Closing Market Report

The August 28, 2026, edition of the *Closing Market Report*, hosted by Todd Gleason, provides an overview of commodity market movements, agronomic crop conditions, and regional weather forecasts. Mike Zuzolo of Global Commodity Analytics analyzes the late-summer market rally, attributing price strength to supply constraints from Black Sea export disruptions, geopolitical tensions, and demand rationing, while recommending a sell-and-defend marketing approach for producers. University of Illinois Extension soil fertility specialist John Jones addresses the impact of early-summer precipitation on nitrogen availability, noting that while localized losses and field variability may slightly soften average yields, remobilization of nitrogen already stored within the plant canopy will sustain grain fill for the majority of the corn crop. Concluding the broadcast, Nutrien Ag Solutions meteorologist Eric Snodgrass discusses the upcoming shift from a cool, wet August to warmer, drier conditions in September across the Corn Belt, while highlighting the broader implications of an intensifying El Niño on potential U.S. harvest delays and South American planting schedules.

01:22 Ag Markets with Mike Zuzolo, Global Commodity Analytics and Consulting
09:30 Corn Uses N Stored in the Plant for Grain Fill
16:43 Ag Weather with Eric Snodgrass, Nutrien Ag Solutions

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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

cmr260828

01:22 Ag Markets with Mike Zuzolo, Global Commodity Analytics and Consulting
09:30 Corn Uses N Stored in the Plant for Grain Fill
16:43 Ag Weather with Eric Snodgrass, Nutrien Ag Solutions

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

01:22 Ag Markets with Mike Zuzolo, Global Commodity Analytics and Consulting

Announce: December corn for the day, 536 and a half, up 3. March, up 4 at 551 and a quarter. November beans, $12.88, 20 higher. January, 1302 and three quarters, up 19 and three quarters. Soft red winter wheat in the December, 23 and a quarter higher at 784. The hard red, 844 and a quarter, up 22 and a quarter.

Todd Gleason: Mike Zuzolo out of Atchison, Kansas, now joins us. Hi Mike, thanks for being with us today.

Mike Zuzolo: Great to be back with you, Todd. Another beautiful Friday with the markets rallying.

Todd Gleason: Indeed, a big rally. I have to ask, because we are not at Labor Day next weekend. We have another week left in the summer. Usually, Labor Day doesn’t change things very often, but there are holiday issues. We have a full moon. I want to know about this rally, what underpins it, and what might disappear, if anything.

Mike Zuzolo: What underpins it is the realization that the funds woke up to the idea that this is a lot like 2022 in terms of supplies coming out of the Black Sea. We haven’t seen that yet with the Strait of Hormuz and the crude oil market. That is something to watch for as we get into September to fuel a greater rally. The trade and the funds in particular are planning and pricing in de-escalation instead of escalation on geopolitics. That is the heart and soul of this market. We’ve lost the grain corridor for 60 to 90 days, but it is just now being realized by the funds. It makes sense that would be right because wheat is clearly the leader percentage-wise. Year-to-date, we are up around 40% to 50% in soft red wheat, even more in hard red. Corn is up about 20% to 25%, and beans are up around 25% to 28%. Wheat is still the leader. Crude is still very important to keeping wheat the leader, which has created this 2022 environment again. The other half of your question goes back to rationing demand now. We had the dollar spike, which I call a washout, because the Fed Chairman did his speech at Jackson Hole and the dollar went straight up. It is a renewed worry that interest rates are going to go higher, similar to what happened in the 1980s.

Todd Gleason: I want to clarify one thing up front. You mentioned the grain corridor closed 60 to 90 days. Has it already been closed 60 to 90 days, or do we have two more months left?

Mike Zuzolo: We have been closed for about 60 to 90 days, or getting to the point where it would be completely shut down. The trade was of the view that supplies in Ukraine and Russia will come and it is just a logistical issue. That is what is keeping us held up in both crude oil and wheat. Supplies are held up, and we are not getting back to the supply levels we had before.

Todd Gleason: Why is it a logistical issue? It was fixed once across the Polish border for Ukraine. Russia could go through Belarus into Western Europe. Why is there such difficulty?

Mike Zuzolo: It is because of the sheer damage that has been done. They have literally taken the gloves off between the two countries. I saw this week that even by rail, the August Ukrainian grain exports were down 60% from July. The trade assumes the de-escalation mindset, but maybe Iran wants high energy prices. Maybe Russia wants high wheat prices. Maybe this is their response to tariffs and sanctions. It is another way of escalating this conflict economically. The trade needs to get on board with that idea.

Todd Gleason: What does that tell you about what producers should do?

Mike Zuzolo: The key now is we are in the supply-side, sharp rally, demand-rationing rally. As we get into the September time period, it becomes a lot more important about demand. We could have supply shocks while we harvest if yields are lower because we finish out drier than expected, especially on soybeans. Between the U.S.-China meeting and the ethanol issue in Canada, the trade relationship is souring dramatically with Canada, and they take a third of our exports. Those are the demand issues coming.

Todd Gleason: Does that tell you producers need to be proactive as it relates to harvest?

Mike Zuzolo: Yes. I started at Utterback’s in 1995, and Bob became known for the sell-and-defend model. I still use it. I think it is the best way to go in supply, weather, and geopolitical-driven markets. Sell and defend. I started doing it in wheat, and a little bit in corn and beans this week. Watching the technicals, watching to see if Erdogan and Putin get together this weekend and come up with a new plan to open the grain corridor back up would speed me up. You sell it, lock in profit, and get some longs back in place at a specific time based on your parameters.

Todd Gleason: What else are you watching?

Mike Zuzolo: The cattle market is a big deal because the feeders have noticeably gone lower with the corn rally. You would expect that to unwind eventually. When corn makes a high, I am looking for the feeders to make a low. Fats should already be making a low based on supply-demand fundamentals. Like the 1980s, policy has stepped back in with the ethanol market, RINs, refinery exclusions, and bringing in tariff-free beef.

Todd Gleason: The president has been talking about deregulating to encourage ranchers to create their own stockyards and packing capacity.

Mike Zuzolo: That takes years and millions of dollars of investment. We shut them all down already. I have ranchers getting out of the business at the end of this year because of what they’ve had to go through. They are 70 and not going to deal with this anymore. The administration is getting some unsound advice right now.

Todd Gleason: Thanks much. We’ll talk with you again soon.

Mike Zuzolo: Appreciate it, sir.

Todd Gleason: Mike Zuzolo is with Global Commodity Analytics and Consulting out of Atchison, Kansas.

09:30 Corn Uses N Stored in the Plant for Grain Fill

Todd Gleason: This August, there has been a great deal of talk about the weather in June and its impact on the corn crop, particularly how wet it was and what nitrogen loss might have looked like, and how it will impact grain fill. John Jones now joins us. He’s an Extension soil fertility specialist based on the Urbana-Champaign campus of the University of Illinois. John, thank you for taking time with me today. Can you tell me about the weather we had in June, and what you and your colleagues have been talking about?

John Jones: The narrative that we have had a thousand small cuts, or specific ways the crop has been hurt by weather or management, is true. A consistent story in central and northern Illinois is that variability within fields is very high. Towards the middle of June, we had one- to three-inch rainfalls that led to elongated saturated conditions. In our research, our low-nitrogen treatments started to fire early. They showed nitrogen deficiency early and held consistently. Even fields where we applied base rates of 50 and 100 pounds showed lower soil nitrate levels than we would expect. That doesn’t necessarily mean the nitrogen was all lost, but the amount immediately available wasn’t there for when the crop needed it around the V6 to V10 timeframe.

Todd Gleason: Is enough lost or unavailable to cause alarm for yield?

John Jones: I don’t think it is a reason to cause alarm. Rates of zero to 100 pounds of nitrogen are lower than most farmers apply. There will be more advanced firing from the lower canopy. We have also seen some upper canopy disease pressure starting to cannibalize the plant. This makes us reflect on the nitrogen strategy used. We had a short window to make a rescue treatment. When things started to dry out into early to mid-July, you were pushing it on whether you would get a return on that nitrogen. The variability and the amount of loss we have seen so far will probably lead to yield numbers that are a little lower because of nitrogen loss and lack of availability.

Todd Gleason: Is there an issue during grain fill related to nitrogen?

John Jones: The main way we see nitrogen being used in grain fill is through remobilization. The plant uses nitrogen to move photosynthates and energy to the grain for fill and kernel weight.

Todd Gleason: So this is nitrogen already in the plant?

John Jones: Correct.

Todd Gleason: As opposed to nitrogen it is trying to get. It is about the canopy and canopy color at that point?

John Jones: The goal is to have a full canopy that is dark green from as low as we can get it before we start to fill kernels. A lot of nitrogen in the plant gets remobilized. If the plant is deficient before the R2 to R4 time period, grain fill will be suspect to less than ideal conditions because of nitrogen deficiency. We are seeing that in some of our trials.

Todd Gleason: But for the bulk of the corn crop in the state, you feel satisfied that it is fine?

John Jones: On average, I don’t think there are massive events pushing major nitrogen losses, but the variability is probably what is going to bring those averages down a few percentages.

Todd Gleason: Thank you very much, John.

John Jones: Thank you so much.

Todd Gleason: John Jones is a crop scientist and an Extension soil fertility specialist based on the Urbana-Champaign campus of the University of Illinois.

16:43 Ag Weather with Eric Snodgrass, Nutrien Ag Solutions

Todd Gleason: Let’s turn our attention to the weather forecast for the growing regions across the planet. Eric Snodgrass is here. He’s a meteorologist with Nutrien Ag Solutions. Hi Eric, thanks for being with us.

Eric Snodgrass: Thanks for having me back on, Todd.

Todd Gleason: Let’s look back at August. Much of it has been really nice, but some of it was hot and really wet.

Eric Snodgrass: That is an important thing to bring up. We had incredibly wet conditions in June. July had rain, but it wasn’t as heavy. Then in early August, we had record rains that moved from eastern Iowa to Ohio, which hit us in Indiana pretty hard. My big question, Todd, as we get a better idea of the size of this crop, is do we have a nitrogen problem on our hands? Is that what we are seeing with cases of tip back and poor pollination? The pollination may have been from untimely heat, but I am also hearing reports of significant stalk rot and crown rot, causing difficulty with the standability of the crop going forward. Are you hearing anything like that?

Todd Gleason: The standability issue probably started because it was so wet that the plants didn’t have to put roots down. We just finished an interview with John Jones yesterday regarding nitrogen availability. He mentioned that while there was nutrient loss in some places, there are no real alarm bells across the Midwest. If your corn canopy remains green, it is probably not a big deal because the nitrogen translocates from the leaves to grain fill. It is mostly using what is stored in the plant rather than pulling it out of the soil.

Eric Snodgrass: I will never claim to know much about plant physiology, but I was talking to Matt Bennett last week, and his comments flying over the crop were that the color looks different than he expected. The second part to this is August has been mostly cool. Heat is a problem in August, and we are not putting heat on the crop, but that will change into September. The big Texas ridge has been oppressive across the South. Some of that heat is going to finally cross the river into Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. We will warm up into the 90s next week. Thankfully, it is September heat and not July heat. With that, we expect drier weather. We can still get rogue thunderstorms, but overall it is a drier pattern going into the next couple of weeks.

Todd Gleason: Let’s talk about the super El Nino and the impacts across the geographies you want to discuss.

Eric Snodgrass: Let’s start in the U.S. We expect the risk of a wetter-than-average harvest season. We are already beginning to see the effects of this El Nino with increasing flow into the western United States, which tends to make it wetter for us during harvest. This El Nino is already stronger at this point in the year than the big ones in 1997, 1982, and 2015. We would like to know if this will be a problem for South America. I think the issue will be in southern Brazil, keeping things too wet for too long, which could impact planting in northern Brazil. Some forecast models hint at bringing moisture to Mato Grosso and Goias, but they will have to wait until September and October for real rains to return. The question will be whether there are planting delays in Brazil. Given how markets have responded to U.S. yield issues and global demand, South America could be a compounding factor if they have problems. We will have a lot to talk about in the coming months.

Todd Gleason: Thanks much, and we’ll talk with you again soon.

Eric Snodgrass: Sounds good. Thanks, Todd.

Todd Gleason: Eric Snodgrass is with Nutrien Ag Solutions. He joined us on this Friday edition of the Closing Market Report that came to you from Illinois Public Media. If you can stay with us on our home station, you’ll hear a portion of our Commodity Week program. It will also air on many radio stations over the weekend and is available online in its entirety at WILLag.org. We introduce Arlan Suderman’s colleague Mike Castle, who has been at StoneX for some time and will be picking up some of his duties as Arlan retires at the end of the year. You will want to hear from Mike about StoneX’s numbers for yield, how they are calculated, and when that next release will come in September. You can do that on Commodity Week online at WILLag.org, right here on our home station coming up next, and many radio stations over the weekend. I’m Todd Gleason.

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