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Established 1988
Commodity Week is a weekly wrap-up of the CME Group grain markets with analysis and guest interviews. The program is generally recorded Thursday afternoons and posted online by 7:00 p.m. central. It airs on WILL AM580 during the 2:00 p.m. hour each Friday. Commodity Week is a production of University of Illinois Extension and Illinois Public Media. Like the daily Closing Market Report, it is hosted by University of Illinois Extension Farm Broadcaster Todd Gleason.
website: willag.org
twitter: @commodityweek
cw260903
The September 3 edition of Commodity Week, hosted by Todd Gleason, features panelists Matt Bennett, Shane Holtorf, and Sherman Newlin analyzing current agricultural market conditions. The panelists report that extreme heat is rapidly drying out corn and soybean crops across the Midwest, leading to widespread expectations that upcoming USDA yield estimates will fall due to variable weather damage throughout the season. They are not convinced the hot weather is doing anything more than drying the corn down faster. Alongside domestic crop challenges, the group highlights global market drivers, including potential Super El Niño impacts on Brazilian production, ongoing Black Sea export disruptions, and strong Chinese demand. Despite these bullish supply-and-demand factors, all three panelists advise producers to secure currently profitable prices through incremental new crop corn sales while maintaining flexibility with call options to capitalize on potential future market rallies.
Panelists
- Matt Bennett, AgMarket.net - Windsor, IL
- Shane Holtorf, Logic Ag Marketing - Alta, IA
- Sherman Newlin, Zaner Ag Hedge - Hutsonville, IL
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announce: This is the September 3 edition of Commodity Week. Todd Gleason services are made available to WILL by University of Illinois Extension.
Todd Gleason: Well, welcome to Commodity Week. I am Todd Gleason. Our panelists for the day include Matt Bennett. He’s at AgMarket.net out of Windsor, Illinois. Shane Holtorf joins us from Logic Ag Marketing out of Alta, Iowa, and Sherman Newlin is here from Zaner Ag Hedge in Hutsonville, Illinois. Commodity Week, of course, is a production of Illinois Public Media. It is public radio for the farming world, online on-demand at WILLag.org. Let’s begin by getting an update of what you think about crops in each of your respective areas. We’ll start with the one in the combine cab. That is Sherman Newlin. Hi, Sherman. Thanks for being with us. For those of you who are listening, and that’s everybody except for me who can see Sherman because he’s on Zoom, they’re not too far to the west of Terre Haute actually, in Hutsonville, Illinois, is in the combine. You’re shucking corn today. Can you tell me about that to begin with?
Sherman Newlin: Yeah, we’re in the combine shelling corn today. Corn is drying out way faster than I expected. Of course, this is irrigated sand, but a week ago Monday this was testing 28. Yesterday it was in the 20s. Today it’s in the teens, so it’s drying out faster than I can get it shelled almost at this point. But it’s a shorter season corn, right, it’s 109-day maturity. But this is, again, kind of blow sand, as you might say, so it can dry out really quick on a guy. And the yields, I don’t know, it’s disappointing compared to what it was two years ago when I had it in corn. I mean, we’re still running over 200 well in places where it’s irrigated, but of course where it’s not irrigated, it’s not good at all. That’s just part of it. So yeah, it’s coming in way drier than I thought. This heat is really drying crops out. I think it’s got to be hurting some soybeans’ top end. I think the corn should be made out on the clay ground, so it’s going to be drying it down, but it may be hurting it around here as well with this heat. I mean, 99 degrees out here is pretty hot for this time of year.
Todd Gleason: All three of you are farmers. I’ll turn to you, Shane Holtorf. You’re in Alta, Iowa, remind us where that is in the western part of Iowa, I think middle part, and then let us know what you think things look like in your area.
Shane Holtorf: Yeah, Alta, Iowa, I would call it Northwest Iowa. The people in true Northwest Iowa would tend to disagree with me. We’re about 10 miles north of Highway 20, 90 miles east of the Iowa-Nebraska border is where we sit. And we have been in a fairly dry area here this summer. Crops went in lightning quick on the 1st of May, everyone was pretty well wrapped up in our neck of the woods, and things looked really, really good up until June, and then it just shut off. About the time of the Pro Farmer tour, we got a week of a really, really nice rain, things kind of greened back up, got people excited. And then same as Sherman, it got hot, the humidity left the air, and it got windy. And we’ve started killing this crop a lot faster than we would like. So, as I told you there Todd, I think we’ll be combining some early planted short maturity beans on Tuesday. And I guess we’ll know where we’re starting. And that’s not going to be a full bore harvest, we still have stuff that’s completely green, so it’s going to be spread out and that’s okay. We’ve been sick of combining 8% beans the last few years. But silage appraisals have started to come back and guys are genuinely disappointed with those. I would say they’re anywhere from 5 to 50 bushels off of where they have been last year in that Northwest 12-county area that we kind of sit in here. So, I think there’s going to be some good stuff out there, don’t get me wrong, but kind of like Sherman, guys had maybe a little more hope than what they’re seeing. But I guess we’ll be a lot smarter in three weeks.
Todd Gleason: Can you give me something to give me a—because you said 50 bushels off, but I don’t know what that means. As it relates to silage and what actual end yield might have been on that kind of corn?
Shane Holtorf: Yeah, absolutely. So, we’re looking, you know, as an example, the silage appraisals that I’ve been hearing coming back are anywhere between 175 and 215. Traditionally, we would probably see those the last few years in that 230 to 260 range.
Todd Gleason: And would that compare to what a corn crop that was planted for harvest might be?
Shane Holtorf: Yeah, very similar. A lot of these guys are just picking a spot out of their cornfield and going and chopping it for silage and not taking massive amounts of the field out. So, it’s going to track pretty darn closely with what they would expect to see their corn yields come in at.
Todd Gleason: And then Matt, there in Windsor, Illinois, about 40–45 minutes to the south of Champaign-Urbana, what do things look like for you?
Matt Bennett: Yeah, one of the guys that works out of my office has been picking corn the last two days east of Charleston. They said that corn is coming in about 19%. I think they hand-checked it last Thursday or Friday at 24–25%, so they were shocked. It clearly lost a good point a day, because typically when you hand-shell, it’s going to be at least a couple points wetter. As far as we’re concerned, I would assume next week at some point we’ll go ahead and try to pick some corn. Beans are all turning. As far as prospects, I feel like the corn is going to be maybe an APH type crop, a little bit better. I don’t know that there’s going to be records set. I do believe, like a lot of areas in the Midwest this year, nitrogen loss with saturated soils in June played a role. We’ve been out to look, and in some places it looks like best ever, and then you walk 50 feet and it doesn’t look like that at all. So, I think there’ll be a lot of variability. Quite frankly, I think there’ll be a lot of variability in moisture, so it’s going to be interesting trying to harvest here this year. Especially stuff going in the bin, I think people are going to have to be very cautious how they handle that. But I think in my immediate area, I would say good yields, not great, on corn. Whereas soybeans, I think, could be pretty special. Getting out in a lot of the beans that we’ve been in, we’ve got quite a bit of size to these beans, a lot of pods, and the rainfall we had in August certainly was a blessing. And so, I gotta feel like this year’s August, I would prefer to last year’s August, but I do think the damage to some of these crops was done previous to those time frames.
Todd Gleason: Now let’s get the list of items we want to discuss for the rest of the program. Matt, I’ll stay with you. What’s on your list?
Matt Bennett: Yeah, clearly we’ve got a USDA report next week. Looking at the Pro Farmer number, with it being so much below USDA, a lot of the trade, I believe, felt hey, we’re looking at a sub–10% stocks-to-use ratio. Obviously, a big-time month in August with this being able to close with that strong monthly close, higher than the previous month, and the best monthly close we’ve seen in about three years. If the USDA would come in here and maybe be a 180 type yield, I don’t think that’s going to do anything for the bulls. If they’re halfway between USDA and Pro Farmer, there’s no doubt that it’ll keep the fire going, if you will. I think one thing that’s been interesting that we want to talk about is the pullbacks we’ve seen the last two days and how well they’ve been supported.
Todd Gleason: Shane Holtorf out of Logic Ag Marketing, your list for the day?
Shane Holtorf: Yeah, I think that’s a pretty good one. To me, production is a lot of the story here. Where are we going to see the USDA come in? But since Matt’s going to take that, I’ll talk about potentially here the demand. We’re running behind schedule on our new crop corn sales. US corn has definitely gotten expensive compared to Argentina and Brazil, and so what are we going to see for that demand picture?
Todd Gleason: And Sherman Newlin from Zaner Ag Hedge?
Sherman Newlin: Yeah, I mean everything those guys were saying, absolutely true. You’ve got the funds that are really long right now. I mean, it’s kind of rare for them to be this long. I think they’re kind of looking outside of not only our own yield potential or lack thereof, but what else is going on around the world, you know, with Ukraine and Russia, Europe, France and their drought. We’re expected to get some export business to those areas. And then the other thing is, and I think the funds are kind of maybe front-running this, is the super El Nino that’s going on, supposedly going to happen in Brazil. If that would actually happen, I think you could see these markets go up a decent amount once we get our numbers here in the US kind of figured out. That’s a little ways down the road before that does happen, but it seems to me like they’re looking at that and saying, hey, maybe we want to go ahead and get in, we don’t want to be the last guy buying in case it does hit.
Todd Gleason: I want to stay with you for just a moment and pick up the super El Nino or, more importantly, Brazil, and think about $12 plus soybeans, maybe $13 soybeans. And what that does in the Center-West part of Brazil and the expansion potentially before we might get into a super El Nino issue. What do you suppose farmers there are thinking?
Sherman Newlin: You know, it’s hard to say. I think the prices are definitely helping with what they’re wanting to do down there. But you also have the problem out of the Strait of Hormuz with them getting fertilizer. I think that’s going to curtail some things there as well. So, I think they’re going to be nervous about it for sure. Now, whether they expand a lot like they typically do, I guess we’ll have to kind of wait and see on that front. But it’s kind of like here in the US, when you got $8 wheat, does anybody want to plant more wheat? I don’t know, possibly, at some point. But prices do make a difference on guys’ decisions.
Todd Gleason: Would you, or will you, plant more wheat this year?
Sherman Newlin: Oh Todd. You brought it up and you’re in the right area, and I know you, and I know that you plant wheat. I know, I’ve had this conversation with several producers around the area, and they’re all like, ah, if it gets to $8 cash maybe I’ll plant some, but everybody’s a little reluctant. But I think $8 wheat will definitely buy some acres around the country, you know, if you can get good wheat seed at this point in time, because it is getting to be that time of year we gotta decide. So, I don’t know if I will, I kind of have my doubts, I’m getting to where I don’t want to get the combine out in the summertime and have to deal with 100 acres of wheat or so. But I’m sure there will be several producers do it.
Todd Gleason: You sound like farmers that probably are in North Dakota that finally got to the corn-soybean rotation as opposed to all the other rotations that they have, and that’s why they continue to stay in the corn-soybean rotation. Matt Bennett, you wanted to talk about this pullback that we’ve had the last couple of days and how well it has been supported in the marketplace. Tell me about what you’ve seen and what you think it means.
Matt Bennett: Yeah, there’s a lot of talk about the funds potentially being at a record long for both corn and soybeans, I certainly think that’s a possibility. And I think people get a little weak in the knees when they hear that. And so there’s probably some serious profits that have been harvested here over the last couple days. But at the same time, there’s other people that have been looking for pullbacks to buy this thing. And I think when you talk about, for instance, just going back to what you talked to Sherman about, one of our offices out in Kansas, they’ve said if those growers out there can get a rain or two, you’re going to see a significant increase in wheat acres out there this year. And so, you start thinking about that, and why do people want to continue buying this thing, Todd? Whenever you look at corn, yes, we could mess with the demand, I completely agree with what Shane said there. But at the same time, if this crop comes in much below what it’s already forecasted to be, you could make the case that we need to buy more corn acres for next year. Soybeans, we planted 5.7 million more acres this year. Current forecast is that we’re actually going to go down as far as stocks go. So, we need to buy some bean acres. So, will we have 183.5 available? I’m not sure that we will. And so, I do think that some of these pullbacks are being supported. Wheat acres probably going up, I would say you’ll get a few more cotton acres with 90-cent cotton. It’s just going to be tough to have all the acres available that we need, and I think moving forward the trade is going to continue to buy these dips until we sort this out. You come in here in September and you really loosen up the balance sheet, it’s going to be a different feel, but I think it’ll take maybe some interesting math if this yield is much lower than what it’s currently forecasted to be.
Todd Gleason: Now Matt, I’ll stay with you for a second and ask Shane to expand on this. And I’ll use you Matt as a proxy for Sherman because I see he managed to get the load off of his combine and he just got started again. So I’m going to let him set for a second. I really want to know, on the crop that you expect to harvest, do you think that it represents kind of that two bushels off of where the average USDA said at that 183, instead of the 180.7? And then I’ll turn to Shane and ask him in his backyard what he’s thinking, and have him put that in some national prospect. So Matt, do you think you’re off that area that allows the crop nationally to come down two bushels, and particularly out of your backyard, what do you suppose?
Matt Bennett: I think in our backyard, you know again, I don’t see a lot of records being set by any means. I think whenever you hear a lot of people setting records like we heard last year, of course that national yield record was set due to the fact that so many people had record crops. We certainly don’t see that here. Now, taking two bushels off, are you going to do it balanced on the back of Central Illinois? I’m not sure that’s the case. I do think, though, that the Pro Farmer crop tour highlighted there’s a lot of minor issues here and there, some of them are more major than others. I already talked about nitrogen loss, but clearly warm nights had an impact on pollination, it’s something they saw in the tour in several fields as they moved across both sides. And so, I think that you add all these things together, and it just puts you in a spot where it’s really tough to get to that record type yield, even that we saw a couple years ago at 179. Where am I at today? I think you could probably take a couple bushels off and get down to… I’m probably at a 178.5 right now, it’s not an official guess, it’s just kind of where my head’s at. Our team hasn’t come up with our number yet, but we’re getting close, that’s just where I’m at.
Todd Gleason: And then Shane, if you would pick up, what’s your backyard look like, and what do you think the prospects are for yields next week?
Shane Holtorf: Yeah, if we were playing on our backyard alone, I would have probably agreed with the initial USDA number early on. Like I said, things were off to a phenomenal start here, but expectations have really started to fade. I can kind of agree with Matt, we’re going to have pockets, even within counties that have really, really good yields that caught that thunderstorm that the others didn’t, and vice versa. It’s hard for me, but if I look at this thing and how it’s finished, and I’m sitting on an off-ramp here in the middle of South Dakota, I’ve driven through Nebraska on my way out here yesterday, and just putting that all together, I have a tough time seeing us push to that 180 as well.
Todd Gleason: And then Sherman, because you live and farm kind of in the area relatively speaking where Matt would be, I would think your grounds… well the sandy ground’s different, but grounds not terribly different I suppose. And you were on the Pro Farmer tour and you went right probably very close to where Shane is. Oh, by the way Shane, I bought a car in Holstein, a pickup truck in Holstein, Iowa once, not very far from you. Fantastic dealership. Anyway, I want to know what you think about both places, Sherman, and what you think those look like. And just as a reminder to folks, you have been through that area of Iowa nearly a decade now, I think, almost?
Sherman Newlin: Yeah, almost. I think this is my ninth year on crop tour. To be honest, I drove from here to Northern Illinois and back, and then put 3,000 miles on my truck going around the country looking at different crops. They looked better from the road than what they actually were. I thought some of the best-looking crops were when I got back home, south of Route 70. I mean, there were a lot of areas in Illinois that looked really weak, beans especially, because they had a lot of rain, a lot of drowned out areas that were really short. And then when we were on the tour, that south of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, I mean, the crop was really short. Yields were definitely lower. We talked about Nebraska, Nebraska was down, it wasn’t near as good as it was last year. And then the west side of Iowa was definitely a lot lower than what we’d seen in the past. Our first stop was a 135 yield. So that’s pretty low for that area of Iowa. And you can tell areas were hurt. Can the eastern half of Iowa and some areas in Illinois and maybe Indiana pull the corn yield up or help maintain what guys are thinking? Possibly, but I really don’t think so, because last year, as you said, we had a lot of states where we were really hitting it out of the park, and this year we don’t. North Dakota’s got a problem, South Dakota’s got a problem, Kansas has got a major problem, especially that western area of Kansas. And then again, there’s going to be pockets of Illinois that just have big holes in them in the cornfield and bean field from too much rain, too early. Don’t forget about all the rain that went through recently through Indiana, parts of Ohio, with all the wind and everything. Some of the corn in this field is down, and we didn’t have near the wind, anything close to what the wind was like up north. So I can see even harvested corn acres come down some, a few hundred thousand acres, for one reason or another. So nationally, I think the yield is going to come in under 180. Well, how much of it will we see next week? I think if they give us a nod at least in the right direction towards the—I won’t say Pro Farmer number, they’re not going to come down to that—but if they would come down a couple of bushels, I think that would give the bulls more fodder to kind of keep this thing going with everything else that’s going on in the world. But I think eventually we can see something closer to a 176 or somewhere in there.
Todd Gleason: Shane, if you could pick up on the demand side, are you concerned that we’re running behind enough on new crop corn sales that it could offset anything that USDA does with yield?
Shane Holtorf: Yeah, I’m not sure that they’re going to make drastic changes in that measure. From my eyes, my concern is that this is more of a rally that’s probably led on a shrinking crop versus the growing demand. But when we sit down and really look at it, yeah, we’re high priced, like I mentioned earlier. It’s been a while since we’ve seen a flash sale, but if we look, Brazil is also starting to creep up in their price. And so on the world market, we’re still probably on a level scale. I just don’t think that we make a bunch of big changes as we look. And I’ve been kind of talking with guys, if you look at corn, it’s more of a global picture, I think, supply issue, demand issue, whereas beans were maybe more focused on what’s going on right here in the United States. And so, if I look at the buying today, and I’m someone that’s trying to buy US corn, given the fund length and the fact that we’ve seen no harvest pressure or anything, I’m likely to sit on my hands if I’m them, and see if we can get a little sell-off in the harvest before I start to cover my needs. And I think that’s where we sit today.
Todd Gleason: Matt, if you think back over the previous two months, July and August, I’m wondering if you can—and I don’t know whether, I think this is hard to suss out, but you might be able to give me some explanation. How much of the rally is due to war, whether that’s Black Sea or Iran, or both together, and how much do you think is anticipation that there is a weather issue in the US crop?
Matt Bennett: I think to kind of answer that, and what Shane was talking about, my opinion on this this summer, of course demand has been phenomenal, we know that. We ate up such a huge chunk of the biggest crop we’ve ever grown, and that was the biggest crop we’ve ever grown by a billion bushels. So, clearly a massive crop that we had last year, so demand was really strong. But if you can raise enough to kick the can down the road, the market’s shown us the last three years that we’re not going to take off and rally. And so, what was the rally due to? I think it’s a combination. You intersect a strong demand situation with a supply concern, and clearly you’ve got geopolitical forces that are wreaking havoc. So, obviously world export flows out of the Black Sea region, not to mention corn, we know Ukraine is typically running about fourth as far as world exports go. The USDA really didn’t acknowledge a whole lot of pullback, I believe they took a million tons out of Ukraine’s export situation, but it could be significantly different than that, and I think the trade knows that. So, I do believe that the trade has been watching the US weather situation as you suggested, but to go back to something Sherman said, I also think the trade is watching very closely to see how this super El Nino impacts certainly South America. But if you look at what the correlations are for other parts of the world, whether you’re talking Australia, South Africa, Indonesia, Malaysia, I mean there’s a lot of feed grain production, rice production, that could be impacted by this. And I clearly think that the trade has already considered that. I’m not saying it’s the main driver, I just think there’s a whole host of drivers that are putting them in a position where they want to own these feed grains, they want to own oils. There’s no question that soybean oil is not the only one they’re buying. So, I think it’s a whole host of things, but to get down to the crux of the matter, I think it’s a combination of a really good demand-driven market that’s intersected with supply, and you get that supply shock on a demand-driven market and it can be pretty exciting.
Todd Gleason: Of the crops, Sherman, on the planet that have been impacted, it is palm oil in Indonesia that has taken the brunt of what has been promulgated so far by the El Nino. That can and has in the past had an impact on soybean oil, and of course you have the intersection there of what’s been happening in Washington D.C., and the SREs, and RVOs, and RFS, that seems to have been either satisfied or kicked down the road till October. I’m not sure quite which one, it feels more satisfied than not. But how do you watch all of those things at the same time?
Sherman Newlin: Right. I mean, you take a look at what’s going on in the bean oil, they really sold it off because they thought they were going to get a really bearish outcome from Washington, but it wasn’t near as bearish as they thought. So you had this rally come back in the bean oil, and that’s really helped bring the beans back up to a certain extent as well. So yeah, you gotta watch all that. You know, you got China now having record heat, having some flooding, they’re having some issues on their crops, so there’s a lot of things you gotta watch around the world as to what the other crops are looking like. But China’s demand is here. I mean, they’re coming back in, I think they’re buying that 25 million metric ton, or they’re working on it, that they said they were going to be buying. I mean, that’s baked into the USDA’s carryout. But what’s not baked into the carryout is if they come back in and add on this $17 billion program that has been talked about from Secretary Perdue. So if that would happen, and China comes in and buys corn right now, boy, what’s that going to do to the market? That’s going to give us another leg up in this corn market as well, because there’s going to be more demand that we weren’t looking for, and maybe that’s predicated on what’s going on over there. And again, they’re looking at that El Nino thing going on in Brazil, or possibly as well, as what else is going on around the world. So there’s, like Matt said, you throw in a little bit of a production problem when you’re starting to really look at some really strong demand globally… sure, you start looking at balance sheets now once we get the WASDE numbers start to come out. Those carryouts are going to change, but what’s going to make the carryout—you know, you can’t take it bushel for bushel. You’re not going to end up with a 1.1 billion bushel carryout because you’re going to have to cut demand. Well, how do you cut demand? You do that by raising prices. So I’m not saying the carryouts can’t be cut, but I think we’ve still got higher prices to go because I don’t think we’ve really slowed demand down any at all.
Todd Gleason: Okay, so I think that I get the sense that all three of you are friendly to bullish the marketplace, but cautionary as well. So what should producers do at this point, if anything, about new crop corn sales? Shane, I will start with you.
Shane Holtorf: In our neck of the woods, you know, we’re seeing a really, really strong basis to wrap up the summer here. And historically, when we come into September and go out of September with a strong basis, we might see it give up a little bit in the guts of harvest, but typically that trails through to the next after-harvest. And so what I’ve been telling guys is, don’t be afraid to sell some things provided the basis stays strong here, but be certain that you have got some ownership opportunities back. Keep some upside open, really revisit your cash flow and cost of production because things have changed a lot in the last 45 days. And so if you believed you missed the boat then, go ahead and start looking at that. But keep your options open as you alluded to. I’m friendly to the market, but sometimes the old saying is that pigs get slaughtered, so let’s take advantage of what we’ve gotten put in front of us here.
Todd Gleason: Matt Bennett, your thoughts on new crop corn sales?
Matt Bennett: Yeah, I mean, I couldn’t agree more with what Shane said. I think ultimately when you’ve got a three-year high in prices, you’ve got to respect that. I know a lot of growers say, well, I sold some corn back at whatever it might be, $4.50, or I always ask them, why’d you make the sale originally? Well, it was because I could be profitable. And I know that $5.30, $5.40 looks a heck of a lot more profitable, basically on the board, but does that mean that we ignore these opportunities? And so, while I’m still supportive and friendly to the market, I think we’ve got to reward these types of levels at least with some incremental sales or at the very least locking a floor in. None of us knows what tomorrow is going to bring. We can talk about the bullish things all day long, and again, I think we’re all somewhat friendly based on everything we’re seeing, but we don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow. So I don’t want to be in a position where we snub our nose at some of the best prices we’ve been able to enjoy in quite some time. So I’m all about incrementally rewarding the market, but doing so with a degree of flexibility that if this thing does take off on another bender, that we can participate at least to some degree.
Todd Gleason: And Sherman Newlin, I would like to know from you, but first, thank you for allowing me at least into your combine cab. I have had a blast watching that grain tank, I can see it behind you fill up and empty out and fill up and empty out. What do you think about new crop corn sales?
Sherman Newlin: Corn sales, yeah. I mean, I had a meeting the other day and farmers asked me, so do you think corn’s going to $6? I said, yeah, I think it can under the right circumstances. So you’re saying we shouldn’t sell? Like, no, I didn’t say that. I think, especially if you’ve made zero sales—I talked to guys that have made zero sales—I think absolutely you have to make some sales, especially everything you can’t store on the farm, you gotta take to town, take advantage of these higher prices. But the other flip side of it is, I talk to guys that have made way too many sales at a lot lower levels, because they thought we couldn’t go any higher, and we might even go down. Well, that hasn’t come to fruition, so I do like making some sales up here, for corn and beans both, but we have been covering all our sales pretty much with some sort of call option strategy just in case we can go higher, which I think we can. But I do think being flexible, but also like everybody else says, taking advantage of what we’ve been given so far, and let’s see where we go as we get into harvest.
Todd Gleason: Commodity Week, of course, is a production of Illinois Public Media. It is public radio for the farming world. You may hear the whole of this program anytime you’d like on our website at willag.org, w-i-l-l-a-g dot o-r-g. And I would like to take time today to welcome the folks in Western Illinois that are listening to Commodity Week on Tri States Public Radio out of Macomb and other areas including Burlington, Iowa. We appreciate you are there. And I’d also like to welcome RCM Co-op to our ag podcast. They are posted on the co-op’s website. So if you are a member of RCM Co-op there in the Springfield and West area in Illinois, we do appreciate them and their ability to allow us to be there on the website. You’ll also find information, by the way, too on that website from the ag economist, the crop scientist, and the animal scientist from here at the University of Illinois. You’ve been listening to Commodity Week. I’m Todd Gleason.