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- Matt Bennett, AgMarket.net
- Gary Schnitkey and Laura Gentry
- PrecisionConservation.org
- CornNRateCalc.org
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- Gary Schnitkey and Laura Gentry
- PrecisionConservation.org
- CornNRateCalc.org
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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 October 2025. I'm extension's Todd Gleason. Coming up, we'll talk about the commodity markets with Matt Bennett.
Todd Gleason:He's at agmarket.net, and we'll hear from Laura Gentry and Gary Schnitke about PCM, that's precision conservation management, and a couple of ways that you can save some money this fall as it's related to nitrogen applications by using the MRTN and maybe limiting the number of tillage passes as well. Stay with us. You'll hear all of that right here on this Thursday edition of the closing market report from Illinois Public Media. It is public radio for the farming world.
announce:Todd Gleason services are made available to WILL by University of Illinois Extension.
Todd Gleason:December corn for the day at four point two one threefour, five and a quarter higher. The March at four thirty eight, up five and a quarter, and May and nickel higher at four forty seven and three quarters. November beans, ten twenty three and three quarters, up ten and three quarters, the January quarters higher as well. They finished at $10.41 and 3 quarters of a cent. Matt Bennett from agmarket.net now joins us to take a look at the marketplace.
Todd Gleason:Hi, Matt. Thanks for being with us. First, tell us how things are coming along in the harvest season for you.
Matt Bennett:Well, you know, we, are gonna finish soybeans here today and actually move back into corn. You know, lot of this corn just didn't really wanna dry down. So it's actually worked out really well to be able to get into all these beans. Now clearly, the beans are dry. I mean, everyone you talk to say moisture content is about as low as what you'd wanna see it, and that's exactly what we're seeing.
Matt Bennett:We've tried to always get to our beans by the time they're 13 or 14, and this year, they just wasn't possible. That dry spell we had, as soon as, these beans got to where they were ready to cut, they were too dry. So, but, yeah, it's been good overall. I mean, the later planted beans, as we expected, didn't yield near as much as the earlier planted beans. I still think they're pretty good overall, especially going fifty days without rain, but, you know, there's no doubt that there's gonna be some yield drag there on that later planted stuff.
Todd Gleason:You know, president Trump yesterday talking about, tariffs, trade, China, and soybeans and suggesting that farmers will be compensated for losses of, soybeans not being exported to that nation this year. That was the reason I was told and saw that yesterday's rally came. It seems a little odd, actually. I'm wondering what happened today. Was there a follow through in some other way?
Matt Bennett:Well, I think in all honesty that yesterday, it probably had more to do with his rhetoric whenever he talked about the, you know, the discussions that they were gonna have, whenever it comes to him and Xi, that are gonna focus on soybeans and and and on exports. And so I think that that probably got the trade a little more worked up, if you will, or excited, finally give you something, you know, to to actually trade, something to get excited about and maybe maybe a little bit of positive vibes, if you will, because clearly, we just haven't had much to run off of. A quarterly stocks report wasn't bearish beans, but it was so bearish corn that, yeah, I just don't think with the lack of trade and the with the lack of exports that we've seen that that you could really do anything to get a pulse on this bean market. So there's no doubt in my mind that the more overriding factor that's given us a little life this week is just simply the fact that president Trump said that they're gonna focus on beans. It it makes everyone feel like, hey.
Matt Bennett:You know, this has been ignored. People have been frustrated. The whole Argentine situation with, them putting 40 cargoes, in the hands of China, you know, whenever we, cut them a break. I mean, that that the optics of that were horrific, and I've gotta think that the that message has gotten to the administration pretty rapidly.
Todd Gleason:Yeah. And to be to clarify the optics on that one, there was and I don't know that this has actually been done yet, but there was support of the administration in Argentina, being purchasing the Argentine pesos peso in order to prop up that particular economy, and then the Argentines opened up their tax free part for soybeans and sold a bunch of beans across to the rest of the world. I wanna come back to the to the Trump talking about this because from the first administration, talking about it and getting it done are two different things. And I'm I'm a little worried that the trade, while they have rallied beans, what, nearly 20¢ in two days, may realize that those conversations aren't taking place for four weeks, and things can change fairly quickly. What are you telling producers about the rally that we're in the midst of?
Matt Bennett:Yeah. I mean, that's you're you're exactly right, Todd. I mean, talk is cheap. There's no doubt that it it provided optimism, but, you know, putting our money where our mouth is is a little bit different story. So your question is, what are you telling producers?
Matt Bennett:And, Todd, let's just be real. This is a very tough situation. Most of the growers I'm talking to are saying, I really don't want to pay what they're asking me for storage or for even DP for that matter, whereas the basis on beans isn't all that rosy. Now we've actually seen bean basis pop a little bit here over the last couple of days, and and, you know, the river has actually seen values, you know, narrow up quite a bit as far as basis is concerned. And so, you know, in all honesty, I tell a grower, if you can't put those beans in the bin at home, you've gotta make a decision.
Matt Bennett:You know, do you wanna go ahead and pay 40¢ to get out to the first of the month or first of the year, which is what a lot of growers are happen to do? Or do you wanna go into a strategy that at least gives you a chance to stay long at a much cheaper type of price and it keeps you long. Here's the thing. If I'm gonna do it, I'm only gonna do it out to, a March auction, Todd. Because, I mean, if you're gonna get a a a nice rally in the bean market, it's likely gonna be due to a trade deal situation, first of all.
Matt Bennett:But second of all, Brazilian weather. And so we should definitely know most of what we need to know about that Brazilian crop by the time those March options go off. I can't spend a whole lot of money on options on this bean market. Price is already bad enough. So, you know, yeah, that's what we're doing.
Matt Bennett:Now if you can put them in the bin, I'll tell you what, there's really nice carry out to the July option, but you've gotta at least lock that in whether you do it through a straight hedge, which a lot of folks aren't gonna enjoy if the market takes off on a rally, or just simply do a, like, a three way option spread as something that we've been, employing quite a bit where we're locking that carry in with an at the money put and then maybe giving up, you know, if the market goes above $11.80 or $12 later on, we're okay with that. So, I think you've gotta, at least, if you're putting them in the bin, recognize why you're putting them in the bin and then lock that carry in that you're going after.
Todd Gleason:Hey. Thank you much. We appreciate it. We'll talk with you again next week.
Matt Bennett:Oh, absolutely, Todd. Thanks for having
Todd Gleason:Mhmm. That is Matt Bennett. He is with agmarket.net. You're listening to the closing market report from Illinois public media on this Thursday afternoon. It is public radio for the farming world online on demand at willag.org.
Todd Gleason:That's willag.0rg. Thanks for your gifts during our fall fund drive. If you didn't get that opportunity, you can still make a gift today. Right now, just go to willag.org. Look at the top of the page for the donate button, and thank you very much.
Todd Gleason:I like the $120 level really to start with. But frankly, because of the situation, $2.40 would be much better. I know that's a tough ask at this time of year. However, we work really hard to try to make you as profitable as we possibly can, and we're hoping that you can help us out right now. You can do that by hitting the donate button or go to willgive.org and always always always put in the comments section in support of agriculture.
Todd Gleason:Now up next, one of those cost saving measures, we'll talk about PCM or precision conservation management. This is a conversation I held at the Farm Progress Show.
Todd Gleason:Gary Schnicki is here along with Laura Gentry, Gary ag economist on campus at the University of Illinois, and Laura Gentry is water quality specialist with the Illinois Corn Growers Association and adjunct with crop sciences here on campus. Thank you both for being here. I would like to talk with you a little bit about PCM or something called precision conservation management. This is a very large project and gets larger every year on done on farmers' fields to try to put some econ behind the decisions they are making. Can you tell me about the beginnings of the project, Laura, and what it is that the corn growers and University of Illinois were hoping to look for and how big the project has grown?
Laura Gentry:Sure. Thanks, Todd. Yes. The Precision Conservation Management Program is a a program that was started by Illinois Corn Growers Association, in 2015. It was really created in response to the Illinois nutrient loss reduction strategy that was also released in 2015.
Laura Gentry:And the point of, the Precision Conservation Management Program was to, help a lot of the farmers that, we knew who were interested in different kinds of practices, conservation practices that they knew would address the nutrient loss problems that we have in the state of Illinois. Help to address those goals of the nutrient loss reduction strategy that had just been released. But the problem with a lot of it was that we did not feel like there was a lot of good information about the the the all of the different financial implications and the risks that were associated with these conservation practices. We did not know very much about how these were affecting farm financials. Not a lot was known also about how they were affecting the risk like time management, labor management, and we just felt that we could dramatically increase the adoption of these practices if our farmers had better information on some of those aspects of it.
Laura Gentry:So that's what we started the program with the goal to do. Overall goal is to address those goals of the nutrient loss reduction strategy and we've had a lot of help of course from doctor Snicki and the Ag Econ department and PharmDocs department with helping us to take the information that we collect from farmers and turn that into actionable information that tells farmers what they are are likely to run into when they adopt these practices in terms of their net returns and specifically what which aspects of their their farm income are likely to be impacted.
Todd Gleason:In fact, I know a farmer who told me for the Illinois nutrient loss reduction podcast, a brand new episode, which will be released today, says that he is in the PCM program, said that without being coaxed, and that he used it to understand how his farm can be more profitable. And he is constantly looking at the numbers and hoping that he finds more from it. So that's that's a good outcome, I would think.
Laura Gentry:In this farm economy, every farmer has to be looking at their their net income and weighing that against their any kind of practice change that they're making.
Todd Gleason:Gary Schnicki is here too. Gary, thank you for being with us. And I wanna know about the numbers that you actually are using from PCM and what difference that makes for you when you're trying to look at the economics of a farm. When you pull all those numbers from these hundreds of thousands of acres, are there takeaways that producers might think about in ways of changing what they do on the on the farm?
Gary Schnitkey:Yeah. Yeah. And just just go to go back, the uniqueness of what PCM offers us as far as looking at the returns from production practices. PCM collects every field pass that is go goes over a field. There's often seven, eight to nine of those field passes, surprisingly large number until you begin to think about it.
Gary Schnitkey:And for each one of those field pass, we also understand or or collect what is implied, whether that's dap, anhydrous ammonia and nitrogen solutions or other types of fertilizer as well as pesticides. Some of the takeaways from looking at that at this program are that one cost are important and that may that may not be a shocking result but it is true costs are important And some of the things that we find, for example, to the nitrogen practices is staying within the university recommendations, MRTN. Those are often lower rates, lower than 60% of the farms in PCM. Those are the profit maximizing alternatives. And continuing on the nitrogen path, the number of nitrogen passes that you make are important.
Gary Schnitkey:And generally speaking, you want to keep our results would suggest keeping those dedicated nitrogen passes, whether that's anhydrous ammonia in the fall or ammonia in the spring or at post plant keeping them to one. Obviously that requires some sort of other nitrogen pass if you're doing it post plant, for example, but but that can be kept to a minimum by putting nitrogen on with pre plant with the with the herbicide. And the final thing is that anhydrous ammonia is the cheapest way of putting nitrogen on. So if we can do that, whether that's post plant and post plant nitrogen, and ammonia will do well as well as nitrogen solutions. But you know those those sort of things do matter and and we we find overwhelming support for the MRTN which was developed in the crop science department here, and Emerson Nafsinger had a lot to do with that.
Todd Gleason:We'll talk more about that in just a second. I do wanna come back to the limit the number of nitrogen passes or nitrogen only passes is this is about the equipment and fuel cost. Correct?
Gary Schnitkey:Yeah. And and and when we look at three way passes, for example, that has a has higher cost than two way, and two and three way have higher cost than one way. But, yeah, it relates to the the cost associated with that pass. So it's the labor time associated with that which we put in terms of dollars with a machinery cost rate if you're doing it yourself or a machinery higher cost if you're having it applied by someone else. Stabilizer is particularly if we're doing that in the fall is a 10 to $15 expense.
Gary Schnitkey:So, you know, and not just money in the fall is often the least expensive time, but then you got 10 to $15 that you should be putting on it, which often often negates the advantage of anhydrous ammonia in the fall.
Todd Gleason:On the MRTN, Laura, when producers go to that calculator online, and it's probably just a search easiest to search. You can search MRTN, but search in rate calculator. It's likely to come up. It's good across the 12 Midwestern states. There are numbers there for almost everybody.
Todd Gleason:I think it's all 12, maybe not, maybe seven of them. And the question I have is when you are looking at the figure that it drops out, in the state of Illinois, it's probably going to be 170 to a 180 pounds of nitrogen should be applied. If you're using anhydrous ammonia, that's not the pounds of n you're applying in the fall. It is the total number of pounds of n. So you have to start start subtracting from that almost immediately.
Laura Gentry:That's right. Yeah. There there are other ways that we apply nitrogen fertilizer every year, and we have to that rate that the MRTN provides, that is the total nitrogen application for the whole year. And so it's certainly not just what you're applying in the fall. It it includes any nitrogen that's in the MAP or the DAP.
Laura Gentry:I mean, you know, 200 pounds of of DAP fertilizer is 36 pounds of nitrogen that's applied. Farmers generally don't even include they do not include that because they think, well, I'm applying it earlier in the fall. I I don't expect that nitrogen to be there, and they're usually right. But it's still it is a nitrogen contribution that, for what is leaving our fields, it does count towards what we lose in the nutrient loss reduction strategy. And so that that nitrogen's included.
Laura Gentry:Any nitrogen that we put on as as a carrier with, any of our herbicides counts. Any nitrogen that we apply is counted in that MRTN value.
Todd Gleason:For those who want to join PCM, where do they need to live? How do they join?
Laura Gentry:So we have, we do not service every county in the state of Illinois. We we service regions. We have eight regions in the state of Illinois that we service. It's about 52 counties. And if a farmer wants to know if they're in one of those regions, they can go to precisionconservation.org.
Laura Gentry:And you can see right there what, what regions we're serving, which counties, and you can see which farmers you need to or which specialists to reach out to. We have specialists that serve every region. And so the farmers are in a region, and the specialists serve that region. And you'll see their phone numbers right there. There's also an info@precisionconservation.org email that you can send us, and we will, connect you with your specialist in your area.
Todd Gleason:Anything else, Gary, that we haven't talked about related to PCM that I should know about today?
Gary Schnitkey:Yeah. I mean, it's not only nitrogen that we're looking at. We're looking at tillage and several other things as far as that far as that goes. One of the things that we notice all the time is that the individuals that apply at MRTN are also likely to have lower cost all over the board. And and and that that was we began noticing that when we looked at the MRTM and looking at the returns by MRTM class, the operator returns, it was more pronounced than just the the the nitrogen part of it.
Gary Schnitkey:And, you know, there there there does appear to be a type of producer that will put on our MRTN, probably also only do one tillage pass or something along that line, and the whole package turns out to be more profitable than than than than, than make maximizing yields. So maximizing profits isn't the same as maximizing yields, and we see that all the time in that in the PCM data.
Todd Gleason:I have one last question, and I don't know whether this is in the PCM or not, but oftentimes particularly in Southern Illinois, this is about crop rotation. The corn wheat soybean rotation is the most profitable rotation. Is that something that shows up more likely in very profitable years or less profitable years? And is there any PCM connection with that rotation?
Gary Schnitkey:Yep. We haven't really looked at that yet because we just began collecting in an area where we have wheat, so Southwest Illinois. Wheat in a rotation. Here's what we see from FBFM and hopefully and we'll confirm this with PCM as well. Wheat, you have to have double crop soybeans associated with wheat.
Gary Schnitkey:It's not profitable by itself, and, you gotta get the wheat off early and the soybean yield high. But some of the work done at the
Todd Gleason:U of I does suggest it is one of the best ways to improve nutrient loss.
Laura Gentry:It does. Yes. That's right. I was gonna I was gonna butt in and say that if you didn't bring it up, Todd. The that double crop or that, the corn and then soybean double crop with wheat, that is, the best rotation that we have seen, a large scale rotation for conventional agriculture in terms of reducing nutrient losses, especially nitrate nitrogen losses.
Laura Gentry:So very significant loss from that rotation. We can count it.
Gary Schnitkey:And and the other thing about that is is if you want to significantly also significantly reduce nitrogen, plant cereal rye between corn and soybeans because you're not necessarily putting nitrogen on them, but the land is releasing organic end to end, which is susceptible to water losses, and that cereal rye from corn to soybeans really is important for nitrate losses.
Todd Gleason:Gary Schnutke is an agricultural economist based on the Urbana Champaign campus of the University of Illinois. He and Laura Gentry, who is a water quality specialist with the Illinois Corn Growers Association, joined me on stage at the Farm Progress Show in August. You may hear more of this conversation online. Look for the closing market report for today's date, October 2. You have a great afternoon and be safe in the field.
Todd Gleason:I'm University of Illinois Extension's Todd Gleeson.