Closing Market Report

- Matt Bennett, AgMarket.net
- Abigail Peterson, Illinois Soybean Association
- Jennifer Tyree, Illinois Pork Producers Association
- Mike Tannura, Tstorm.net
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Creators and Guests

Host
Todd E. Gleason🎙🇺🇸
University of Illinois
Guest
Matt Bennett
AgMarket.net
Guest
Mike Tannura
Meteorologist - Tstorm Weather

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

Speaker 1:

From the land to Grant University in Urbana Champaign, Illinois, this is the closing market report. It is the November 2025. I'm extension's Todd Gleason. Coming up, we'll talk about the commodity markets with Matt Bennett from agmarket.net here with me at the NAFB in Kansas City. Then we'll turn our attention to the Illinois Soybean Association and the Illinois Pork Producers Association.

Speaker 1:

They're also here in Kansas City. And as we wrap up our time together, we'll talk about the weather forecast too with Mike Tanorum. He's a teastorm weather. He's in Naperville, Illinois, and we'll do all of that 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.org.

Speaker 1:

Todd Gleason services are made available to WILL by University of Illinois Extension. Matt Bennett from agmarket.net now joins us to take a look at the marketplace. Hi, Matt. Thanks for being with us today. And we're both here at the National Association of Farm Broadcasting Convention in Kansas City.

Speaker 1:

I bet you've done a lot of interviews today.

Speaker 2:

Oh, I've done a ton of interviews, probably 25 or 30 of them at least.

Speaker 1:

Did you tell them all the same thing?

Speaker 2:

I don't think so.

Speaker 1:

Good. Good. So what what we want is the good stuff from you and the correct stuff. Tell me about this marketplace this week.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. I mean, clearly, the the market's kinda come under a little pressure here today. Corn and beans have both they were higher earlier in the session, and then we kinda broke. We had some, export sales this morning, which good to good to see. But at the same time, you know, it sure seems to me like this could be an environment similar to what we've in the past when export sales announcements are made, maybe some positions get lifted, which is something I know that I probably talked to you about.

Speaker 2:

Back in the trade deal phase one on corn, every time we'd get an export announcement, the market would race higher and then it kinda sell off. And what was probably going on there is some futures positions were getting lifted. And so I'm not so sure that that might not be the case with soybeans here this year as well.

Speaker 1:

So producers should take advantage of the rallies as they're happening, I would think or think thinking. Because once the sale is actually announced, it may turn around and go down sort of the buy the rumor, sell the fact function.

Speaker 2:

No. Absolutely. I mean, there's no doubt that, you could be in a position there where, the market doesn't do what you expect it to do based on the news. Part of it might be that if if China knows they're buying beans, they're gonna front run it with long futures. And I'm sure that that's something that they have done.

Speaker 2:

I can't say it for certain. It's just that personally, I believe that's what's happened. And so, you know, ultimately, what it's gonna boil down to, if the bean market's gonna be able to do what it's done in the past when it goes up above eleven and goes to twelve, you're gonna need some help from South American weather. But the technical action here in the market today doesn't really look good. You know, you're looking at the corn market, a couple of the contracts that I was just looking at before you and I talked were were going under a couple of our moving averages that I really didn't wanna see.

Speaker 2:

And so hopefully, we'll get this market to kinda hold. But at the same time, you've gotta assume with the kind of rally we've seen, going back to what you said, we need to reward a market. I've said it all along. You go up a dollar or a dollar 50 off of harvest lows and you ignore those types of rallies, in my career, it hadn't always worked out that well. And so I wanna at least incrementally reward that type of rally.

Speaker 2:

If you say, well, we're off the highs now, you're still way higher than what you were before. And so don't get caught up into that thinking that I can't sell into a down market. You can sell into a down market that's significantly higher than what it was, and you should be happy about it. Are you

Speaker 1:

thinking both old and new crop and has old followed along how well? Or I mean, followed along how well?

Speaker 2:

Well, I mean, new crop on the bean side of things has actually followed along a little better than what we thought. Now if we would have gotten accelerated in the rally, there's no doubt in my mind that, like, for instance, a July to no type spread could have gotten out to a dollar dollar 50. I mean, that's what we've seen historically. And so you wouldn't think that no would be able to rally significantly from that point. But at the same time, I guess, you know, in my opinion, there's still an opportunity that this market could could see a really strong rally if you get weather issues.

Speaker 2:

Argentina is dry. There's no doubt. Brazil looks like it's in pretty good shape overall, and they raise significantly more beans, you know, than what, Argentina does or us for that matter. But whenever we look at Argentina, where does that come in is typically you get a really strong soybean meal market rally if the market sees Argentine dryness and then we're still in La Nina. And so there's a definite possibility.

Speaker 2:

I go back to the last six times Argentina's had a drought that influenced yields enough that they called it a drought. You know, all six of those years were in La Nina. So I'm not saying just because it's La Nina, they're gonna have a drought, But I would say since they're already dry, you've gotta keep it in the

Speaker 1:

back of your head. Okay. So I'm wondering about this $11 area because you you have told us and it's often said, don't spend a lot of time in the $11 area. Most farmers are thinking, okay. 12.

Speaker 1:

12. I don't think you were convinced of that to begin with, but it could have made a run.

Speaker 2:

Oh, yeah. It definitely could have made a run. It still could make a run. I mean, you just never know what tomorrow's gonna bring. But, again, I'm very hesitant to encourage people to wait on that type of price action when they've already received a gift, in my opinion.

Speaker 2:

There's a lot of us that didn't think we were gonna rally to that level. What has incurred that rally is Chinese business we didn't necessarily expect was gonna show up. I felt all along like they'd buy something, but having a a defined deal where you've got a baseline, which is what we've been told verbally and nothing signed yet, so you don't wanna take it to the bank. But getting that news certainly would have been supportive towards the market that we were counting on, having really strong domestic increases. And let's face it, crush was incredible this month.

Speaker 2:

But with the administration talking about maybe kind of pushing back, over the next, maybe for a year or two and allowing some of this imported biofuel to come into the country without a tariff type situation, that's a problem. And, the market has not received it well whatsoever.

Speaker 1:

This is something we talked about on commodity week, with Jim McCormick along with, Naomi Blum and, of course, Arlen Suderman. The idea that the administration was looking at, not giving, for instance, cooking oil coming in from China, only 50% of an r of a RIN. And now they're saying, well, maybe two, three years out, we're going to do that. That did not go over well with the marketplace at all.

Speaker 2:

No. It didn't. And quite frankly, it doesn't fit well with the America First strategy. You know? Everyone felt like if we're going to bolster the farm economy, one way we can do it is a continued move towards domestic consumption.

Speaker 2:

And let's not fool ourselves. We're gonna absolutely have to have domestic consumption, Todd. I mean, we don't raise near the soybean crop that the Brazilian Brazilians do. And clearly, there's been significant investment to get those beans out of the country a lot quicker than what they have in the past. And so if we think that we're gonna gain soybean market share on the world export basis anytime soon, we're sadly mistaken.

Speaker 2:

It's just not gonna happen. So we have to have domestic consumption.

Speaker 1:

You've talked a lot about soybeans because they have been the leader, corn following along. What do you think of that marketplace?

Speaker 2:

You know, soybeans certainly have been the leader. Corn followed along reluctantly is the way that I've explained it. It didn't have near the percentage rally you would expect, you know, with well over a dollar rally. I mean, shoot. Some of these contracts pushing a buck 50.

Speaker 2:

But at the same time, we did see a rally and we went up above, you know, like that $4.40 level that we didn't necessarily think we were gonna get above. Now what happens on the way down? I I think similar action whereas soybeans probably give up more of the gains even percentage wise, relatively speaking. I think that corn will somewhat hold intact and one of the things corn's got going for it is just incredible demand. I mean, we've got really strong demand for corn.

Speaker 2:

And so I think a lot of people are still very much discounting the USDA yield. I'm not saying that they're too high, it's just a lot of people think they're too high. If they would come in with a three or four bushel yield reduction like they did a year ago, I'll tell you, the market could get a little more interesting given a couple different facts. We've already got really strong demand that has not backed off. In fact, it's building.

Speaker 2:

The other thing is is how many acres do we plant in '26? Now I still think corn acres will be pretty strong, but you should lose three or 4,000,000 acres just from your corn to beans, beans to corn guys. Know, it should be something that because we were heavy beans this year and two years ago we were heavy corn. Okay? And so you've got us or we were heavy yeah, we were 90.7 and then 98.

Speaker 2:

And so you would expect somewhere in the middle there. I'm gonna call it 94, 95 on corn next year. So I don't think the market can afford to really plummet as far as these 26 goes down, especially whenever we've grown accustomed over the last couple three weeks to $11 plus no 26 beats. Thank you much. I appreciate it.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. Thanks for having me. That, of course,

Speaker 1:

is Matt Bennett. He is with agmarket.net. We're now joined by Abigail Peterson. She is the director of agronomy at the Illinois Soybean Association. Thank you, Abigail, for being with us.

Speaker 1:

I wanna talk about a couple of things, about the cooperation between the Illinois Soybean Association, University of Illinois Extension, College of ACEs researchers. But I also wanna hear about some really big news that's coming out of ISA as it's related to your research farm.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. So we are, very excited as we've grown the production team at ISA to do that with supporting as much as we can of the University of Illinois Extension and making sure those tools are accessible for farmers. As part of the checkoff, our job is to make sure that the research we fund is farmer focused. We ask farmers to continuously fill out surveys. I know it's a lot for farmers to always be submitting that information, but it is utilized when we are trying to determine what funding goes to those research projects.

Speaker 3:

And so when farmers have issues with weed control, red crown rot, SCN, variety placement, things that they want to see done in a non biased trusted way with a resource they can really rely on, they want they should be using our checkoff information, and that comes from the great experts in the state, come from the University of Illinois as well as SIU and Western. And so we are so happy to partner with those researchers to get them integrated into Illinois fields and more of their knowledge spread across the state.

Speaker 1:

So people like Boris Camilletti, who is

Speaker 2:

a

Speaker 1:

plant pathologist, along with Nick Sider, entomologist, weed scientist, Erin Hager, John Jones, agronomist on campus, and others, you would be working with. How how is it that you partner with those folks from campus to do research?

Speaker 3:

Definitely. So we have an open, proposal season. So and it's once a year. So every year, we get fresh ideas, you know, new approaches to what needs to be researched, and our farmers help direct, where that and what really should be focused on. So it really has that good relationship of, you know, what you're thinking of maybe in a lab in Champaign.

Speaker 3:

How does that affect someone in, Macomb or someone in Princeton, Illinois where I'm from? You know, it's really is the farmers then saying, hey. This is what I'm seeing in my fields, my soil type, my climate. Reach me where I'm at. And so we're we're bridging that gap with the researchers and, finding projects that they wanna look into.

Speaker 3:

And so those researchers you mentioned, Jessica Rakowski even with her information on wheat, is really influential to our double crop farmers. And double crop is a huge impact to our state, makes us the number one soybean state in The US. So, we're we're excited to be concepting these new projects with the directors we work with. And when we're at field days, when we're in the countryside, we're asking farmers who aren't on the board, obviously, to continue that input and to look at our research and and really and give us feedback. Give us some dialogue.

Speaker 3:

Tell us what you're seeing in the field. Do you agree? Do you disagree? And let's, work on these tools together.

Speaker 1:

So they are able to grab data from producers. I assume they also are able to, through you, to potentially put plots on producers' farms so that they can get data more directly from them. How else are you working with them through the research farm that you have, through the kinds of research that you're doing ongoing from the Illinois Soybean Association?

Speaker 3:

Yes. So we have far started the on farm trial network, which includes the demonstration site, which is, the ISA agronomy farm South Of Bloomington. And that's really just to get more information onto large farm scale trial fields. So farmers can right now go into fieldadviser.org under participate and sign up for a trial today. There's sulfur trials available, insecticide trials available with doctor Nick Sider's protocol development, as well as a double crop population study.

Speaker 3:

Our cover crop, trial closed out, so hopefully farmers didn't miss out on that one. But if they wanna look into what cover crop we have going on next year, those close out obviously the fall time. You gotta get those in. So we're excited to get more, information from farmers doing these trials physically on their fields, and having that quality information come back into a database that can be utilized for the researchers and for other farmers across the state that wanna know in certain counties, you know, what other farmers are seeing as well. The farm at, in McLean County there in it's South of the ISA office, about a thirty minute drive on your way to Decatur.

Speaker 3:

You'll see it on the side of the road. We have plots this year that will be with Illinois Fertilizer Chemical Association looking at the MRTN, nitrogen rate, for the corn plot. We have Jessa Jessica Rukowski from University of Illinois looking at her, wheat varieties and the University of Illinois soybean, variety plot. So and and much more. So there's a lot going on at the farm.

Speaker 3:

There's a lot of moving parts. But the the point is for a farmer, for those visiting Illinois wanting to understand agriculture to come and see demonstrations, and learn from them and, engage with the Illinois soybean agronomy team as well.

Speaker 1:

Thank you much, Abigail.

Speaker 3:

Thank you.

Speaker 1:

Abigail Peterson is with the Illinois Soybean Association. We're now joined by the executive director of the Illinois Pork Producers Association, Jennifer Tyree. Hi, Jennifer. Thank you so much for being with us. I wanna take up a topic that is Illinois centric.

Speaker 1:

There are a couple of them, but first I wanna talk about, those people that are in need. Oftentimes, SNAP recipients, but much broader than that as it's related to food banks across the state. Your organization has a history of making donations from time to time, and there is big news on that front. Can you tell me what's up, in Illinois as it's related to the food banks and a donation that's coming up?

Speaker 4:

Yes, Todd. I'm I would love to. So we are proud every year to be able to offer a program called Pork Power, which at the end of the year, we receive funding throughout the year from Illinois Corn, Illinois Soybean Association, from our our own association, and then from farmers making donations that we pull these funds together at the end of the year and get bids to donate ground pork at the regional food banks across the state of Illinois. And so what makes this year really exciting is that Feeding Illinois, which is a subsidy of Feeding America, they were able to match our monetary contributions at those regional food banks so that we could double the amount of ground pork that we're making donations to towards the end of the year. And those press events and those kickoffs start pretty soon.

Speaker 4:

The processors have already been selected, and the deliveries are scheduled for the November and early December to get to those families in need.

Speaker 1:

How many pounds in which food banks?

Speaker 4:

So we, work with those eight regional food banks. We've got the Greater Chicago Food Depository. We've got Northern Illinois Food Bank. We've got the, Tri State, which is in Evansville. We've got the Eastern Illinois food bank, which is in Champaign.

Speaker 4:

We've got Central Illinois food bank. We've got the, Saint Louis food bank that covers that Metro East area, and then we've got the, Midwest food bank there in Bloomington. And so of those, all of those but the Midwest Food Bank are part of Feeding Illinois. And so we're able to double our efforts at all seven of those regional food banks. So we're looking at what we normally do between four and five thousand pounds.

Speaker 4:

We're doing close to 11,000 pounds at each of those food banks this year for that pork power donation.

Speaker 1:

That's incredible. Proteins are really hard for food banks to come by because they are so expensive. This is something that pork producers in the state have done for years, if not decades, I believe.

Speaker 4:

Yeah. The program actually started, Todd, in 2008. So we've been able to donate over a million pounds of pork throughout the campaign. But for us to be able to double those efforts, especially this year when SNAP benefits were delayed, and it seems to be that our food banks are continuing to get more and more clients signed up, it just makes us feel like we're giving back to the community even more.

Speaker 1:

Thank you very much. I appreciate it. And Merry Christmas. Congratulations. Happy holidays.

Speaker 1:

All of those things.

Speaker 4:

Absolutely. Thank you so much, Todd.

Speaker 1:

Jennifer Tyree is with the Illinois Pork Producers Association, joined me here at the National Association of Farm Broadcasting Convention in Kansas City. Let's check-in on the global growing regions with the president and CEO of T Storm Weather, that's tstorm.net online out of Naperville, Illinois. Mike Tenora, hi Mike thanks for being with us again today. I want to get right into this. Let's talk about South America.

Speaker 1:

What are conditions on the ground like today as it's related to soil moisture?

Speaker 5:

Well, it's unusually dry in the northern half of the Soybean Belt of Brazil. There's two regions that we divide that area into, and both of them are the driest in more than twenty six years of record starting on October 1. And so this gives you a pretty good idea that we're in one of the driest setups in at least two to three decades across this area. So we need rains to show up. We think rains are going to start over the next few days, especially in the northern part of that region, But then they should expand into all areas as we move into next week and then continuing into December.

Speaker 5:

So this story of this dry area in the North is going to diminish as we move forward, and we'll see how all that pans out because we really do need some rain in that region, Tom. As you move further further to the South, it hasn't been dry at all. It's actually been a pretty great start to the growing season from what we can see in Argentina, Southern Brazil, and Paraguay. And that, of course, includes a big chunk of corn and soybeans, but soybean planting is only starting in Argentina. But all that said, things look pretty good right now.

Speaker 5:

The concern that we have is that a surface level high is going to develop and envelop this entire region as we move into December and probably last for a little bit beyond that. That is a setup that's very consistent with La Nina, and La Ninas occasionally lead to pretty big droughts in this region. Now is this the start of that big drought? It's almost impossible to say. The only thing we can say is that it's very consistent with what you would expect in that type of pattern, but it's November.

Speaker 5:

What really matters is what happens in December, January, and then in February, once you're in Argentina. So it's not really time to sound alarm bells alarm bells, but it certainly is something that should be watched and shouldn't be completely ignored. So in the end, Todd, as we move over the next two weeks, the dry areas turn wet, the wet areas turn dry, and that's going to lead to some important weather two to six weeks from now.

Speaker 1:

Just a changing pattern then in Brazil, I take it, and Argentina.

Speaker 5:

Yeah. Pretty much it's going to be flipping. That's what's happening here.

Speaker 1:

Turn your attention to The United States. Talk to me about the cold weather that, we are expecting.

Speaker 5:

Well, yeah, it's going to be quite a pattern change. It's been pretty mild for most of the last few months, and that certainly includes weather over the last few days, especially as we move into the plains where it made it into the eighties as far north as Oklahoma and parts of Northern Texas earlier this week. Well, that's going to continue for, you know, three, four, five more days where we have pretty mild weather across most of the Central US with highs in the forties, fifties, sixties, and seventies. A major cold front is going to move through Tuesday and Wednesday, and that will lead to a totally different weather setup once we get into late next week, including the Thanksgiving holiday. With that comes some snow threats once they move into next Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and then probably continuing over the December.

Speaker 5:

It just looks a lot different than what we've seen in recent weeks and maybe even in recent years, depending on how all this pans out. There are some associations of weak La Ninas and cold winters in the Central US, with three of the four most similar having been cold, but none of those were really cold. And we haven't had a really cold winter in twelve years. So, we're not going to be sounding alarm bells on that one yet either, but it certainly looks a lot different one to two weeks out.

Speaker 1:

Hey. Thanks much, and we'll talk with you again next week.

Speaker 5:

Sounds fantastic, Tod.

Speaker 1:

That's Mike Tenura. He is with t storm weather. Tstorm.net online joined us on this Thursday edition of the closing market report that came to you from Illinois Public Media. It is public radio for the farming world online on demand at willag.org, willag.0rg. I'm Extensions, Todd Gleason.