab again this week like last time, Matt. Thanks for being with us. When we spoke with you, you were just getting started in soybeans. How have things changed over the week?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So when we talked last week, you
Speaker 3:know, we were on our earliest planted beans that were planted on our our our darkest ground, our best dirt, if you will.
Speaker 2:And so, you know,
Speaker 3:we we actually cut beans Thursday, Friday, Saturday. We ran out of dry beans, and then we tried a little bit of corn, and it was still a little wet for what we wanted to do. So we got back into beans actually just today. So had a couple of days where we didn't do a whole lot because quite frankly, didn't have anything ready. We were a little surprised, you know, how the corn is hanging on to the moisture.
Speaker 3:Now our earliest planted corn on our blackest ground, once again, we're very happy with it. It's definitely off of last year, but it's it's good corn. And so I'm cutting beans today on lighter dirt, you know, and I would say it's anywhere from 10 to 15 bushel off of what we were talking last week, but I'd say still a pretty respectable yield considering the kind of weather we had there in August.
Speaker 1:Then what would the normal difference between those two, the dark dirt and the lighter dirt be to begin with? Would it be 10 bushels normally?
Speaker 3:Oh, I would say less than that. You know? So especially with the genetics over these last few years, you know, as long as you get ample rainfall, you know, it seems like these farms, you know, I'd say one of them's an A and one of them's a B plus farm. And so the B plus farm with these genetics, especially considering the one that I'm on today, has got a little bit of a roll to it. You know, sometimes it actually does as good or better.
Speaker 3:And so this happened to be a year though where, you know, you needed to hold on to that moisture as long as you possibly could. And, certainly, certainly, the black ground did that. Now the lighter dirt still is awfully good in a lot of places, but anywhere you get into a little bit higher ground, there's no doubt that you see, you know, a little bit of a yield drag. So, you know, I'm not complaining. I think where I'm really concerned, Todd, is whenever we get into our May planted beans on light ground, I'm a little concerned about what the yield will look like there.
Speaker 3:But, you know, we won't find that out probably for at least another week.
Speaker 1:You were surprised that the corn's hanging on to the moisture as long as it has. Does that also mean that grain fill went better than you thought it might have?
Speaker 3:You know, I think that some of the yields that we've seen have been, a little better than what we thought it was gonna be, by all means. I I think, ultimately, it's very interesting as I talk to growers, for instance, in the state of Iowa, you know, they're dealing with massive disease issues. So I talked to growers Northwest of Des Moines yesterday, and, you know, some of these guys were telling me that where they sprayed fungicide twice, it's about 80 bushel better than where they didn't spray anything. And where they sprayed it once, it's about 40 bushel better than where they didn't spray anything. So clearly, they had a very dynamic situation with an overabundance of rainfall here in the month of August.
Speaker 3:Whereas, you know, in Central Illinois, in the areas where we didn't get much rain in August, one shot of fungicide is all that it took. And so we're not dealing with the disease pressure here. And so our average yields, you know, might actually be fairly comparable, you know, to some of these guys in Iowa that's got such different situations whenever it comes to, you know, disease pressure, how many times they sprayed fungicide, etcetera. So it's gonna be very interesting. You're gonna see you're gonna hear yields and see yields that will be so far from each other just across the road, depending on management.
Speaker 3:And by all means, I'm not attacking anybody in those situations that didn't didn't spray twice because with $4 corn, it's a pretty tough ask to get a grower to spend, you know, maybe $60.80 dollars an acre on the two pass program for fungicide. So it's just you're gonna it's gonna take a long time to figure this out, Todd. But I think the overarching thing for me, what's the later yields gonna be? And I think in those areas that the map show that it's the driest it's been a hundred and thirty years, it'd be pretty we'd be remiss as to think that we're not going to lose a fair amount of yield the farther in the harvest we get.
Speaker 1:Yesterday, the Federal Reserve dropped the interest rate by a quarter of a percent. Did that have much of an impact in the market? And if not, what have you been watching?
Speaker 3:Yeah. I mean, it it certainly didn't give us a boost by any means. I mean, a lot of times people feel like, you know, maybe if you get a little bit of a a drop in interest rates, it could be inflationary towards commodities. That certainly isn't something that we've seen or felt. I do think a lot of people were mildly hopeful that you would get a half point cut, but the the rhetoric certainly sounds like they're planning on another cut before the end of the year.
Speaker 3:So I don't know. The market didn't necessarily handle it the way we'd wanna see it. But I think right now, the market's just kind of in a standstill. Too many different ideas as to what this crop's gonna end up being. And, you know, you see one person post a two eighty yield in Iowa, and I've heard a lot of them.
Speaker 3:And then you hear other people post, you know, a one sixty yield in Iowa, and I've heard a lot of those too. So, you know, it's just gonna be very interesting to see where this thing ends up falling.
Speaker 1:What are you gonna watch the rest of this week?
Speaker 3:I just wanna know how that phone call is gonna go tomorrow. You know? I mean, supposedly, Trump's gonna talk to Xi. You've gotta assume, you know, that there's already some sort of framework into place that that, you know, they've got some sort of agreements. You know, we've we've we've heard that this would be good for Boeing.
Speaker 3:We've heard this would be good for soybeans. But, you know, whether or not we're gonna see that come to pass, I don't know.
Speaker 1:Alright. Hey. Thanks much. We'll talk with you again next week.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:That's Matt Bennett. He is with agmarket.net. The National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology, established in 2022, aims to address the broader implications of biotechnology, including health, food, and agriculture, particularly bioprocessing. As you'll hear, the Commission emphasizes the importance of biotechnology in manufacturing, highlighting the potential for job creation and economic growth across the country. Commissioner Paul Archangel was on campus last week to explore the kinds of research that's been happening here and how it has been leveraged to create a bioprocessing corridor stretching across Champaign, Piatt, and Macon Counties.
Speaker 1:Farm broadcaster Stu Ellis and I sat down with the commissioner for just a few minutes. Our conversation began with me asking him to tell me about the commission's mandate.
Speaker 4:So the commission was established in the fiscal year twenty two National Defense Authorization Act, and it was, put in by Congress to look at national security merging biotechnology. And the first thing we realized when we when the commission was established was that national security emerging biotechnology is much broader than just national security. It it encompasses health security. It help it encompasses food security, agriculture, manufacturing. So it's much broader.
Speaker 4:And it lives and dies underneath the broader economy of biotechnology. So if we can't do things and be innovative in biotech, we can't do national security biotechnology either.
Speaker 1:There are a list I think of 49 or 47, you can correct me as to which this is, recommendations that have been made. Can you give me some examples of things that you hope might come to be and things that have already gone through Congress and legislation?
Speaker 4:So there are 49 recommendations, made by the commission. 25 of those recommendations have already been introduced by, members in the house and senate, in bills. So they they they they haven't been enacted into law yet, but they are in the process. Probably the thing that that sticks in in front of me the most is that there needs to be some kind of overarching guidance from the from the government, within the government. We have if you're working in biotech, you may touch multiple agencies in the United States government that aren't communicating.
Speaker 4:So there's a whole lot of regulation, especially in agriculture, especially in in health care, where you may touch more than one agency at once with your innovative solution, and there's not anybody in government who can take you through that process. And so you have to navigate it on your own. So that's the thing that, in my mind, impedes progress the most.
Speaker 1:So some of this then is about making sure that there is a path forward that those who are interested in this can find a way to get products into the system more easily. Part of it, though, is about national security, and that can be defined in many ways. Well, sure. And, you know, as as I said, you know, food security is national security. But biotechnology, it's not clear to most people what that means.
Speaker 4:When I say biotech, people think, oh, health care. It's much broader than that. Biotechnology is going to touch our lives in so many ways. We're going to manufacture with biotechnology things that right now we get from petrochemicals or we get from some other method. And we're gonna be able to do it faster.
Speaker 4:We're gonna be able to do it cheaper, and we're gonna be able to produce chemicals and and drop in replacements, but we're also gonna be able to produce things that may have new capabilities and properties, better, stronger, faster, lighter, things that would have great utility to the warfighter and have a national security use. And in addition, as as I just said, I mean, food security is national security, so agriculture is absolutely important in biotechnology, and advances in biotechnology and agriculture, where it's better for the farmer, is going to be better for national security. And it'll have the follow on effect of providing other capabilities to national security as well.
Speaker 1:You're here on the University of Illinois campus visiting IFAAB, the IBRL. It is part of a corridor that stretches from Champaign to Decatur in hopes of creating a bioprocessing mecca of sorts across those areas to create new products from crops. How does that play into your security and other issues related to the commission?
Speaker 4:So the that you asked the question about, you know, we're here in the middle of America, and biotech most people think biotech lives on the coast. And the whole point is that it's where the biomass is. And here we are in Illinois, and I'm looking at all these amazing biotech startups and biotech companies. All of that is going to be part of the ecosystem of biotech in The United States. That is what is driving innovation.
Speaker 4:That is what is gonna produce the these new solutions for the warfighter. So all of it is threaded together. And what a lot of people don't understand is that biotechnology manufacturing is going to happen all over the country. It's not just gonna happen on the edges. It's gonna happen everywhere.
Speaker 4:And it's going to happen in rural communities, and it's going to bring jobs that aren't just PhDs. It's going to be the the entire stack of folks that work in manufacturing. So people are going to have to run these facilities. We're going to need technical degrees. We're going to need folks to to manage them and and feed these plants to produce these outcomes.
Speaker 2:You visited Premiant ADM today, and now at the IBRL. What what either surprised you and or excited you about what you saw?
Speaker 4:So one of the things that I have learned over the last few years is that there when you are working in biotech, you may come up with an innovative solution. You may invent something that works in a test tube, but it doesn't work at 75,000 liters. So it doesn't scale efficiently. That is a hard process. It's also an expensive process.
Speaker 4:So getting investment, if you're a small startup company in your innovative biotech solution, is very difficult if there's no way for you to scale. So what I saw today at iFab was exactly what we need, that middle step of scaling from a test tube to a large quantity. And then once you're there and you've demonstrated that your technology works along that scale and up and up to large scale, you can convert to a commercial process and manufacture at scale and then sell that. Then that's where investment can help. At the end, you can say, look, this works, and
Speaker 2:it works at at large scale. And that's what you saw at ADM and PREMIENT.
Speaker 4:That's exactly what I saw. I saw I saw the the entire chain of test tube all the way to up to a million gallons at ADM. And, I mean, it's it was fascinating and exciting to see. And that was one of the things that had me worried over the last couple years is that is that that's happening in other countries, and we need more of that here.
Speaker 2:Now we have farmers who are looking at low prices for corn and a diminishing market for soybeans. How quick is this going to replace what we are growing now? Is this five years, ten years, a lot of years?
Speaker 4:Biotech is moving faster than that. And it really is a question of how fast are we going to move to take this up. It's moving so fast. Eighteen months in biotech is a generation of of technology. We're turning those generations very, very fast.
Speaker 4:What are you going to tell your colleagues when you get back to Washington? I'm gonna tell them all about what saw here in Illinois. I'm very excited by not just the not just the small things that we've seen at the university where startups are at work, but going out and seeing the large scale production is really exciting to us. And and I think this is a demonstration of the things that the commission has been after, which is that this is this is new manufacturing all across the country and great opportunity if we can just capture it.
Speaker 1:One last question. You used the term war, and I don't quite remember exactly what it was. Can you define that term for me?
Speaker 4:You say war fighter. So I I this is all my years in defense speaking. Right? So I'm I I talk in code. When I say warfighter, I'm speaking about the service member, but also the mission of the service member.
Speaker 4:I didn't say soldier. Didn't say sailor. I didn't say airman. I didn't say marine. I didn't say guardian, I said war fighter.
Speaker 4:All those services will benefit from biotechnology because we're gonna produce, and we are producing things that are far beyond what you might imagine, which is, you know, coatings for aircraft, coatings for engines, new textiles that are stronger that you can make body armor out of, self healing runways. All these technologies are gonna be valuable to the warfighter across the entire spectrum of the national security.
Speaker 1:Thank you very much. Thank you. Paul Archangelis with the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology. He visited the University of Illinois last week to tour facilities dedicated to the development of the bioprocessing industry for agricultural crops. Let's check-in now with Mike Tanuri.
Speaker 1:He's the CEO and president at T Storm Weather, a meteorologist, and an agricultural economist. I wanna start, Mike, by digging into some numbers I know you have been looking at. August was fairly dry. Can you talk about it and then maybe put the soybean crop into perspective?
Speaker 5:If you look at August rainfall across the seven state Corn Belt, it was the sixth driest going back a hundred and thirty one years, so that gives an indication that soybeans needed some rain last month. Over the last thirty days ending on September 17, 60% of expected US soybean production only had less than half of its normal rainfall, and that's a pretty high dryness coverage for the crop. It's interesting because our dataset goes back fourteen years and there's only two other years that had a similar spike in dryness leading into the September. And that was actually the last two years, 2023 and 2024. And so now we're going to add 2025 to the list.
Speaker 5:So kind of unusual that we basically had a very similar weather pattern over a very similar period of time for three years in a row. And Todd, you don't need to be huge a observer of weather to know that that's not usually what happens. Usually weather is varying from year to year and from time to time, but this is the third time that we've seen this. And so if you think about soybean yields, this is where it gets a little bit challenging because we know that last year the USDA was projecting a soybean crop at around 53.5 bushels per acre, pretty similar to what's being projected right now for this year's crop, but that eventually fell all the way down to 50.7. And there's a number of reasons why that happened though.
Speaker 5:Don't really know what they all are and some people want to attribute that late season dryness to it. If you just look at it in that window, you might say, Well, hey, this might happen again. And it might, but if you go back two years, which again had a similar scenario to this one, the yield actually started out a lot lower in the September USDA projection. They were at 50.1 bushels per acre in September 2023, and it ended at 50.5, so it basically ended at about the same number, but the projection was much lower at this time of the year. So similar weather in all three of these years, kind of different USDA projections on how they came to their final number.
Speaker 5:So we don't want to get too caught up in that, but we just do want to point out that it's been very dry. This is the third year in a row of this, and it'll be a good data point because we'll be able to tell what really is going on. Is this late September dryness really affecting yields because we basically haven't had any observations like this over the last ten to twenty years, and now we're gonna have three in a row.
Speaker 1:Is the finish of September, the October going to be wetter?
Speaker 5:Well, it is turning wetter. We had some decent rains over the last twenty four hours in parts of the plains and even into Iowa. And that whole system is chugging eastward at a very slow pace, but that will turn all the Corn Belt a little bit wetter as we get into next week. There's another system behind it and that will, in some fashion, merge with the first system and kind of create a showery period across a big chunk of the Corn Belt. So it will be turning wetter over the next seven days.
Speaker 5:We're thinking a half of an inch to one and a half inches with the best totals from Illinois and points on to the West. But we'll see how all that pans out and whether or not that means anything. If you look back at 2023 and 2024, the peak of dryness did end at about this point in time also as rains arrived, they kinda dropped the, they kinda ended that dryness story. Then it's gonna end again, it looks like, this year too.
Speaker 1:What's the story from the beginning of the growing season in South America this year?
Speaker 5:Well, Mato Grosso is getting some decent thunderstorms this week, and that's going to continue into the end of the month. That's important because if they get some nice rains in September, they can start planting soybeans early. But when we talk about early soybean planting in Mato Grosso, we're not talking about a huge amount of soybeans. Maybe they'll plant anywhere from 1% to 5% of that crop before October starts. But it is a decent start for them.
Speaker 5:The rest of Central And Northern Brazil will get some thunderstorms next week, but behind that there's not much. So we don't think we're going to see this huge wide open soybean planting setup in Brazil just because the good rains are pretty much limited to that state. The southern part and also extending into Argentina, they're planting some soybeans, but really more of corn at this time of the year. They've been pretty wet and they're going to turn wetter. A pretty big system is moving through today and it'll continue to pass all the way through Monday.
Speaker 5:And then there's another system about a week after that. So between all that, a pretty wet open to the growing seasons in Argentina, Southern Brazil, and even Paraguay too.
Speaker 1:Hey. Thank you much. I appreciate it. Sure thing, Todd. That's Mike Tanuri.
Speaker 1:He is with t storm weather at tstorm.net online. You've been listening to the closing market report from Illinois Public Media. I'm Todd Gleeson.