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Aug 06 | Closing Market Report · Closing Market Report

• cmr260806 The August 6, 2026, broadcast of the Closing Market Report provides an overview of daily commodity markets, agricultural economic developments, fall soil fertility strategies, and global weather patterns. Market analyst Jim McCormick highlights recent technical defense of corn and soybean positions, noting short-term downside risks ahead of the upcoming USDA crop production report alongside long-term bullish factors tied to El Niño and geopolitical trade issues. The broadcast also features economic analysis indicating that stabilized U.S. trade tariffs are beginning to show subtle inflationary effects on consumer prices. Additionally, soil fertility specialist John Jones advises producers to base fall nitrogen and phosphorus applications on recent field soil testing to ensure profitable, rather than strictly yield-chasing, fertilizer investments. Concluding the program, meteorologist Mike Tannura forecasts a favorable pattern of rain and cool fronts across the U.S. corn belt, while warning that severe, crop-damaging heat and drought conditions persist across Western Europe. 02:00 Ag Markets with Jim McCormick, AgMarket.net 07:46 WILLAg News Update 10:59 What to do about Fall Fertilizers 16:56 Ag Weather with Mike Tannura, Tstorm.net --- Todd Gleason: From the Land Grant University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, this is the Closing Market Report. It is the sixth day of August 2026. I’m University of Illinois Extension’s Todd Gleason. Coming up, we’ll talk about the commodity markets with Matt Bennett. He’s from agmarket.net out of Windsor, Illinois. We’ll discuss soil fertility practices for this fall and how producers should be thinking about the high price of nitrogen and, more importantly, the high price of phosphorus. We’ll do that with soil fertility specialist from the University of Illinois, John Jones. And then we’ll turn our attention, as we wrap up our time together, to the weather forecast. We’ll talk with Mike Tannura, he’s at T-Storm Weather in Naperville, Illinois. That’s tstorm.net online. During this Thursday edition of the Closing Market Report from Illinois Public Media, it is public radio for the farming world online on demand at willag.org. Todd Gleason: September corn for the day settled at $4.39, that was up two and a quarter. December $4.62, two higher. And the March, a penny and three quarters higher at $4.77 and a half. November beans, $11.77 and three quarters, three higher for the day. The bean oil futures finished the nearby contract up just two cents at $67.74. And the bean meal for the day, $1.40 higher. Wheat futures soft red December $6.50 and a half, down 10 and three quarters. And the hard red December at $7.17 and a half, 13 and a half cents lower. Live cattle futures $4.55 lower. Feeders down $6.80 and lean hogs off a buck thirty on the afternoon. Crude oil $77.38 a barrel at our last tick, up around $2.17. Diesel fuel or heating oil at $3.86, that’s seven cents higher for the afternoon. And the wholesale price of gasoline, up about a dime at $2.94. 02:00 Ag Markets with Jim McCormick, AgMarket.net Todd Gleason: Now here to talk about these numbers is Jim McCormick of agmarket.net as Mr. Bennett happens to be out of the office. He’s in Nebraska with Becknology Days today. Thanks Jim for filling in short notice for us from agmarket.net. I appreciate that a lot. Jim McCormick: Thanks for having me on, Todd. I appreciate it. Todd Gleason: Tell me a little bit about the marketplace this week and as we head into next week’s USDA report, what are you watching most closely? Jim McCormick: Right now, Todd, it was a relatively muted day, trading plus and minus on both sides of the coin for corn and beans. Late in the day, we did have a little bit of technical buying. When I’m looking at the corn specifically, we are trying to hold the 50-day moving average on this new crop corn. We’ve tested it several days in a row here. We’ve managed to hit it, dip through it a little bit, but we’ve held it. That’s critical, Todd, because if you look at the chart pattern, it looks like we formed what could be a head and shoulder top with the right shoulder being formed here three days ago on August 4th. And the neckline is equating up with where that 50-day moving average is. If you take out that neckline and the 50-day moving average on a closing basis, the chartists are going to tell you that’s a head and shoulder top and that’s going to project you down toward $4.25. Interestingly enough, that just happens to be where the June low was on the corn market. On the bean market, you’re seeing the same situation. It’s not a head and shoulder top, but they’ve been trying to defend against the 100-day moving average the last couple days. They went through it yesterday, closed back above it. Today they tested it and held it. If you take out that moving average, the next downward target is going to be toward trendline support as well as a 200-day moving average around $11.35. It feels like the technical guys are trying to defend their length at the moment. We’ll see if they can sustain it going into the weekend tomorrow. Todd Gleason: Do you suppose the trade will try to test those support levels before next week’s WASDE on Wednesday? Jim McCormick: I am leaning thinking, unfortunately, they’re going to take it out. As you said, the report is Wednesday, so you’ve got another three full days of trading. That is a long time for the technical indicators to defend it. And the other problem I’m looking at right now, Todd, is the weather at this point in time, in general, looks very conducive. A lot of rain moving through. So you’ve got a situation where you’re losing some of that bullish story on the weather play. We are getting a little bit of a bounce in the crude oil today, but it’s trading relatively weak. It looks like we’re making progress to getting a ceasefire, so you might lose that energy component tailwind as well. The only thing you have left is that crop report. And that crop report, Todd, is going to be a wild one. The ranges I’ve seen are anywhere from a 181 yield to a 186 yield. And then there’s debate whether you see an adjustment in acres. So it may be a situation the bulls look into that chart pattern, it starts taking out with a bearish weather pattern, might just say, I’m going to step aside, let the market do what it does, and then we’ll reset and see how the market trades once the report’s numbers are released Wednesday morning. Todd Gleason: Are you having producers add to positions anywhere or defending a position at this point in front of the crop production report? Jim McCormick: I am encouraging producers, especially the bushels that they know they cannot store going into the fall. I am bullish long term, Todd, but I am a little bit worried that that chart pattern weakens and that you could see some weakness and eventually we’ll bounce back out of it. Are you going to run out of time before this harvest kicks in for you? So I am choosing to use options as a way to essentially put a protection under it but leave that top side open. I do think there’s some downward risk and in the long run I am optimistic. I know the wild card, Todd, is China. Will China buy grain? I believe they will, but the caveat is this: China told us back in the spring they’d be willing to buy up to 17 billion dollars worth of goods, but to do it, they want us to lower trade barriers, trade tariffs by an equivalent amount, 17 billion dollars. They will lower their trade tariffs equivalent of 17 billion dollars, that’ll make our products competitive into the market. I think that happens, Todd, but the problem is the meeting between Trump and Xi does not happen till the end of September. The odds tell me that when we finally get this peace deal accord, tariffs lowered, it won’t be till late September. So you have that month of lack of demand from China, combined with harvest picking up. And if you don’t get a bullish report, you could see some weakness. So an option is one way to defend those bushels that you know you have to bring to the market here this fall. Todd Gleason: Anything you’re looking forward to for next year? Jim McCormick: First one is overall demand from China potentially from the trade deal. Secondly, you’ve got the crop problems in Europe. That’s become a real problem. Third one, what’s going on in Ukraine right now. The USDA attache cut Ukrainian export forecast for the Black Sea shipments from corn to just 14 million metric tons. The USDA is at 23 due to that conflict. So we’re going to have a hard time getting grain out of that part of the world. And then lastly, you’re looking at El Nino. It continues to build. Historically El Nino causes problems in South America for corn production and bean production. It can cause problems with the Australian wheat crop, it can cause problems with the South African corn crop, and it can cause problems with the Malaysia palm oil. All those food ingredients, Todd, those are bringing money into the market. You saw that at the beginning of the month, a lot of money came into play. There are a lot of investors that want to own ags on this potential inflation play due to crop shortages due to El Nino, and that is why I think you got to be somewhat friendly going into the winter 2026–2027 time period. Todd Gleason: Thanks much. I appreciate it. Jim McCormick: Thank you. Todd Gleason: That’s Jim McCormick, he is with agmarket.net. 07:46 WILLAg News Update announce: In today’s agricultural news just a couple of quick items. First, the Senate has failed to pass a farm bill 2.0 before leaving for its summer recess. That’ll put the farm bill behind schedule. Secondly, while tariff policies have shifted repeatedly over the past year, economists at the Minneapolis Federal Reserve say the US is now operating under a more stable level of trade restrictions. Stephanie Hoff has more. Stephanie Hoff: They also say the economy has proven more resilient than many expected even as tariffs begin to show up in consumer prices. So where do tariffs actually stand today? Michael Waugh explains. Michael Waugh: The big step down was actually when the Supreme Court ruled that the IEEPA tariffs were illegal. So that dropped the effective tariff rate down to about 7%. Then we saw the Section 122 tariffs that came in place of the IEEPA tariffs. That raised the tariff rate a bit to around 7%. And those only had a 150-day window. Those came off about a week or two weeks ago. Then the Section 301 forced labor practices came in. That basically replicated exactly the Section 122 tariffs. So right now the effective tariff rate is around 7% and the statutory rate moving forward is going to be around 10 something. So it’s pretty stable right now. The one thing to keep a lookout is there are other 301 investigations out there. And those could layer in a lot more country heterogeneity and also just increase the level. Stephanie Hoff: Waugh says earlier inflation data leading up to January 2026 showed little connection between tariffs and higher prices. But researchers are now seeing signs that tariffs are making their way into consumer prices. Michael Waugh: Our conclusion from this is we had not seen the inflationary effects of tariffs yet. Now we’ve had more data the past three, four months, and you start to see in those categories more exposed to tariffs, prices have risen. And it is having an inflationary impulse. The final headline number that we come up with is about maybe 50 basis points of current inflation is accounted for by tariffs. Stephanie Hoff: Even so, Waugh says tariffs are only one piece of the broader inflation picture. Michael Waugh: The thing I’m going to add on top of this is there are other inflationary dynamics taking place in the US economy. One of them again is AI. If you look at certain categories in PCE that are AI exposed, their prices are going up a lot. So in terms of overall inflationary magnitudes, it’s showing up. It’s not the full end story behind US inflation right now. Stephanie Hoff: Tariffs are now adding to inflation, though broader forces remain more important in shaping the overall economy. I’m Stephanie Hoff reporting. Todd Gleason: And I’m Todd Gleason and you’re listening to the Closing Market Report from Illinois Public Media. 10:59 What to do about Fall Fertilizers Todd Gleason: We’re now joined by extension fertility specialist and soil scientist John Jones to discuss the fall application of fertilizer and how this year’s crop uptake has been influencing what he sees in the coming season. John, thank you for being with us. What is it that farmers should be aware of at this time? John Jones: As we move into the later part of 2026 evaluating how crops are doing across the state, we’ve seen a very responsive crop to nitrogen. Essentially we had some fairly large loss events and the reason I bring that up is because we want to try to evaluate what the 2026 crop is doing as we head into that fall fertilizer either purchase or application timeframe and then keep the spring 2027 in mind. Right now what we’re seeing are certainly yields that are going to be competitive with previous years, maybe not meeting those record numbers or highest out of 10-year numbers that we’ve seen sometimes in the last few years. Wet Junes put us in a place where N loss was to a larger degree hurting us in some cases. Certainly there was some different pest pressure patterns as well. But as we start to go into the fall 2026 and planning for the 2027 crop, I really want to think about two things specifically, phosphorus and nitrogen relative to where their prices are at compared to the last five to 10 years. There’s a case where nitrogen fertilizer prices have started to track downwards apart from where they were in the spring, but in this case we really are dealing with a different economic scenario in terms of what is the most economic optimal nitrogen rate. One thing that’s always interesting is fertilizing for bushels versus fertilizing for profit. What’s great is that across 800 trials that we’ve run across Illinois, the difference between the yield and those two strategies is about one and a half to two bushels. So you’re not sacrificing bushels when thinking about a profitable decision rather than chasing the highest bushels possible relative to nitrogen management. As we think about that in the fall, one of the things that we want to do is apply the pricing conditions to what we decide to put out there. Generally, and we’ve got a new paper coming out fairly soon looking at fall and spring nitrogen, we’ve seen that our optimum rates for fall applied anhydrous are about 16 to 20 pounds higher than our optimum rates for spring anhydrous. Consider that when making your applications. In general applying those price considerations and using the corn nitrogen rate calculator tool will at least put you in a place where you’re targeting that most profitable N application. Remembering we have things like soil temperature thresholds, we like to see 50 degrees and cooling at the four-inch depth before we’re putting our fall anhydrous out there. One of the things that it’s important to certainly think about, especially if we’ve had some dry falls, is the efficacy of that physical application, making sure that we’re getting good slit closure and not losing any N where we didn’t need to. On the P side, this is something where we really need to look at our soil test levels, what soil test levels are across the whole field, not just as a composite though if you’re grid and zone sampling, this is a time for those testing protocols of sampling within the field and across the field to pay off. Identifying those zones using our state guidelines that identify where crops are not going to respond to P for example. If we apply our pricing scenarios now, $900 or greater dollars a ton for DAP for example, and this is considering the nitrogen, generally the point at where we’re not getting an annual ROI to corn or soybeans is about 17 to 18 parts per million of P in your soil test values. If we think about that, it’s a little bit lower than the maintenance range, which probably means you can draw down for a year or two without needing to really have that rescue P application. And a rescue isn’t necessarily that the crop needs it, but that the soil is going to need to be maintained at a certain level. Identifying those places using soil test levels for phosphorus where and where not you are going to respond to P is very important. As we start to go towards 20 or 30 parts per million P, our probability of response to fertilizer starts to drop from 20 to 15 to 10 down to zero. And above 30, we really would not expect an economic response to P, whether banding or applying dry fertilizer. Todd Gleason: If a soil test hasn’t been made on a farm over the last four years, how should a producer think about the cost of that test compared to the price of phosphorus? John Jones: Right now is the time when soil testing ROI is the highest. Because we can identify those places where we don’t need to apply P, we can also identify those places where you’re going to get a yield loss if you don’t apply P. So the seven, eight dollars per acre you may pay for a grid sampling program can really pay off if you’re not having to put out 40, 50, 60 pounds of P as DAP as well. That’s something to consider when we think about the relatively low cost of soil testing analysis versus the cost savings of avoiding over applications in those areas. Todd Gleason: Thanks much. I appreciate it. John Jones: Thank you. Todd Gleason: That’s John Jones, he’s a soil fertility specialist on the Urbana-Champaign campus of the Land Grant University of Illinois. You should watch the farmdoc and crop central websites for the paper he is writing on soil fertility as it relates to fall applications. That’ll be coming out soon. 16:56 Ag Weather with Mike Tannura, Tstorm.net Todd Gleason: Let’s turn our attention to what’s been happening in the global growing regions. Here to help us with that is Mike Tannura. He’s the president and CEO at T-Storm Weather. That’s tstorm.net online, he’s in Naperville, Illinois. Good day to you, Mike. Mike Tannura: Thanks a lot for having me, Todd. Todd Gleason: Let’s begin with the rainfall across the corn belt in the middle part of the United States. It started about a week ago I suppose and what were conditions like up until then and how have things changed? Mike Tannura: It was pretty dry leading into that period. We’ve been looking at one of the drier closes to July in quite a long time and then we saw some good rain start up last Thursday and Friday, those continued through Sunday. We’re now seeing more rains across the corn belt, as you look out your window you’ve probably noticed that. There’s more rain ahead beyond this period. The reason this is happening is because we have an area of heat that’s developing off to the south, but at the same time we have cool fronts that are passing to the north. This is leaving the heart of the central United States in between each air mass and that’s a favorable location for showers and thunderstorms. We’re going to see quite a few more as we move forward over the next 5 to 10 days and because of that, we’re looking for fairly widespread coverage of near and above normal rainfall. This includes most of the US corn and soybean crops. Todd, this is a pretty ideal rainfall setup for soybeans in particular. And for corn, they can still benefit from rain in August of course, but it’s a little bit past their prime season for that. Temperatures are very important for corn in August and we’re not going to see too much heat. Yes, there will be some in southern and western areas, but those cool fronts we’ve been talking about, those are the main driver and as long as those continue to move through, most corn will end up being near or maybe even a tiny bit cooler than normal. In the end, this is a mixed bag where rains are looking pretty ideal, temperatures are mixed with some areas a little too warm, some areas looking okay. It’s the same story that we’ve had all season long, which is where we never moved convincingly into a problem and we never moved convincingly into an ideal setup. Always in between with either rains not quite perfect or temperatures not quite perfect. In this scenario, it’s probably the temperatures that aren’t quite perfect with just a little bit of heat in the southern and western areas. Todd Gleason: Sometimes when these warm and cold fronts come together, it creates a boundary of sorts and there’s a training effect meaning just one area gets a lot of rainfall and it keeps running right over the top of it. That’s not what is happening this time around. Mike Tannura: It doesn’t look like it’s going to line up that way because once we get the first waves of thunderstorms to move through, which are happening today, this is the beginning of that setup, the true setup doesn’t start up until this weekend. When you get one big area of thunderstorms to form, that makes basically a miniature cool front move through some part of the United States. So then when the setup becomes favorable for thunderstorms the next day, they’re directly related to where that miniature cool front was the day prior. One cluster of thunderstorms basically affects the next cluster of thunderstorms by moving their locations around. We think we’re going to see that type of scenario where one area gets hit today, a different area gets hit tomorrow, then another area gets hit the third day out and they just mix around. There’s never a scenario where everybody gets a perfect rainfall, but this is a pretty ideal setup just because the thunderstorms are going to mix around in different areas. The only caveat we would say is that if we ended up moving to the cooler side, say some of these cool fronts are stronger than expected, then corn producers would love that because we’d have nice and cool air in place. But if that happened, it would move the main storm track a little bit further south and it would move it away from corn and soybeans. You’d have cooler and drier weather moving together. Or if it turned out to be hotter, then you’d get more rain because that thunderstorm setup would be a little bit further to the north. So hot and wet weather would go together. But notice either hot and wet or cool and dry. The ideal scenario is cool and wet and that’s the one that’s probably unlikely because you’re not going to be able to get a lot of rain if it turns cool, but if it does get hot you would get a lot of rain. Todd Gleason: Now turn your attention to Western Europe. France has suffered, a large part of Europe in fact. The UK too, through very dry hot conditions. Anything changing there? Mike Tannura: Not really, this has been going on for the entire summer. This is for them probably something similar to a 1988 style drought or heat wave for a big chunk of Europe, especially in France and into Spain and Italy, which is where a lot of their corn is produced. That story is not ending, it’s just going to stay hot there for at least another 5 to 10 days. We’re getting toward the middle of August once we start talking that far out. Eventually things will change, because what happens is the whole climate of the world starts to adjust to lessening sunlight and the approach of fall and all of that, and that’s when the pattern will eventually break. But as far as corn producers in Europe are concerned, or even sunflower producers, there’s another week or two of this ahead and that’s not very good for them. Todd Gleason: Thank you much. We’ll talk with you again next week. Mike Tannura: Sounds great. Todd Gleason: That’s Mike Tannura, he is with T-Storm Weather at tstorm.net online. Joined us on our Closing Market Report for this Thursday afternoon. We record commodity week by the way a bit later today and then post it to our website at willag.org by about 6 o’clock this evening. You can catch it there or listen to it tomorrow right here on our home station in its entirety. Many of these radio stations will carry it over the weekend as well. You have a great afternoon, I’m University of Illinois Extension’s Todd Gleason.