Closing Market Report

The September 23, 2026, broadcast of the Closing Market Report, hosted by Todd Gleason on Illinois Public Media, covers regional harvest progress, national agricultural policy, and global weather patterns. Greg Johnson of TGM Total Grain Marketing opens the program with a market update, noting that farmers are waiting for corn to dry down naturally in the fields before harvest activity increases. He also discusses how grain markets are currently trading sideways as they await potential news from an upcoming meeting between Presidents Trump and Xi. The broadcast then features an excerpt from a National Association of Farm Broadcasting panel with Ethan Lane, Rob Brenneman, and Geoff Cooper. The panelists discuss their expectations for the Trump-Xi meeting, caution against the unintended consequences of potentially banning U.S. diesel exports, and advocate for free-market principles over government intervention in the agricultural supply chain. Finally, meteorologist Drew Lerner of World Weather Inc. provides an update on global crop weather, highlighting upcoming rainfall that should benefit U.S. winter wheat regions, favorable early planting conditions in Brazil, and an extended period of heat and dryness in Australia driven by El Niño. Throughout the program, Gleason also appeals for listener financial support during the station's fall fund drive; 217-244-9455 or willgive.org to donate.

01:17 Ag Markets with Greg Johnson, TGM Total Grain Marketing
09:34 Trump, Xi, Fuel, Free Trade, and Socialism
20:51 Ag Weather with Drew Lerner, World Weather Inc

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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

cmr260923

01:17 Ag Markets with Greg Johnson, TGM Total Grain Marketing
09:34 Trump, Xi, Fuel, Free Trade, and Socialism
20:51 Ag Weather with Drew Lerner, World Weather Inc

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Todd Gleason: From the Land Grant University in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, this is the Closing Market Report for the 23rd day of September 2026. I’m extension’s Todd Gleason. Coming up, we’ll talk about the agricultural weather and the agricultural markets. We’ll hear a portion of an ag policy discussion, unedited, that I joined earlier today from the National Association of Farm Broadcasting. They take up ethanol, diesel fuel, cattle, pork, socialism, and free trade. You’ll want to stay with us for that, but first, I’m going to ask you to join me in support of the agricultural programming here at Illinois Public Media because it is public radio for the farming world, and we are funded at an 80% rate by you, our listeners. That means the ag audience really needs to step up to the plate today. Don’t wait right now. You’re still getting ready to go into the field probably, and you’ve got time to make that pledge of financial support online at willgive.org. I like the $120 level. I know this program makes a difference to you. Make that phone call now, 217–244–9455, or go online at willgive.org.

01:17 Ag Markets with Greg Johnson, TGM Total Grain Marketing

Todd Gleason: Greg Johnson from TGM Total Grain Marketing now joins us to discuss the marketplace. He’s here in Champaign County. Hi, Greg. Thanks for being with us.

Greg Johnson: Good to be with you, Todd.

Todd Gleason: Are you busy?

Greg Johnson: We would like to be busy, but I think we’re just a couple of days away from being busy. The corn is drying down in the field, but a lot of it is still in the low to mid–20s, and with drying costs the way they are, most farmers, if the corn is standing, are going to let that dry down naturally in the field. They’re hopeful that they’ll have some soybeans ready sometime this week, and maybe we can do a week to 10 days worth of soybeans, and then by the time those early beans are done, they can turn their attention back to corn, which hopefully will have dried down into the teens by then, and we can just roll right on from beans into corn. But that hasn’t happened yet. We’ve got some high humidity today. We had rain over the weekend. We were hoping that today would be a bean harvest day, but it’s still May. We’ll see if the sun comes out and the wind blows this afternoon, maybe we’ll go. If not, it’ll be tomorrow. So we’re close, but we’re not quite busy yet.

Todd Gleason: A different corn story today than it was last week when the really early planted corn was coming in, or maybe some of the down stuff, and it was drying down just exceedingly fast.

Greg Johnson: Yes, in fact, we’re hearing that in other areas as well too. Some of that corn is below 15% moisture, which is what we don’t want to see. Farmers do not want to see that. They want to keep the moisture at least 15% moisture in the corn if at all possible. So yes, there’s going to be some areas where harvest is taking place. The guys that planted corn ahead of their soybeans or, like you said, the guys that had down corn, both of those have been starting on corn harvest, and we’ve had that kind of corn come in. But the majority, the 85%, are still waiting for the corn to dry down just a little bit more, do beans first, and then switch back into corn.

Todd Gleason: Corn and soybeans this week have been volatile. I won’t say wildly volatile because these weren’t anywhere near limit moves for the day, but 12, 15, 16, 18 cents sometimes on soybeans, corn 8 cents or so lower today, they were higher earlier in the week. All about marking time, waiting for the two presidents to meet and what the announcements might be, if any coming out of them related to agriculture tomorrow?

Greg Johnson: Exactly. All eyes are on Washington, D.C. hoping that we get some announcement. Secretary Vilsack and Jameson Greer both said to expect some kind of an announcement after the meetings. I think that’s what they’re supposed to say is that we should expect something, but that may or may not happen. Sometimes we get a little disappointed waiting for announcements. We’ll see, but you’re right, the markets have gone sideways. We are 22 cents off of the high that we made on September 2nd on corn. We’re 38 cents off the high that we made on soybeans back on September 11th. That sounds like a lot, but you have to remember that we’re at three-year highs on both corn and soybeans. So we basically have gone sideways since the first of the month and are just biding time until we see what the wildcard situation with naming China is going to do. That’s the one that could give us another leg up, or if the market is disappointed with the news that comes out of Washington this week, we could see a little bit more of a sell-off. But we’re basically just biding time until we see what happens with the news out of Washington, D.C. with China this week.

Todd Gleason: I thought Joe Janzen, agricultural economist at the U of I, and we’ll talk to him on Monday, had written an interesting article related to basis and how it bottoms and for how long. We always think about 50% harvest being the bottom of the basis part of the marketplace or how it breaks. And he discussed a five-week kind of trough in the October to the end of October, early November timeframe. Has basis for corn or soybeans broken very much at this point?

Greg Johnson: We’re starting to see the Gulf basis break a little bit in corn. Gulf basis for soybeans is still pretty firm. We just haven’t seen the harvest activity yet that would pressure the market. He’s right, it almost always happens. If it’s a typical crop, us as the elevator industry want to fill up, we want to make sure we fill up our space. And then if we start having too much, then we’ll look to sell trains, and the chickens can only eat so much corn in October, the cattle can only eat so much corn in October. So the basis usually has to weaken in order to incentivize someone to store that grain until the end users want that grain later on in the year. So yeah, he’s exactly right, we probably will see basis weaken assuming that the crop is somewhere close to normal on yield. That’s the other factor. If the yields are down 10, 15 bushels an acre in corn, for example, that’s less space that’s needed. Or if we see increased demand from China, if China shows up and buys a lot of soybeans, we can ship more beans and that frees up space that we can put corn in. So increased demand or a reduced supply could alleviate that typical weakening of the basis by some extent. I guess I would still expect it to get a little weaker, but maybe not to the extent that we’ve seen in some years, depending on the yields that we hear about and on the Chinese potential buying here hopefully soon.

Todd Gleason: Here’s the question I think farmers probably will be asking. They’ll ask, will recovery in the marketplace cover the break in the basis and my in-charge if I store at the elevator?

Greg Johnson: Well, I always tell them if we’re doing our job, it shouldn’t. You shouldn’t make money by putting it in DP, you shouldn’t lose money by putting it in DP. Because our basis will improve post-harvest enough to cover your DP charges. In fact, the last couple of years, the farmers come out ahead because the basis has improved more than enough to offset the DP charges. So it really boils down to the futures price. If you think futures prices are going to go higher, yes, it will pay to store this crop because our basis will probably improve enough to offset the DP charge. If the futures price goes down, our basis will still improve enough to offset the DP charge, but the overall cash price is lower because the futures price is lower. So it really boils down to the farmer’s bias on whether they think futures prices can go higher or lower from here.

Todd Gleason: By the way, North Dakota State University extension agricultural economist has said on this show in the past that elevator operators do a very good job of setting their in-charge rates, as those rates are approximately the same as the all-in carrying charge for storing grain at home. Anything else before I let you go for the day, Greg?

Greg Johnson: I think that’s really about it. All eyes are on China, and so we’ll just see what comes out of Washington Thursday, Friday this week.

Todd Gleason: Greg Johnson is with TGM. That’s Total Grain Marketing. They’re the elevator right here in Champaign County. You’re listening to the Closing Market Report where we’re in the midst of our fall fund drive. If you’ve not dialed up this number yet, do it right now in support of the ag programming that comes to you from Illinois Public Media, 217–244–9455, or go online and make that gift at willgive.org. That’s willgive.org, 217–244–9455, or willgive.org. Either way, put it in the comments section or make sure that the person you’re talking to notes that it’s in support of agriculture.

09:34 Trump, Xi, Fuel, Free Trade, and Socialism

Todd Gleason: Now up next, an unedited excerpt of a policy discussion hosted by the National Association of Farm Broadcasting earlier today. In it, Ethan Lane from the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, Rob Brenneman from the National Pork Producers Council, and Geoff Cooper of the Renewable Fuels Association first lined out their expectations for the meeting tomorrow between Presidents Trump and Xi. And then they went on to talk about so much more. Here’s Geoff Cooper of the RFA.

Geoff Cooper: I was just going to say from the ethanol side, very similar sentiment to what you heard from Ethan. We’re hoping that this meeting does no damage to the existing relationship. We hope that things actually improve from where they are today. Much like our friends in the beef industry, the ethanol industry did enjoy access to the Chinese market years ago. China was once our second or third leading market for US ethanol exports, and it was our largest market by far for distillers grains exports. That all changed when the Phase 1 agreement came into place and we were told that it was going to build upon the gains we’d seen 10 years ago. It has not, and in fact, we’re effectively shut out of that marketplace today. We’re not exporting a drop of ethanol to China, and our distillers grains exports are way down to that market as well. So our message to the Trump administration ahead of this meeting was, please keep ethanol in the conversation. Certainly, the Chinese are experiencing the same thing we in this country are experiencing when it comes to gas prices and tight supplies. Opening their door to imports of US ethanol would help expand their fuel supplies, would help lower costs, and by the way, it would also help clean up some very serious air quality problems they have in some of their major urban areas there. So we’re just hoping to be part of the conversation this week and we’ll see how things go from there.

Announce: Rob, your thoughts on Trump Xi?

Rob Brenneman: I think that anything we can do to come out with positive news there, not throw any bricks hopefully, and at least keep the door open and somewhat maybe gain some ground on that, whether it’s through gas prices, pork prices, beef prices, whatever all that is, trade helps us all. And we need trade. And we don’t want to shut any doors on whatever that is. And so hopefully it stays positive.

Announce: Geoff, did you have any comment on this talk of potentially banning diesel exports? That’s probably a little more in your wheelhouse like Todd said. And we’ve heard a lot from various people that this might be a bad idea. Any thoughts on that from the ethanol side?

Geoff Cooper: Sure, and I should start out by saying we don’t have an official position on these calls to ban diesel exports. We have looked at a lot of the analysis that’s been generated in the last week or a few weeks suggesting that banning diesel exports might help in the short term with fuel prices, but longer term could have the opposite effect and could actually result in higher prices, especially on the diesel side. Refiners don’t just make diesel; they take a barrel of crude oil and it becomes diesel fuel, gasoline, jet fuel, and a number of other products. So refiners have been pretty clear that if we can’t export diesel anymore, we’re going to reduce our production, we’re going to dial down our crude runs. And that means less diesel fuel, but it also means less gasoline, less jet fuel in the long term. So we’re just encouraging folks to very carefully evaluate the market implications and impacts of what a decision like that would actually have longer term in the marketplace. And at the same time we’re saying, you want to reduce pressure on tight supplies of fuel, especially on the gasoline side, let us get more ethanol into the marketplace. Let us help extend fuel supplies by moving to E15 and higher blends. Again, that all plays into this current dynamic that we’re in. So we’ll see where it goes. I frankly would be very surprised if the administration did follow through and take action to ban diesel exports. I think they’re getting an earful from the refining sector right now, and from truckers and from others about what that might actually mean longer term in the marketplace.

Ethan Lane: And I would just say from the cattle side, I think we saw just the threat of this kind of stuff, we were looped into this last week through some obvious experts on Twitter with all kinds of anonymous handles pontificating on this. And that’s all it takes at this point to tank the cattle market for the day and cost producers a lot of money. But I think that market reaction to simply the rumor of something like this speaks volumes about where ag is as far as this kind of stuff goes. Whenever you start stepping in the middle of the supply chain or trying to intervene in the free market, you start to see the ag industry rightfully so buckle there.

Geoff Cooper: One thing I would add to that, the Peterson Institute here in DC put out a study the other day. They do a rating of state control of industry and indications of trending towards socialism around the world, and they monitor this stuff constantly. They downgraded the US in 2025 and 2026 from 2nd out of 20 on that list of free markets without a lot of government intervention in the marketplace to 16th. So we made a more aggressive move towards state ownership of the means of production and socialism in the last year than any other country on earth. And I think given all the rhetoric we’re hearing right now and what Jeff was just talking about, and some of these sort of solutions that we see floating around in the name of populism or whatever we’re calling it, in a Republican administration, I think that’s still something that’s breathtaking to a lot of us and something that we’re all trying to reconcile in our supply chains.

Rob Brenneman: And Ethan, to that point, I think as the producer out here in the field, we believe in the free market and a fair market. And when you start banning and you start taking away and you start saying do this and adding to this, that just makes it really complicated, and we can see where all that got us.

Ethan Lane: Well, and we talk about this a lot. We are in an industry that needs those free market signals down to the beginning of the supply chain more now than ever. When you start to cloud those or interrupt those or intervene, it leaves our producers defenseless to make good business decisions, and we just can’t have that. And we want the next generation to be a part of this. Do we want it to be socialism, communism, or do we want it to be a free market so they can go out today and start expanding that refinery or that sow or that cow or growing that bushel of corn and farming some more ground? Free market is what I believe and my friends believe in. Free market all day long.

Rob Brenneman: And Ethan, to that point, we’ve got more experts than we’ve had in our lifetime.

Ethan Lane: As long as they don’t have to have their name attached to it. Anonymous experts.

Rob Brenneman: Anonymous experts.

Ethan Lane: Otherwise known as Twitter trolls.

Rob Brenneman: That’s right. Keyboard cowboys, I think we started calling them.

Announce: We have a few more questions in the chat. And I’ll remind folks too that they can put their questions in the chat or we’ll be able to open this up to actually ask your question on audio here in a second. And I think Todd Gleason’s question, and I see Tammy’s is before his, but I think Todd’s question pertains to what we were just talking about with diesel exports. How would the industry take the president forcing production through executive power? He has mentioned this. I don’t know if anyone has a comment on that.

Ethan Lane: I can start there. And I think my comments would be very similar to what you just heard. Anytime we start intervening into the free market with heavy-handed central planning type actions, those often backfire and often result in unintended consequences. There has been a lot of discussion about using the Defense Production Act to essentially take control or exercise some control on the refining sector here in the US to get more refined product out there, get more gasoline and diesel out there. The problem with that obviously is these refineries cannot just add capacity overnight. Those are 18-month projects in many cases. And if we’re talking about meaningfully expanding capacity, the refining sector is running at near 100% of capacity utilization. There’s not really any give or wiggle room there. So again, I’m just not sure that that sort of solution would produce the desired results, which is to extend supplies and get prices down. Again, we’ve got unused capacity in the ethanol industry. We’ve got 110,000 barrels a day that’s sitting idle today that could be switched back on very quickly if the government would just allow incrementally more ethanol into the fuel supply. We’re sort of limited at 10% because of outdated regulations at EPA. If stations selling E10 today could sell E11 or E12 tomorrow with the wave of a wand in DC, that would certainly help put a little more slack in the marketplace and put some downward pressure on prices.

Todd Gleason: Ethan Lane is with the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. You’ve been listening to an unedited excerpt of an ag policy discussion with Lane, Geoff Cooper from the Renewable Fuels Association, and Rob Brenneman of the National Pork Producers Council. It was put on earlier today by the National Association of Farm Broadcasting and hosted by one of my colleagues, farm broadcaster Jess Allen.

20:51 Ag Weather with Drew Lerner, World Weather Inc

Todd Gleason: Now let’s turn our attention to the weather forecast. Drew Lerner is here from World Weather Incorporated in Kansas City. Drew, they’ve had some rainfall in the southwest in the hard red winter wheat growing regions. Can you tell me, is it enough?

Drew Lerner: The rain that occurred in recent weeks was certainly welcome, and in any other year, it probably wouldn’t have been so detrimental in the sense of not fixing the drought. But we couldn’t do it this year because we had 90 and 100-degree temperatures every day since July, and that was just taking the moisture right back out of the soil just about as quickly as it was falling. So we weren’t making any progress, and of course, the drought was pretty serious. But things are starting to change now. We have actually had three days now of more seasonably warm weather. We’re not quite cool yet, but we’re going to get there, I hope. But the main point of this is that as we cool the atmosphere down, we’re going to allow the jet stream to shift southward, and that means that more moisture will become available into the central part of the US, and the temperatures will be lower, and that will conserve the moisture once it falls. And we do have some tropical systems off the west coast of Mexico that will feed the moisture into the plains over this first week of the two-week outlook, and we’ll see at least two notable waves of rain. So we are going to be in much better shape, I think, a week to a week and a half from now in hard red winter wheat areas. And planting is likely to become much more aggressive, and emergence and establishment should follow suit fairly quickly.

Todd Gleason: Conab is telling us that the first crop corn in Brazil, this would mostly be in the southern part of that nation, maybe 10% more than it has been in the past. It’s not a big crop to begin with, but a 10% jump is pretty good. Is it wet there?

Drew Lerner: It is, and that’s one of the reasons why there’s been an increase in planting. They’ve had some very timely rainfall in the last few weeks. Some of that planting occurs as early as late August, and so they’ve had plenty of opportunity to get into the fields. It is not excessively wet at this point. We do think that it will get that way as time goes along, and we do want to watch that region; most of that area from Rio Grande do Sul into Parana and southern Mato Grosso do Sul, even into Paraguay, will have bouts of excessive rains all the way through their spring season. And so the potential for flooding is fairly high as we go forward in time. But as of this moment in time, it’s moist but it’s not excessively wet, and they are making good progress. The psychology in Brazil right now is that there’s going to be some erratic rain in the north, maybe very poor rainfall in the northeast part of the country as we go forward through the season ahead. And so I think a lot of these guys in the south were taking advantage of that potential problem and trying to get into the fields early and probably plant a little bit more than normal as well. So the outlook isn’t too bad. Center west Brazil has had some rain and then they quit getting rain, got a little too dry. It looks to me like they’re going to start seeing more shower and thunderstorm activity in about a week. So the first week in October should start improving that part of Brazil as well.

Todd Gleason: Before I let you go, one last thing. In France, part of Europe, has the coming of fall actually arrived, and did that change anything for them?

Drew Lerner: Well, as of today, not really, but I think as we cool down the entire Northern Hemisphere and start energizing the jet stream, there is no way that the blocking weather pattern in western Europe is not going to be breaking down. So I think it’s just a matter of a few days or weeks here, and I think we’ll start seeing rain much more routinely across France and the UK, and neighboring areas of Germany. So it might take another week or so to get started, but as that jet stream comes southward and we start cooling things off, there’s going to be a contrast in air mass conditions and it should start raining. So we’re looking for a better outlook as we go forward the next 30 days.

Todd Gleason: Oh, and one more thing. Australia. What do you see there?

Drew Lerner: Australia is like Indonesia, is one of the places that is almost always directly impacted by El Nino, and up to this point, it’s been dryish but hasn’t been a big deal. But in the last week or so, it’s really turned hotter. Temperatures are in the 90s every day now, and there’s no rain. In fact, there’s no rain in the forecast for two weeks in parts of Queensland and northern New South Wales, and that’s the area where it’s almost always excessively hot and quite dry during an El Nino event. And we think that this is a trend that will be with them for the next several weeks, if not a few months. So they’ll get a break once in a while, but you’ll hear about the heat and probably end up with some fires before long down the road. So we’ll keep an eye on that. That’ll have a big impact on their sorghum, cotton, and a little bit of corn and soybeans that are produced in Queensland in particular.

Todd Gleason: Hey, thank you much, Drew.

Drew Lerner: Have a great day.

Todd Gleason: You too. Drew Lerner is with World Weather Incorporated in Kansas City. Joined us on this Wednesday edition of the Closing Market Report that came to you from Illinois Public Media. It is public radio for the farming world, and you’re the public that pays for about 80% of our funding each and every year. If you’ve not made a donation just yet, right now is a good time to do that. 217–244–9455. That’s 217–244–9455 or go online to willgive.org. And thank you. I’m Todd Gleason.

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