Closing Market Report

- Greg Johnson, TotalGrainMarketing.com
- Fall Anhydrous Price Predictions and a farmdoc Webinar
- PRE Herbicide Injury on Early Planted Soybean
- Drew Lerner, WorldWeather.cc

★ Support this podcast ★

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

Todd Gleason:

From the Land Grant University in Urbana Champaign, Illinois, this is the Closing Market Report for the March 2026. I'm extension's Todd Gleason. Coming up, we'll talk about the commodity markets with Greg Johnson, the agricultural weather with Drew Lerner, and hear about early planted soybeans and herbicide damage. Greg Johnson now joins us from TGM. That's totalgrainmarketing.com.

Todd Gleason:

Hello, Greg. Thank you much for being with us. Well, the ag community has been waiting for announcements on e 10, e 15, particularly e 15, and the RVOs this week. Expectation still for the RBOs to come before the end of the month. However, today, Lee Zeldin, who is the administrator at EPA, did announce that e 15 will be allowed to be used year round across the nation this summer.

Todd Gleason:

That should be a nice boost for ethanol or at least something that the trade can put a hook on. It may or may not make much of a difference as mostly, I believe, everybody thought that e 15 was going to come, and it has been, this way at the very last moment for, well, some time now, like, since 2021 or '22. So I I don't know if it's a surprise to the market. Probably not, but it is helpful, I suppose.

Greg Johnson:

Yeah. I would say it's not bullish, but it's supportive. But, you know, we we did as you said, we expected this, but the fact that they actually announced it is good. The more important news probably will be the RVO announcement if we do get it on Friday, but, that's what the trade is expecting is to hear some kind of an announcement on Friday concerning the RVOs. And that probably would have more of an impact potentially on prices than this waiver because this is just what we've done for the last five years or this four years.

Greg Johnson:

This will be the fifth year now that we've waived the the the requirements so that we're allowed to sell e 15 in the summertime. So, supportive, but not bullish, I would say.

Todd Gleason:

And and it is important to note that the Biden administration and the Trump administration following through, starting last April, has made a commitment to the eight states in the Midwest that e 15 would be available year round anyway. So this expands that out to the rest of the nation. Now let's talk about what's been happening in the marketplace. Yesterday was quiet. Today seems as if it was quiet too.

Todd Gleason:

Is that the case?

Greg Johnson:

Yeah. It is. It's very quiet. Everybody's all eyes are on The Middle East and oil prices. It seems like corn and soybeans take their cue from how the crude oil prices are doing for the most part.

Greg Johnson:

Corn's up 9% since the Middle East conflict started. Beans are up 8% since then. That sounds all well and good until you look at the fact that diesel prices are up 40% since the war started and urea prices are up 42%. So the corn and bean prices are higher, but not enough to offset the input cost for the most part. So I guess we'll take what we get.

Greg Johnson:

Market is following the Middle East war. If we do get a cease fire, which is the rumor for today, that's got oil prices lower. But it seems like the news out of the Middle East changes about every other day. So until we see something actually documented and verified, it just seems like everybody's got an opinion and the market is up one day, down the next. Very uncertain as to which direction to take, with all, trading seem seemingly based off of headlines that are being released.

Todd Gleason:

As the diesel fuel prices were coming up, and I don't often talk to you about diesel, but I'm wondering whether when you were having discussions with farmers, had they booked their diesel needs for the spring planting season?

Greg Johnson:

A lot of them have, yes. And fortunately for us, a lot of them have locked in their fertilizer needs too. But I think there are, you know, a lot of areas that did not, I don't know what percent that is, you know, maybe a quarter to a third did not get those inputs locked in. And that kind of leads me and others to believe too that maybe that corn acreage number might be a little bit lower than what we were thinking earlier. You know, there was a lot of 94 to 95,000,000 acre corn puck that might be a little bit lower than that.

Greg Johnson:

It might be closer to the 94, and maybe, you know, there's an outside chance of even seeing 93. I don't know if that would be reflected in this March 31 acreage report next Tuesday because they took that survey, you know, around the first of March, and maybe at that point, farmers were still planning on planting corn. But, if they've gone to their input suppliers and found out where the prices are, you know, they may may have to think twice about planting as much corn as what they originally had thought.

Todd Gleason:

And the Bloomberg survey is out for those estimates, and the analysts are 94,170,000 acres for corn and 85.57 for soybeans. Of course, the report is due out on Tuesday next week. That's March 31. We'll be talking about that. Yesterday, I was in a meeting in the afternoon, a pre meeting for tomorrow's webinar from the PharmDoc team as I'll be hosting it about the price of fertilizer as well as diesel fuel.

Todd Gleason:

And I think, while I know for for a fact that mostly the concern appears now not to be quite about the springtime, diesel fuel for spring, but for the fall because anhydrous ammonia prices don't tend to come down all that quickly. And I think there's a great deal of concern about the 2027 crop. Have farmers talked to you about that too?

Greg Johnson:

Not too many are have looked that far ahead. I mean, I think they're concerned about it, but, obviously, everyone's hopeful that we get the Middle East situation resolved by then. But for the '26 crop, it takes thirty to forty days to get diesel fuel, oil, fertilizer, what have you, move from through the Strait Of Hormuz to the Gulf Of New Orleans and then a few more days to get it up the river. So, number one, we're worried about price, but number two, we may be worried about availability if it's not available for forty five to sixty days. That might be a little too late for some people.

Greg Johnson:

So a lot of concerns out there as far as input prices and availability.

Todd Gleason:

Chuck Spencer from GrowMarkFS will be on. You'll be familiar with him through TGM along with, some folks from the National Corn Growers Association, Gary Schnitke and Nick Paulson tomorrow as well. They posted to the PharmDoc Daily website yesterday an article about this, and a fairly simple model that they have been using since 2016 that tracks things very well, and they really are pretty concerned that nitrogen prices will be high. It'll be important for everybody, I think, to tune in for that one to get yourself registered. You can go to farmdocdaily.illinois.edu to do that.

Todd Gleason:

What else should we be following the marketplace at this point, or have you been thinking about?

Greg Johnson:

Well, I think the the market has frozen a lot of people into doing nothing with all the ups and downs and back and forths. It it's easy to just say, well, I'll just wait till tomorrow and and hope the the news changes. But keep in mind that these prices can come down. Gold has dropped 13% since the war started. Silver has dropped 22%.

Greg Johnson:

The Dow is down 5% since the war started and 8% overall. So a 13% or 20% drop in corn and bean prices would be huge. And so I guess I just wanna remind people that the war has added some price improvement to corn and beans, but if this settles down, we could see prices drop and we're over $11 on soybeans and we're getting close to $5 on new crop corn on the board. So those, you know, people can say that inputs are higher and we need more money than that to break even, but these definitely are prices that are higher than we've seen in quite some time, and farmers may wanna think long and hard about maybe getting something locked in at a minimum and, locking in some of these prices.

Todd Gleason:

On that note, we thank you for taking time with us again today.

Greg Johnson:

Hey. Thank you, Todd.

Todd Gleason:

Greg Johnson is with TGM. That's total grain marketing dot com. Just one quick news item and a reminder for the day. The ag economist at the University of Illinois are cautioning the impact of the Iran war could cause the price of fall nitrogen to remain high. Using a simple statistical model relating anhydrous ammonia prices to corn and natural gas prices through time, the PharmDoc team projects anhydrous in the state of Illinois this coming fall to average $860 a ton.

Todd Gleason:

Now higher prices are likely to continue even if the conflict ends soon due to the persistence of price shocks. In an article posted to the Farm Doc Daily website, the U of I Ag Economist note fall twenty twenty six prices could be much higher, exceeding a thousand dollars, particularly if the Iran conflict continues. The team will host a free webinar on the price of fertilizers and diesel fuel tomorrow at 11AM central time. Registration is free and online right now under the webinars and events tab at farmdocdaily.illinois.edu. From The Ag Economist, let's go to the crop scientist where the University of Illinois Herbicide Evaluation Group has been investigating potential issues with herbicide premixes and pre plant herbicides when used on early planted soybeans.

Todd Gleason:

Early planting dates for the study have been between April, while May planting dates have been around May 15 to the eighteenth. The conclusion is fairly simple. PPO herbicides do cause damage, but as you'll hear, as long as stand counts are not severely reduced, there is little evidence of yield impact. U of I research specialist Logan Miller, under the direction of Extension weed scientist Aaron Hager, has been carrying out the experiment.

Logan Miller:

One of the main projects we're working with, looking at evaluating several different herbicide premixes or pre herbicides just to see if, especially in that early plant environment, certain ones are more more likely to cause crop injury, more excessive levels of crop injury, and then also maybe possibly stand loss that could result or translate to soybean yield loss. That's really the biggest concern just given that in those early planting conditions or environment usually is a little less favorable for early season soybean growth. So maybe given that a longer time, to soybean emergence may increase that duration of exposure of the soybean or seedlings to those herbicides, under less favorable conditions, more stressful conditions that could result in maybe higher levels of injury, and stand loss compared to a more conventional planting date.

Todd Gleason:

Was it the different herbicides, or was it the weather and the environment that made a bigger difference?

Logan Miller:

They kinda go hand in hand, of course. We need the precipitation to incorporate those herbicides, we so don't get that. Not going to see anything, but so I would say the limiting factor is the weather. Just because also if you do have excessive rainfall, that's going to put more stress on the crop, early in the season. But then also certain herbicides are more likely to cause injury on certain premixes that contain certain active ingredients, so that's also a pretty important factor as well.

Logan Miller:

It's kinda hard to put one above the other, but I'd I if I had to pick, I'd say weather.

Todd Gleason:

Which premixes or herbicides were more likely to show some noticeable issues early in the season?

Logan Miller:

The ones that are most likely to or have caused most injury were PPO based premixes, so, contain the classic chemistry that is the group 14 herbicides. So most farms are pretty familiar with these authority based products, fierce based products. And so those are the ones that have stuck out resulting in the greatest amount of crop injury. And also Ziggo Pro is another one that also contains a PPO herbicide that we've seen, more so stunting with that product, past couple years compared to the other ones. But those are the big ones.

Todd Gleason:

Were there PPOs, herbicides that did better than others?

Logan Miller:

Preview and, Prefix were the two that stood out. So Prefix is one that is not really viewed as a pre herbicide, I would argue more of a full year post herbicide in soybean, just given that it has Flexstar from Esfen as the active PPO herbicide in it. And that's more of your more of a knockdown herbicide not really known for residual control. We didn't really see any injury with that one. But then as per preview, it contains metribuzin and also sulfentrazone.

Logan Miller:

And that sulfentrazone component is also in your Authority products. So that's been a staple in pre herbicide control in soybean for two decades now. And that one we didn't see hardly preview any injury in relative to the non injury control, which differed compared to those authority products and like Fierce and Kyber. We definitely saw higher levels of injury with those products compared to Preview and Prefix. So it could be for a couple reasons.

Logan Miller:

Fierce products contain flumioxazin, which is a different active ingredient but sell PPO herbicide. And so it could be maybe the AI on you know, depending on the year may be more likely to cause injury. But most likely, it's just also because the product's different in the amount of actual pounds of active ingredient that they have. So, for example, also like Broadax, it has, less sulfenture zone in it compared to, say, an Authority Edge or Authority First. And so it also could be playing a role in the amount of injury that we're seeing.

Todd Gleason:

Do take up metribuzin for me. How did it fare in the study?

Logan Miller:

In terms of the premixes with metribuzin, we didn't see, like, any crop response. And then when we had it just looked at it, alone, here in Champaign, we did looked at it at, 12 ounces of dry metribuzin. And then at our Western Illinois site, last year in Pike County, it's a little bit of a lighter soil. So we dropped the rate a little bit down to just over 10 and a half, 10 and a half ounces of dry metropuzin. And regardless of the rate there at the site, we didn't see any crop response.

Logan Miller:

I would say you get above eight ounces. That's, you know, definitely in that 10 to 12 ounce range range. That's pretty robust rate. And so that was encouraging to see that we didn't see any crop response, at least last year with that higher rate of metropiesin or stand loss.

Todd Gleason:

When you looked at herbicides, you also looked at seed treatments like Elivo. Did you see any damage there or find anything of interest?

Logan Miller:

So, we also evaluated levo versus non levo treated seed. So all the seed had a base seed treatment, but then we added in the levo as well as a factor. And so the first year of the study, we did see a significant stand loss from that levo seed treatment regardless of what the pre herbicide was here in Champaign and also across both planting dates. But we did not see any yield loss or reduction in that May planting date or a conventional planting date. In the early planting date, we did see an eleven eleven bushel yield loss reduction when including Levo, which likely just also has to do with the weather conditions that occurred following planting in that May planting date that were less favorable again for growth.

Logan Miller:

Because we did see when also just evaluating that May planting date, saw significant stand reduction compared to the early, which is kind of opposite what one would expect. But this past year, last year in 2025, we didn't really see much of the crop response from Movivo compared to the first year. And we also didn't see any stand loss. And then looking at the yield data we saw one in the no cell environment early planted, we saw a yield reduction of about four bushels, and then the tillage environment, we saw a yield gain by having a Levo versus not of about four bushels, five bushels. And then that May planting date, we didn't see any difference.

Logan Miller:

So it was more of an inconsistent effect last year compared to the first year of the study.

Todd Gleason:

And finally, any conclusions on the yield or the crop recovery from the damage and what difference it might have made? I think you talked about stand counts as well.

Logan Miller:

When it comes to looking at the pre herbicides, any concern for concern for yield loss, there wasn't any really reason to be concerned, just given the soybean stand counts that we did collect later on the season. And then of course the yield data, despite there being varying levels of crop response or crop injury from those pre herbicides, the yield data didn't show any negative effects. And then, you know, really, you know, as long as we're looking at about a 100,000 seeds per acre, some would argue even less, maybe seventy, eighty thousand seeds per acre. We're sitting pretty good for not having to be concerned about soybean yield loss so long that it's uniform stand. And we had that.

Logan Miller:

So despite some of those lower levels of, maybe stand reduction from some of those PPO herbicides, they did not directly influence yield or cause yield loss.

Todd Gleason:

Logan Miller is a research specialist in the Department of Crop Sciences at the University of Illinois and a member of the Herbicide Evaluation Group. If you'd like to learn more, check out the webinar and or podcast at ISA's fieldadvisor.org website. It is titled Which Pre Herbicides Increase Injury Risk in Early Planted Soybeans? Let's take a look at the weather forecast now. Drew Lerner is here from World Weather Incorporated in Kansas City.

Todd Gleason:

Let's, let's stay in The United States, I think, today, Drew. It is the hard red winter wheat crop that seems to be of concern, lay out why, what conditions are like at the moment, and how you see things developing.

Drew Lerner:

Yeah, you know the crop went in really well last year. That's a big plus. But conditions over the winter were certainly less than ideal And it has progressively become more and more harsh for that crop. In the winter, we, especially in late January, early February, we had a three day period where temperatures were hovering around zero or below it. We were at night well below zero.

Drew Lerner:

And during afternoons, we got to the positive single digits. But all of that occurred without snow on the ground. And that was a long enough period of time that we probably did a little damage to the crop. I don't think we killed it necessarily, but there may be some signs of winter kill out there as well. But I think the biggest thing on my mind is that we injured the crop.

Drew Lerner:

Now we came along into late February and into January, I'm sorry, into March. And we saw a nice warm up take place. The crop was stimulated a little bit at times. And we came into March and we saw the warmer air coming around as well. And so we got the crop to wake up and it started developing in some areas and then we whacked it with that big freeze of March 14 through the sixteenth where the temperatures again fell down close to zero and in snow free areas of Kansas, Colorado, and Nebraska.

Drew Lerner:

And that further raised another flag that the crop might not have done well. Now, again, I don't think we killed the crop, but we didn't do any to help it. In the meantime, it hasn't precipitated in that region. And anytime you damage a wheat plant, you it can easily recover. It just needs to have wet and cool weather over a couple of two or three weeks in order for tillers to be set again.

Drew Lerner:

And but the thing that's been missing is the rain. We just aren't getting any precipitation out there. And that extreme cold that occurred March 14 through the sixteenth was immediately followed by instead of cold and wet conditions by temperatures in the nineties to near 100 degrees. And that is what I am most concerned with after injuring the crop. It's just the absolute opposite of what that crop needs to get back on track.

Drew Lerner:

And we've added more to that today. It's gonna be in the eighties and nineties out there in the plains. And we're gonna see it again early next week, Sunday through Tuesday with 80 degree readings at least. And it's not gonna rain at all in these areas for at least another full weekend, probably for ten days. And when it does rain, it's gonna be very erratic and light.

Drew Lerner:

So there is definite reason here to be concerned about the crop. You know, we don't have too many years like this where we don't get an opportunity for the crop to revive itself. And I think this is the scenario we've seen so far is certainly not on track for making that crop better.

Todd Gleason:

Here in the Midwest, farmers will be getting the itch because it's been pretty nice. I actually did see a field cultivator running a couple of days ago. Oh, and I mowed my grass yesterday because it was green and growing and, frankly, actually needed mowing, which was odd, in the month of March, but we need rainfall as well. Will we get some?

Drew Lerner:

Yeah. There, We're gonna see a change next week. The April, we're going to bring some moisture into the Midwest. We are going to heat it up too. Probably mid to late week next week will be notably warm biased across the region for a period of five days or so.

Drew Lerner:

So yeah, I think we're going to affirm the soil a little bit between now and then we're going to warm it up definitely next week. And then we're going to add a little bit of moisture. And I think the bottom line is going be a really good mix and we'll be able to get into some of these fields on time for the start of the planting season. So I think it looks pretty good right now. I'm not promising it's going to stay that way.

Drew Lerner:

And certainly the Northwest part of the corn and soybean producing areas are probably going to keep a little drier bias for a while longer. So that area up there, they may get planted quickly, but they're gonna cry for some moisture after a while.

Todd Gleason:

Thanks much, Drew. We'll talk with you again next week.

Drew Lerner:

You bet. Have a good one.

Todd Gleason:

You too. Drew Lerner is with World Weather Incorporated in Kansas City and joined us on this Wednesday edition, Closing Market Report from Illinois Public Media. I'm extension's Todd Gleason.