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In this October 26, 2026, edition of the Closing Market Report, agricultural economist Joe Janzen analyzes current commodity trends, highlighting strong soybean exports, lagging corn sales, and the market headwinds caused by Brazil's recent elections. The program also details a recent USDA data processing error that temporarily skewed September corn yield estimates for Nebraska and Kansas. Finally, Everstream Analytics' Mark Russo provides a global agricultural weather update, covering harvest progress in the U.S. Corn Belt, winter wheat planting in the Plains, and soybean sowing conditions across South America.
00:39 Commodity Markets Discussion with Joe Janzen, University of Illinois
17:42 USDA Revises the September Crop Production Report
19:49 Ag Weather with Mark Russo, EverStream Analytics
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00:39 Commodity Markets Discussion with Joe Janzen, University of Illinois
17:42 USDA Revises the September Crop Production Report
19:49 Ag Weather with Mark Russo, EverStream Analytics
Creators and Guests
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
cmr261026
In this October 26, 2026, edition of the Closing Market Report, agricultural economist Joe Janzen analyzes current commodity trends, highlighting strong soybean exports, lagging corn sales, and the market headwinds caused by Brazil's recent elections. The program also details a recent USDA data processing error that temporarily skewed September corn yield estimates for Nebraska and Kansas. Finally, Everstream Analytics' Mark Russo provides a global agricultural weather update, covering harvest progress in the U.S. Corn Belt, winter wheat planting in the Plains, and soybean sowing conditions across South America.
00:39 Commodity Markets Discussion with Joe Janzen, University of Illinois
17:42 USDA Revises the September Crop Production Report
19:49 Ag Weather with Mark Russo, EverStream Analytics
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Todd Gleason: From the Land Grant University in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, this is the Closing Market Report for the 26th day of October 2026. I’m extension’s Todd Gleason. Coming up, we’ll talk about the commodity markets with the University of Illinois agricultural economist Joe Janzen. Mark Russo will be here from Everstream Analytics to discuss the weather forecast, and I’ll walk you through some of the changes that USDA announced on Friday afternoon in an update to its crop production report for the month of September and why that did not impact the figures that came out for the month of October.
00:39 Commodity Markets Discussion with Joe Janzen, University of Illinois
Once a month, Joe Janzen, agricultural economist on the Urbana-Champaign campus of the University of Illinois, joins us to discuss the marketplace and commodities. Thank you, Joe, for being with us. Where would you like to start this week?
Joe Janzen: Well, I think we have sort of, you know, we can talk a little bit about the demand situation. We’re moving out of harvest and coming into the period where different things start to dominate the headlines when it comes to corn and soybean markets. One of the big ones is export sales, and I think that’s something that the market will keep processing. So maybe we start there.
Todd Gleason: Okay, let’s start there. Begin with soybeans, this is the place that the market has been excited; demand seems to be really, really strong internally, domestically with the crush. Part of that crush of course being exported as bean meal, maybe you can take that up, and then soybean exports, particularly to China, are always of a concern, and how close they are to meeting their 25 million metric ton goal by the end of the calendar year.
Joe Janzen: Yeah, I think the situation is one of soybean strength where we’re, I think, right on pace to, if not ahead of, where we need to be to meet USDA’s current projections for total marketing year exports. You know, they’re pegging exports at about 1.7 billion bushels. We’re currently ahead of where we’d need to be normally to get to there. We saw 2.1 million metric tons of export sales to China just last week in the export sales report that was released last Thursday. And so all signs are pointing to good things on the export front. I think there is, you know, a little bit of concern about meal exports, and can we move all the meal that we need to move? Obviously, one of the big drivers of domestic demand is soybean oil for biodiesel, and so we got to figure out what to do with all the meal. But in general, I think everything looks reasonably good from a soybean export perspective, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see USDA increase its soybean, you know, soybean export number in next month’s WASDE report or further down the road. We’re still in that period where soybean export sales are going to be, the numbers are going to be big. Things tend to slow down once we get into that January-February timeframe, but right now things are looking really good.
Todd Gleason: The bigger concern is on the corn front, and we’re just not seeing corn export sales where we’d need to be to get to USDA’s number. Let’s come back to the soybean number. You said soybean seed, I assume you mean soybeans as a whole, soybeans, not meal or oil.
Joe Janzen: Indeed, yes, not meal or oil.
Todd Gleason: Okay, so, and you mentioned that things should slow down next year. It is pretty clear, but not quite clear, that China’s goal is on a yearly basis, or annually on a calendar year, so their 25 million metric tons, if that were to come in, I would think the soybean market would be very excited through the end of the year, but then things could really be problematic, particularly if China just exits the market entirely.
Joe Janzen: Yeah, these things are, I think these things are designed to give market analysts a little bit of, you know, consternation and heartburn that, you know, it would be much, much simpler for all of us if these soybean export targets were on a marketing year basis because that aligns with everything that we do and how we think about price formation in these markets, which really happens on a marketing year basis, not on a calendar year basis. And the specific targets, I think, you know, we saw that the numbers don’t often align with sort of the political statements, you know, the timing of those numbers doesn’t perfectly align with the political statements of, you know, whether that’s information coming out of the US government or what we do glean from what comes out of China. So I don’t get too worked up about that. I think that 25 million metric ton target puts us in a place where we’re going to get the overall export numbers that we need to get to to kind of be consistent with where the market is at right now, with a soybean price that, you know, is still on the board well above $12.
Todd Gleason: Two last things for soybeans before we get to corn in detail. The first is a president, Lula, remains in Brazil, reelected, and the trade did not take that very well, particularly as it relates to the value of the real, and that went down, and consequently, we had the soybean price go lower today as well.
Joe Janzen: Yeah, we do have, you know, I think you could say the market reaction to this points to the idea that the results of the election in Brazil were a surprise. The left-wing government of President Lula was reelected, which was not expected, and we saw the real off, looks, you know, somewhere between 8 and 10% this morning. And what that does is it makes Brazilian soybeans more competitive on the export market. Now that’s not the be-all end-all, that the export business that the US is getting is going to go away, but it is a headwind from the perspective of US soybean pricing. And so we saw the market, you know, react pretty sharply, soybean futures nearby are off about 20 cents per bushel this morning. And so that’s a bit of a headwind on the export front. But it’s important to remember that the exchange rate situation, the macroeconomic situation doesn’t really change a whole lot, I think, in terms of the size of the Brazilian soybean crop. It doesn’t create new bushels that need to sort of find a home. We do think, and the market is, is sort of, I think very well aware of the idea that the current soybean crop that’s being planted in Brazil right now will be fairly large. USDA just came out with some information suggesting that 2026/27 production would be 184 million metric tons, that would be more than last year, more than the year before, sort of right on pace with that long-run growth that we’ve seen in Brazilian soybean production. It’s a headwind for the market, but it doesn’t, nothing has materially changed from a supply and demand perspective in South America, at least, you know, in the last 24 hours. It’s more I think a short-run headwind in the export sales picture for, in terms of what it does to US soybean pricing.
Todd Gleason: A headwind also is the size of the US crop, which looks to be growing rather than getting smaller as producers have been harvesting a very, very good crop. Expectations are that yield will go up in the November crop production report, or may very well go up, but not by much I suppose.
Joe Janzen: Yeah, we’re getting to the point where these adjustments to the yield numbers kind of tend to get smaller over time, so you know, I’m not anticipating a massive, a massive change. Obviously, that, I could very well be wrong and I am not a yield whisperer by any stretch of the imagination. But that’s where we stand today, and the market seems to be, I think taking that in stride. I think that some of these strong export numbers are a function of the fact that there are beans out there and they need to find a home, and they are, they’re doing that.
Todd Gleason: Turn your attention to corn exports, how are we doing again?
Joe Janzen: I’m worried. I’m a little bit worried. I think you have to be concerned given where we’re at, the sales that we have on the books to date relative to where we’d need to be to get to USDA’s marketing year projections. USDA is projecting that corn exports this year will be relatively similar to last year, and the thing to note, and kind of touches on what I just said about beans, part of what determines that number is not just the strength of demand, but is there available supply. And last year we had lots of corn, big acres, you know, record yield, lots of corn around, and that’s what led to that strong export number. In part was abundant supply. We don’t have the same supply abundance this year. Maybe, you know, yes the yield number has come up from where it was earlier in the marketing year, but not as much corn, and the sales just aren’t there. And so I, you know, I’m a little bit concerned that that export number is too high. I think a lot of people are. And we’re not, you know, we’re not seeing the sales being made. We saw, you know, reasonably strong export sales last week, but we’re not seeing the sales pace that would be necessary to get to the exports that we need to to use up the crop that we have. And that’s in part why I think, you know, there’s just been kind of really stagnant pricing on the say on the board for corn, we’ve kind of hovered around that 450-ish number, and I think we have to get comfortable with being there for the time being because we’re just not seeing the kind of bullish news that we’d need to get back to where we were earlier in the marketing year.
Todd Gleason: Anything you want to bring up, because we’re in corn, related to USDA’s announcement Friday afternoon, and we’ll take this up in detail at least in a news story, that there was a math error that took place for the Kansas and Nebraska crops in the September crop production report. It did not impact what happened with the USDA’s crop production report in October. What do you think of this issue?
Joe Janzen: I mean it is concerning because, you know, we’d all like the data to be as reliable as possible. We’d all like to make decisions based on the best information, and clearly the information in that September report was, was not right. USDA owned up to the fact that it wasn’t. I also think about what does this mean for the market, for pricing, and I think in terms of its material impact, the error that we saw didn’t really have a material impact on price relative to what we saw, right? So the error led to the September yield number being slightly lower at the time it was released than it otherwise should have been. They came out in September with a 178.5 national corn yield number; it should have been a 178.8. So a relatively small change, you know, 0.3 bushels per acre. And that led to, you know, pricing was still relatively strong through September because on the basis of the idea that that corn yield number was, was, you know, was low. And then they came out with a much higher number, a 181 number in the October report, and prices fell. So that’s what happened. Prices, I think the market has to price a 181 yield number at, you know, where it is now, at a sub-$5 corn price on the board. And that’s, you know, that’s it. So in terms of market impact, I think that’s where we stand. The bigger concern is, you know, this is going to kind of get everyone’s ire up. If you’re worried about data quality, as I am, you worry that the data that we get from USDA, are they understaffed, are they under-resourced? Can they keep producing what is still the gold standard in terms of crop production and market-related data for agricultural commodities? Can they keep doing that? And then if you’re sort of in this world of, I don’t want to call it conspiracy theorizing, but it tends, it tends to kind of go in that direction, that somehow USDA has it out for the farmer, and is trying to manipulate the market in one direction or another, this just kind of perpetuates all of that kind of chatter in the marketplace, which probably doesn’t serve anyone particularly well.
17:42 USDA Revises the September Crop Production Report
Todd Gleason: Friday, the United States Department of Agriculture revised up last month’s crop production report. USDA’s October 23 announcement attributes the September crop production report revisions to a processing error affecting corn plant populations and ear counts in Nebraska and Kansas. The National Agricultural Statistics Service corrected the September data but provided no technical explanation of how the error occurred. There were two state-level corrections, according to NASS. Nebraska’s September corn yield estimate increased from 177 bushels to the acre to 182. Kansas’s September corn yield estimate decreased from 121 to 118. These two corrections cascaded into the following changes at the national level. The September US average corn yield was adjusted upward from 178.5 bushels to the acre to 178.8. This also resulted in the September estimate increasing total corn production across the nation by about 26 million bushels. Then, the October forecast, including the national corn yield estimate of 181.2 bushels to the acre and total production of 16.3 billion bushels, were reviewed and validated by NASS without any changes. USDA’s correction to the September baseline effectively cuts the month-over-month yield jump for Nebraska in half. Remember, Nebraska is the number three corn-producing state in the nation, following Iowa and Illinois. In short, the September report initially pegged Nebraska’s corn yield at 177 bushels to the acre. When the October report was released with an estimate of 188 bushels to the acre for the state, it represented an 11-bushel jump. The September revision spreads that jump more evenly across October and September but still leaves the total change from August to October in place. Because USDA validated the October crop production report, the September revisions don’t really change anything for today or the October balance sheet, and consequently, also won’t have an impact on the November releases.
19:49 Ag Weather with Mark Russo, EverStream Analytics
Todd Gleason: Let’s turn our attention now to the weather forecast. Mark Russo is here from Everstream Analytics. A little time, a lot of ground to cover. Start in the corn belt. What are conditions like today, Mark?
Mark Russo: Well, Todd, the fair and dry weather here over the past week or so has allowed for rapid open fieldwork operations and harvest progress. That’s going to continue, especially in the eastern belt as we go through the next week or two. The western belt, though, is beginning to get into some rains, especially the far western belt in around Nebraska, South Dakota, western Iowa. Rain activity there will be scattered throughout the week, so harvest progress should be pretty good there, although you can’t rule out a few minor disruptions. And next week, also we see rains encompassing actually more of the belt, but at this time it does not look heavy or widespread, or enough, enough to really bog down harvest progress for an extended period of time. So, all in all, we see, you know, a lack of any kind of big problems with harvesting and, you know, we’ll get some of the new numbers, which should be really good here this afternoon.
Todd Gleason: We have been watching the plains states to see how planting, sowing of winter wheat will go. What do you have to discuss today from that area?
Mark Russo: Yeah, the plains hard red winter wheat belt, the pattern there through early November is expected to feature near to above normal rainfall and a warmer than normal temperature bias, that’s been the trend here of late. And no heavy or widespread rains are expected, so planting will progress at a steady pace over the next couple of weeks, and then with those warmer temperatures, that will continue to promote favorable germination, emergence, and early growth. So bottom line, the start of this new crop season, you know, after all these rains in recent weeks, is favorable here for the new crop.
Todd Gleason: Anything we should discuss for the growing regions in South America?
Mark Russo: Yeah, the one area to watch for some, call it minor disruptions in planting progress for soybeans, that’s southern Brazil, where there continues to be excessive soil moisture in parts of Parana, Santa Catarina, adjacent areas of Paraguay, even some localized river flooding that’s taken place there as well. And the pattern still looks active. Maybe not quite as active as what they’ve been in here of late, but there still will be additional rain systems coming through there that could result in some disruptions in planting progress. But further up north, center west Brazil continues to be in really good shape, no sign of any, you know, dryness concerns here in the immediate future, and just more rain coming up, and an overall good pattern.
Todd Gleason: Finally, we followed Western Europe all summer long, how are they doing?
Mark Russo: With the recent rains we have seen some minor improvement to the Rhine River, but with the drier pattern returning to much of Europe, so, those issues are going to continue into November as well.
Todd Gleason: Thank you much. Mark Russo is with Everstream Analytics and helped us wrap up this Monday edition of the Closing Market Report that came to you from Illinois Public Media. I’m Todd Gleason.