Closing Market Report

This episode of the *Closing Market Report*, hosted by Todd Gleason, covers agricultural markets, emerging crops, and global weather forecasts. Naomi Blohm of Total Farm Marketing analyzes the commodity markets, noting the bearish impact of the Brazilian election on soybeans, oversold conditions in corn and wheat pointing toward a potential harvest low, and a friendly Cattle on Feed report indicating a stagnant herd size. Professor Emily Heaton from the University of Illinois discusses the first annual International Miscanthus Summit, highlighting miscanthus as a highly productive perennial grass that yields building materials, compostable packaging, and fuels while improving soil and water quality on underperforming farmland. Finally, Don Day of Day Weather provides an agricultural weather update, forecasting an end to the highly favorable Corn Belt harvest weather with a significant rain system approaching next week, alongside returning moisture for South American growing regions.

01:03 Ag Markets with Naomi Blohm, Total Farm Marketing
09:40 The 1st Annual International Miscanthus Summit
19:54 Ag Weather with Don Day, Day Weather

★ 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

cmr261027

01:03 Ag Markets with Naomi Blohm, Total Farm Marketing
09:40 The 1st Annual International Miscanthus Summit
19:54 Ag Weather with Don Day, Day Weather

---

Todd Gleason: From the Land Grant university in Urbana, Champaign, Illinois, this is the Closing Market Report. It is the 27th day of October 2026. I’m Extension’s Todd Gleason. Coming up, we’ll talk about the commodity markets with Naomi Blohm at totalfarmmarketing.com out of West Bend, Wisconsin. I’ll bring you some of the doings that have been taking place at the I-Hotel here on campus yesterday and today, again tomorrow and Thursday as well, at the first annual International Summit on Miscanthus. We’ll be joined by Emily Heaton from Crop Sciences here on campus. And then we’ll turn our attention to the weather forecast as we wrap up our time together with Don Day. He’s at Day Weather in Cheyenne, Wyoming. All on this Tuesday edition of the Closing Market Report that comes to you from Illinois Public Media. It is public radio for the farming world, online, on demand at willag.org.

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

01:03 Ag Markets with Naomi Blohm, Total Farm Marketing

Todd Gleason: Naomi Blohm from Total Farm Marketing now joins us. She’s in West Bend, Wisconsin. Hello, Naomi. Thanks for being with us again this week.

Naomi Blohm: Yes, absolutely, thanks for having me.

Todd Gleason: Let’s start with the soybeans. They have had a rough couple of days. Tell me about that marketplace first.

Naomi Blohm: Yes, so the bean market starting to trade lower this week on the surprise news that the president in Brazil was reelected for a fourth term. He was not expected to win. So because he won, he’s actually quite pro-China and friendly to China. So I think from the perspective of soybeans, the beans were thinking, okay, well, there’s going to be a nice path for Brazilian soybeans to continue to go to China. So maybe we’re still a little bit overvalued from the standpoint of U.S. beans. And so we’re seeing a little bit of technical selling, also ideas that maybe our U.S. soybeans have to become just a smidge cheaper to be a little bit more competitive. But then the Brazilian currency, the Brazilian real yesterday, just sank lower while our U.S. dollar continues to go higher. So just that whole combination is affecting the marketplace along with November beans going into first notice day later this week. So technically speaking, it looks like the November beans for another day tested the 100-day moving average. But if the 100-day moving average fails for these November beans, so we’re talking near the 12.28 area, then the next technical downside target could be $12.00 even. So just something to be mindful of. I would say, though, that as we flip the calendar to November, a lot of times we see the soybean market find that harvest low and we get a recovery bounce towards the end of the year.

Todd Gleason: So Lula da Silva’s election in Brazil having an impact on the real, on possible trade with China as well, that pushed the marketplace lower. What about with corn? What are the key factors there?

Naomi Blohm: Well, the corn market is really doing a nice job of digging in its heels at the 4.50 area; we did settle just a little bit below it. Something to be aware of on a continuous weekly chart, where you’re looking at front-month corn futures, the 4.50 area is a major supportive price point. So what we’re going to want to be watching for in corn, now that we’re 60% harvested according to the most recent weekly Crop Progress rating, we’re going to want to start watching for some technical bottoming signals. Corn futures are ridiculously oversold right now. RSI levels on them, so that’s Relative Strength Index, in the low 20s, which is just a very, very strong indicator that the market is maybe at a point where it’s done going lower. So it feels like traders are all watching and waiting for some sort of a sign of a technical bottom, some sort of a hook reversal or a bullish key reversal, and then I think you’re going to see the buyers come back in, especially from a re-ownership standpoint for those who have been just selling off the combine and not storing, they’re going to want to come in here and re-own pretty quick, but they’re waiting for some bottoming signals as well. So tomorrow we’ll get a weekly ethanol update as far as how much corn was used for ethanol in the week. I’m guessing it’s going to be back to a bigger number used. So that should be supportive. We’re also waiting to see tomorrow about the Fed and the announcement for interest rates, where also in that point where those outside markets have an influence as well on the grain prices. So lots of things to be tracking here, but we’re definitely looking for a harvest low pretty soon.

Todd Gleason: And then very quickly, if you could touch on wheat a bit. I think I saw that yesterday the Australian wheat crop, according to the U.S. attaché there, may be slightly bigger in his opinion than what the World Agricultural Outlook Board has put into the WASDE figures. Is that correct?

Naomi Blohm: Yeah, true statement. So we should probably see that on the next November USDA report, potentially seeing that Australian crop become a little bit bigger. So when we see those things, it makes for the world to say and maybe just exhale like, okay, there’s enough wheat out there that we can get it if we need to get it in spite of the ongoing war in the Black Sea. So just keep in mind there is no war premium in the wheat market at all right now, and the wheat market also technically extremely oversold. We talked about those Relative Strength Index numbers on corn being in the low 20s; same with wheat. So December Chicago wheat just a dime away from $6.00 support, we’re pretty much near the June low. So I feel like we’re going to probably see a nice recovery bounce here as we finish up the end of the month, and again there is no quick fix with that war in the Black Sea, so if anything should flare up over there, there is no war premium in the wheat market and we could see a nice recovery bounce pretty easily.

Todd Gleason: There were some beef cattle numbers released by USDA last Friday. I have not taken those up in any detail at this point. I’m sure that you’ve taken a look at that set of numbers. What did it mean to the marketplace, if anything?

Naomi Blohm: Yeah, so Cattle on Feed report last week was actually quite friendly. It just confirmed that this herd is not growing. The total cattle on feed was at 100% of a year ago, but the placements were the bigger factor. Placements were at 1.77 million head, that’s only 88% of last year. So, and that was 12% below year-ago levels and it set a record low for this particular month since the record keeping happened in 1996. So the herd is not growing. But for the month of October, cattle futures had been rallying into this report because we were expecting the report to be supportive. And so now the cattle market is sitting at a crossroads. We haven’t seen any sort of buy the rumor, sell the fact where we’ve already priced in that friendly report, we’re not selling off on it because the demand still continues to be so strong, the herd is not growing, but we do have to balance that with incoming imports of beef as a way to try to keep prices in check. So I feel like the whole commodity marketplace is coming to a crescendo where we’re going to see between the beef prices, the crude oil prices, the grain prices, some big substantial movement I think coming as this week wraps up and early next week, again especially as it pertains to mid-term elections. You’re going to see a lot of fund trading, position trading, movement, buying and selling. So I feel like we’re going to see plenty of volatility as we flip the calendar into November.

Todd Gleason: Hey, thank you much, Naomi. That’s Naomi Blohm. She is with Total Farm Marketing. Yesterday afternoon, the United States Department of Agriculture released the weekly Crop Progress report. It shows 60% of the corn crop across the nation has been harvested. That’s a 16-point jump over the previous week. Still, 66% is the five-year average. In Illinois, 74% of the crop has been harvested. That’s on pace. Indiana at 61% on pace, a little bit ahead, actually. And in Iowa, 47% of the corn crop has been harvested. Normally they have 67% of their corn in the bin by this week. The soybean harvest is now 79% complete, two points ahead of the five-year average. In Illinois, 81% of the crop harvested, 77% the normal. 75% in Iowa compared to 72 on the five-year average. That’s actually Indiana. Iowa at 78 and they normally have 84% of that crop harvested at this time. Winter wheat seeding at this point is running on pace and it is at 76% complete compared to the normal of 77%. 53% of that crop has emerged.

09:40 The 1st Annual International Miscanthus Summit

Todd Gleason: We’re now joined by Professor of Crop Sciences Emily Heaton, and organizer of the first annual International Miscanthus Summit held in Champaign-Urbana. A four-day event that combines both science and industry. Congratulations on what appears to be a very successful first day of the program, and start to the second day. Can you tell me why it is that miscanthus as a plant is something you, and clearly a lot of the globe, are very interested in?

Emily Heaton: Yeah, thank you, Todd, and there is a great group of us that organized this summit together here. The reason we’re also excited about miscanthus is simply it’s the most productive crop known at the temperatures and latitudes that we have in Illinois.

Todd Gleason: It’s a productive crop. Most won’t know what it is. It is a grass. But can you tell me what kind of products can come from this grass? We know corn, feed, meal, those sorts of things, oil, ethanol, eventually. What kinds of products come from miscanthus and why would producers and/or the scientific community be interested in it?

Emily Heaton: Yeah, sure. Miscanthus is just really good at turning sunlight energy into stored carbohydrate energy. C’s and H’s and O’s, and those are the materials that we use to make everything. So if you are thinking about, for example, we have in the audience people who make building materials. It’s kind of hard to get wood on a regular basis in parts of this country anymore. And if you need to make plywood or fiberboard or a variety of other building materials, it’s nice to have a domestic, local, annually produced source of high-quality fiber that you can use to build interior rooms of homes, furniture, a wide variety of things. People forget we still have furniture manufacturing in the Midwest. There’s there are actually quite a few companies located in the upper Midwest that use a lot of these types of materials. Of course, we can also make fuels from it, certainly. The University of Iowa has been burning miscanthus as part of their heat and power system for 10 years now. But then there are also higher value products that we can make. And we heard a talk yesterday about extracting dyes from miscanthus to replace fossil dyes that have been eliminated from from the FDA. So then after we extract the dyes, we can still make those other things out of the remaining material. So we have an opportunity, I think, in the Midwest to develop layered industries with local manufacturing, local employment, and you know really local returns.

Todd Gleason: This is a different crop than row crop producers would recognize, largely based on the idea that it is a perennial, not an annual. We talk about annual a lot here, but this is a perennial, it stays in place for decades, much more like a pasture, but where you’re harvesting the crop above ground.

Emily Heaton: Yeah, the nice thing about crops like miscanthus is you plant them once, but you still harvest them every year. And in fact, we’ll do a little harvesting demo on Thursday out at our energy farm, but you can harvest it anytime over the winter, that the snow is not in your way. And so I really think crops like miscanthus complement our commodity grains. And that’s the way you’ll see us thinking about this new facet of the bioeconomy. We have, you know, essentially the world’s largest bioprocessing infrastructure here in the central US. And we don’t use our land the whole year. So integrating perennial crops like miscanthus allows us to capture even more value from our land area and capture more value from our processing infrastructure, the experts that live here, and frankly make more money while also protecting our soil and water the way perennials always do.

Todd Gleason: Also takes advantage of labor that can be idle during the winter time. Machinery as well that might be used in other parts of, even a row crop, with maybe a beef or other kind of component that is inside of it, because the machinery sometimes isn’t that much different from harvest.

Emily Heaton: Yeah, absolutely. We don’t have a huge amount of corn silage equipment in Illinois anymore, but we do elsewhere in the Midwest. And that’s essentially the same type of equipment that’s used to harvest miscanthus. There is nothing about a miscanthus industry that I’ve seen that doesn’t fit very nicely with the infrastructure we already have for agriculture in Illinois.

Todd Gleason: If you had a typical farm in the state of Illinois, or maybe the state of Iowa, where would you put this crop that takes up space for decades?

Emily Heaton: Yeah, that’s a great question, and we’ve just finished some long-term commercial trials in Iowa with our partners there, and they put it on places where they didn’t like the returns from their corn and soybean. So we we do target miscanthus for crop land, it is a crop, um but it should go on underperforming fields. You know, maybe things that you put in when prices were high and now you’re maybe not so sure, or maybe you just don’t like farming it for, you know, maybe it’s sandy, maybe it’s too wet, those are good spots for for crops like miscanthus. And our estimates show that to meet the market demand, um we don’t need that much, but I guess it’s a lot, about 5% of crop land is needed to meet today’s demand for crops like miscanthus. That incidentally is about the same amount of land that consistently underperforms economically. And it is enough to meaningfully reduce the nitrate and phosphorus concentrations that we have in our water. So it just seems like a win-win-win.

Todd Gleason: We’ll come back to that in a moment. But there is a market demand for this, and in what way?

Emily Heaton: Yeah. And on tomorrow morning at the Stock Pavilion, if people would like to come by, they’ll see a bit of an industry showcase throughout the day, as well as some panel discussions from industry leaders. Notable markets are animal bedding for now, so turkeys in Iowa, broilers in the Eastern Shore of Maryland will have comments from the Secretary of Ag of Maryland, uh, where they’ve really been expanding for major poultry integrators there. Um, I mentioned building materials, those are these early stage markets where we can just chop the material and process it fairly simply and use it in markets immediately today. But there are many emerging markets, of course ultimately things like sustainable aviation fuel are are a really high value targets. But one that um I think is maybe under-explored here too is the compostable packaging market. Uh we have a company here who who develops um those materials and they are oversubscribed, they would like to build a facility here in Illinois, and they’re just waiting for us to get enough acreage for them to locate here, in part because we have a lot of people here who eat a lot of take out. And right now, sustainable or compostable materials are often made from sugarcane bagasse that’s imported to this country. So again, we could grow it here, we could sell it here.

Todd Gleason: You mentioned the environmental aspects of this. The science behind us tells us what about the crop and its ability to take care of issues for water quality and other things?

Emily Heaton: Yeah, it’s a deep-rooted perennial that has consistent ground cover from the time you plant it in year one to the time you might think about changing it out in about 15 or 20 years. And it uses the same type of photosynthesis as corn and as sugarcane, so that’s something we really understand here, I’m sitting next to one of the leaders of the photosynthesis research unit uh here at Illinois. And we know that this crop takes sunlight energy and converts it at a higher rate than any other crop, and while it’s doing so, it puts down deep roots that remove uh water and nitrates from the soil while also putting, you know, frankly massive amounts of soil carbon uh back together. So when it leaves those roots in the soil, it builds soil health, we see deeper, healthier soils after we have had miscanthus there.

Todd Gleason: For producers who are listening, who might find this of interest, who should they contact at the University of Illinois?

Emily Heaton: Yeah, so me, I’m happy to talk with them. I’ll be honest, Todd, part of the reason we’re having this summit today is because I don’t want to offer a crop to a farmer that doesn’t have a clear market for it, right? So what we’re doing here together as a community, and you will find farmers at the Stock Pavilion tomorrow too, but here we are developing those relationships that allow companies to make what usually end up being long-term contracts with a provider. This is an an industry where you will have a stable market. So usually if a farmer agrees to plant miscanthus, they know where they’re going to sell it not just this year but for the next five years, they know what the financing looks like, and it will have an option to renew for another five years after that. So I like to think of miscanthus as sort of a crockpot of a of a crop, you know, so you set it and forget it, right? You plant it once, you make the contract once, and then it’s just a stable source of income in your portfolio for the next five years. You know it’s going to make your water quality better, you know it’s going to make your soil better. If you like to hunt pheasants, you know it’s going to give you a good time because it’s great pheasant habitat. And you just don’t have to worry about it while you’re focusing on some of your more intensive annual crops.

Todd Gleason: Thank you very much, Emily.

Emily Heaton: Thank you, Todd, always a pleasure.

Todd Gleason: Emily Heaton is a crop scientist here on the Urbana-Champaign campus of the University of Illinois and one of the organizers of the first annual International Summit on Miscanthus.

19:54 Ag Weather with Don Day, Day Weather

Todd Gleason: Let’s turn our attention to what’s been happening in the climate around the planet, and growing regions. Let’s start with here in the United States across the Corn Belt. Don Day now joins us from Day Weather in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Hi, Don. Thanks for being with us. It’s been warm, sunny, beautiful weather for harvest across the Corn Belt for many days now. Do you see a change in that anytime soon?

Don Day: We have a little system that’s going to be coming through tomorrow that’s going to bring a little bit of shower activity to portions of Iowa, portions of Minnesota and Wisconsin, back down into Kansas and Oklahoma, but it’s going to basically be those areas that see any weather between now and the end of the week. Now as we get into Halloween weekend, and as we especially get into the first half of next week, very complex area of low pressure that’s a little bit of Canada and a little bit of the Pacific is going to cut across the the Plains states and turn itself into a more organized system. It’s one of these storms that starts off in kind of bits and pieces then wants to come together over the upper Midwest as we get into that Monday through Thursday time frame. And while the coldest air will stay on the backside of the system in Canada and the Rockies, there’s a real opportunity for some pretty decent amounts of rainfall uh that could come into play especially during that first half of next week. And this would first start in western areas but will spread across Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio by Wednesday and Thursday of next week. And some of our tools suggest that you know we’re looking at the magnitude of one, two inches of rain or more uh in many of those areas. So the good harvest weather is uh the days are numbered.

Todd Gleason: How cool are we talking?

Don Day: Well, cool enough that it’s not going to—let’s see, warm enough, a warm enough cool that it won’t snow, but at the same time, uh you know the temperatures uh are actually going to be a bit above average um until we get into let’s say Thursday and Friday. That’s when about a a little bit more than a week from now is when the colder air will move in. A temperature pattern though will be above average until then. So once we get on the backside of the system is when the cooler air will spill in.

Todd Gleason: All right. Turn your attention to South America. What do we know there?

Don Day: Well, they’ve been a little bit drier uh across southern and central areas of Brazil uh and Argentina over the last week to 10 days or so, but they’re about ready to get into some heavier moisture again. This is going to be especially true for the southern states of Brazil, are going to get back into a more active rain pattern. Same for many parts of Argentina and also going to trend cooler as well.

Todd Gleason: El Niño in place still, I would think?

Don Day: Absolutely.

Todd Gleason: Thank you much. We appreciate it.

Don Day: Thank you.

Todd Gleason: Don Day is with Day Weather. He is in Cheyenne, Wyoming, joining us on this Tuesday 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.

More episodes

Chapters

Creators and Guests

What is Closing Market Report?