Todd Gleason: From the Land to Grant University in Urbana Champaign, Illinois, this is the Closing Market Report. It is the March. I'm extension's Todd Gleason. Mike Zuzolo is out of the office today so no update of the analytics from him. However, we'll hear from Mike along with agmarket.net's Kurt Kimmel and Matt Bennett and Brian Stark of the Andersons recorded on the March at the All Day Ag Outlook.

This is the corn panel I checked, the fundamentals simply have not changed at this point, and they believe that most of what they had to say then really still applies today. It's a great program. If you can stay with us for the whole of the hour today, you'll hear all of it. If not, you'll hear a portion of it. It's up online right now at willag.org.

We will talk today, of course, about the weather forecast with Eric Stodgrass at Nutrien Ag Solutions, and I'll have an update of the ag news for you as well on this Friday edition of the Closing Market Report from Illinois Public Media.

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

Todd Gleason: Again, Mike Zuzlow from Atchison, Kansas and globalcomresearch.com is out of the office for the afternoon, so we won't take up the commodity markets and the trade for this Friday with him. However, we will hear from Mike in this half hour and the next half hour if you can stay with us for the whole of the hour during our commodity week program that was recorded the March, but still the fundamentals remain the same. It's a really good forty minutes you'll want to stay with us for the whole of the program if you can. Again, that's up online right now at willag.org as well, willag.org. But let's do it this time, turn our attention to the weather forecast.

Eric Snodgrass is here. He's from Nutrien Ag Solutions and Dagrabill. Hey. Thank you much, Eric, for joining us today. I I wanna look back to begin with, and then we'll turn our attention to the weather that's coming to the Midwest.

But, certainly, we just had an enormous storm in the last few days, particularly in the Kankakee in the Indiana and Michigan area. Can you tell me about it, please?

Eric Snodgrass: Yeah. You know, it was the first moderate risk issued by the Storm Prediction Center this year. And remember, they have a six part scale. This would be five out of six on their risk scale. And the storm systems that blew up in North Western Illinois, and then the one rogue supercell that went out through Kankakee and eventually got into Indiana and Michigan, you know, was an absolute beast.

I mean, it was a what I call a textbook supercell, huge hook echo, and it was tossing out some large hail. Now there's been an interesting story with the hail. That storm apparently did set the new state record for hail size. I believe it was just a a little bit over six inches in diameter. But there was another picture that was floating around that suggested that there was another hailstone that was over eight inches in diameter, possibly even larger, and could have been a new world record holder.

But a lot of lot of strange things happened when that picture came out because the guy took a picture in his live and, excuse me, his kitchen. And you can see his, like, freezer was open. And so a lot of us were unsure if if it was just a big chunk of ice he had pulled out and put a little mud on, but he didn't keep it, so it's never gonna go down the record books. But it was a nasty storm, produced a huge tornado, and we've already had quite a bit of severe weather early this year. So we just started asking questions like, is this gonna keep going?

And sure enough, as we get into this really windy day today, while all of the snow is flying way to our north, we're gonna be watching for more severe weather risk late in the weekend. We're gonna gonna be more down toward the Mid South Ohio Valley, you know, Southern Illinois more than than than here. But still, there's another round of pretty nasty weather coming through.

Todd Gleason: Tell me about the snow in the northern part of the Great Lakes area.

Eric Snodgrass: Yeah. So there's a lot of snow on the headwaters of the Mississippi. That's good. That means there's gonna be water coming down that river system when this snow finally starts to melt. But we're looking at parts of Wisconsin and Minnesota, and then definitely the UP Of Michigan picking up between ten and thirty five inches of snow out of the next couple of systems.

And oh, by the way, this next system coming through is also gonna be bringing snow from Montana into the Dakotas, which is gonna hit the headwaters of the Missouri River Basin, which desperately needs it. Because with the wind that just came through us today, yesterday, it produced huge fires in Nebraska and South Dakota, and so that whole region is very dry. And it's a reminder that you wanna talk about one of the Corn Belt states that's just been pounded with drought this winter, you gotta think about Nebraska, one of the driest winters on record. The Platte River system, the headwaters have almost no snow on them right now. Same with the Arkansas River too.

And for that matter, the Colorado Liver River, excuse me, is at a ten year low on snowpack.

Todd Gleason: Next week and then week two, look like what?

Eric Snodgrass: Relatively benign. So we're gonna need a big ridge that builds into the Southwestern United States, and that ridge is gonna absolutely bake the Southwest. I'm talking triple digit heat in parts of Arizona getting into Southern California. And and, you know, you expect that there, but you expect that in June, not in in March. Very, very hot.

The planes are gonna heat back up again. We will rebound in our temperatures, but it's gonna go over relatively dry. We think that the pattern is gonna turn a bit more active as we get out there toward Easter weekend and Holy Week, the whole time period, But you're gonna get a little bit of a reprieve in week two. Although, as I mentioned, there's some really, really cold air coming in early next week, our last big shot of Arctic air.

Todd Gleason: What do you think about early springtime?

Eric Snodgrass: Well, my thought initially was we were gonna see some tight early windows. So if you're gonna get out there and get going and, you know, let's call it the March to the first fifteen days of April, I still think that's the case. But there seems to be some growing indicators that once we blow past mid April, we're gonna also see more open windows in terms of getting a crop established. And, also, I think I don't know that we're necessarily gonna go back over to any really cold air. We might make a break toward full on spring warmth after about mid April.

Now, again, that's more than a month from now, but that's at least the way the current setup is shaping up. And that's honestly, that's good news for a lot of folks, but we'll have to wait and see how the patterns evolve by the time we get there. Because the big story for this summer is gonna be this El Nino, which is expected to be a big one. We're just questioning, is that gonna be favorable for us, or is it gonna be something that we're gonna be fighting against to get our yield goals?

Todd Gleason: We'll ask you more about that in the future. However, I would like to look at South America. We don't have to wait and see anymore. They've got a good crop.

Eric Snodgrass: Well, the thing about South America is the crops coming out wet on soybeans, and they planted or they are still planting about 20% of the safrinha crop outside of the ideal window to plant the safrinha corn. That means a fifth of the crop is gonna be vulnerable to mid season and late season drought stress as the monsoon white winds down. But in the near term, it's very, very wet. And I think that's also playing a role in what could be a supportive weather story for corn. And some of these beans that are coming out, the quality on them has been has been reported that it's not as good because of how wet it has been.

So I think that's a story we need to follow in South America with respect to weather.

Todd Gleason: K. Thanks much. We'll talk with you again soon enough.

Eric Snodgrass: Alright. Sounds good. Thanks, Todd.

Todd Gleason: Eric Snodgrass is with Nutrien Ag Solutions and Agrabal joined us on this Friday edition of the Closing Market Report that comes to you from Illinois Public Media. It is public radio for the farming world online on demand anytime you'd like to hear us. We're at willag.org. That's willag.org. In today's agricultural news, energy markets remain highly volatile this week, and the political messaging out of Washington is shifting right along with the markets.

Since the recent conflict with Iran spiked crude oil and retail gasoline prices, president Trump has pivoted his focus. Now you might remember just last month during the State of the Union, the president was highlighting national gas averages at $2.30 a gallon. Now with the tanker stranded outside a blocked Strait Of Hormuz and the national average pushing $3.60, the president took to social media yesterday to point out The US is the world's largest oil producer, noting the higher crude prices bring a lot of revenue domestically. It's a messaging shift that highlights the current tension between keeping input costs low here at home and flexing American energy muscles on the global stage. We'll stay with energy, but turn to e 15.

The push for year round e 15 continues to face headwinds in DC, and Illinois congresswoman Nikki Budzinski says the ongoing delay is frustrating. The house ag committee member tells Brownfield the congress missed its window to pass the legislation last year, and now the rural domestic energy council has blown past its own late February deadline. Budzinski says the points of negotiation, which largely revolve around small refinery exemptions or SREs, are already well known and quite frankly a task force is not needed with pump prices climbing rapidly across the country. She argues moving forward on E15 is critical now both to build base demand for corn growers and to help relieve some of the price pressure for consumers at the pump. And finally, turning to 45 z.

Midwestern lawmakers are pressing the administration to make sure farmers are not left behind in the new 45 z tax incentive. Iowa Republican senator Joni Ernst and representative Marinette Miller Meeks from Iowa are leading a group of farm state lawmakers in a letter to treasury secretary Scott Bessant, ag secretary Brooke Rollins, and energy secretary Chris Wright. They're urging the IRS to ensure the final rules for the 45 z credit fully reward on farm conservation efforts, things like cover crops and precision fertilizer applications With the USDA still developing that tool to calculate carbon intensity scores for agricultural feedstocks, these lawmakers say it's critical the final rule clearly identifies which practices will qualify for a premium. And that's a look at today's agricultural news. You've been listening to the Closing Market Report on this Friday afternoon.

Our theme music is written, performed, produced in courtesy of Logan County, Illinois farmer Tim Gleason. Just one note about commodity week, which is coming up on many of these radio stations. And if you can stay with us, you'll hear all of that on our home station today. But up online at willag.org, we're trying out a new theme for commodity week today. It too is written by my brother, Tim Gleason.

I hope you will like it. Welcome to commodity week. I am Todd Gleason. Our program today comes from the March 3 all day I got looked at the corn panel. I checked with each of them to see if things had really changed in the marketplace as it relates to corn fundamentals.

They agreed it had not. Our panelists of the day included Mike Zuzolo. He's at globalcomresearch.com out of Atchison, Kansas. Matt Bennett from agmarket.net in Windsor, Illinois. Brian Stark of the Andersons in Mansfield, Illinois, and Kurt Kimmel from Normal, Illinois and agmarket.net.

Now here's the corn panel from the All Day Ag Outlook.

Todd Gleason: So they're gonna talk to us about the marketplace. Think, Mike, I'll have you set us up. What is the landscape for corn like today across the planet?

Mike Zuzolo: Well, it's just a great time to be here. Thank you, Todd, for having us again this year. It it's wonderful to see all of you too. I I would say very briefly that the corn landscape has one big problem, and it's not the wheat for a change. It's the soybeans for a change.

I continue to straddle the supply demand fundamentals with the policy. And ever since before harvest, when we were talking, I was very vocal about the idea of storing corn over beans. It was better in the bin to have corn because of supply demand fundamentals, and the policy has made that completely the opposite when it comes to, especially, the futures market. But I also feel as though that's going to swing back around or could swing back around. And I'm still very worried about a 2018 style type move in the beans, very sharp, very quick down move, maybe this spring, maybe after the crop is planted.

But that being something that would create the corn to go down with it in sympathy, and there is a gap in the weekly corn chart at four zero five on lead month futures. That would be my downside objective on corn versus lead month futures right now. People said, how much downside do we have in corn? I'd say the gap at four zero five is what I would see as the top end downside at this point, and I'm thinking that it's probably gonna be because of the soybeans that we would go down and fill that gap. Don't let me forget to ask why for soybeans later.

Not now. Not now. I I wanna I wanna I wanna save that for just a bit.

Todd Gleason: Your view of the marketplace for Cord, Brian.

Brian Stark: Yeah. I I think the the challenge, obviously, as others have stated here, as we've talked on many topics so far today is the overabundant supply and the need for, a growing demand base to work through, some of the production that we've been able to continue to build upon year after year with genetics. And I think we haven't really run into a crop growing season problem. So yet then it becomes how do we find more demand? You know, the positive outlook is is that exports continue to be very, very strong.

I think that's the good thing. But when you're starting with such a big carryout, and it's kind of a cyclical piece that kind kinds of be to be self fulfilling that when you have low prices, most farmers like to plant corn to outyield the price problem. So then it becomes this circular effect where if we don't find the more demand for an ever growing production, we never kinda get out of that cycle. So I think right now, there's a lot of things that are influencing. The positives are strong export demand, strong ethanol demand.

The feed aspect, I think, on the side of corn is concerning because cattle are at 75 lows. We know it takes a while to build back the herd. So I think that's the one component of demand that has me concerned, if it's too high, from a usage standpoint in the balance sheet currently.

Todd Gleason: Remind me to ask you about beef and whether it is just a luxury item or something different these days because of the small herd size. I wanna come back to that too. Kurt Kimmel from agmarket.net.

Curt Kimmel: I wanna just follow-up on Greg's point earlier here on the bean panel. There's so many world events going on. The volatility is just screaming through the roof here. The JSA team has a price model they run after every report. We don't have the new crop parameters to work with.

The goalpost on July corn futures, the upper end $4.75 and the lower end at $3.75. So that's something our team puts together to try to follow. Short term, full moon high here today. Maybe we'll pull back for a little while. But longer term, I think the core market's well in their life.

Todd Gleason: Bloodbone high, not just a full moon high. Oh. Very nice. How about that?

Curt Kimmel: You're up on me.

Todd Gleason: Matt Bent.

Matt Bennett: Yeah. There's a lot of things to talk about with the corn market. I mean, we talk acres after a while. You know, right now, you've got big time demand. So when you look at the world, you know, when you look at the USDA's balance sheet, US had the biggest crop ever last year, 17,000,000,000 bushel crop.

The forecast is that Brazil will be bordering a record crop. Yet we actually drew down, according to the balance sheet from the USDA, stocks drew down about 5,000,000 tons for this marketing year. That's what the forecast is, which is a notable thing, Todd, whenever we're producing like we are. And I agree with Brian, there's some question marks with that feed and residual usage category on The US balance sheet. But I, you know, the thing is, is that if we, if any of us could figure out exactly what the USDA does with the feed and residual usage category, I think that we could make ourselves some money because sometimes it doesn't always make sense.

You look at where we're at a year ago. Last year was the first time in fifty years, you know, that you set a crop insurance average in February, and then you didn't go back and revisit it. I mean, we haven't seen that happen. It's happened one time in my lifetime, and it's been last year. So it made it a tough year to market, whereas who actually started the month of March above the February average for December corn, which is at least we don't have to worry about again.

But I do think the market's offered us some opportunities here recently, but at the same time, again, I would echo what was said in the previous panel is that I do think there could be a significant amount of volatility this year because when you have massive demand like we have, the current forecast for demand on USDA's balance sheet is sixteen-four-seven. We've raised a crop bigger than that one time in our history, and so whenever you have massive demand that necessitates that you have big production. If you run into a hiccup there, then there's no question in my mind that volatility could enter this marketplace. So does that mean I'm sitting on my hands doing nothing? Absolutely not.

I'm actually marketing some corn above $4.70 on Dees, and we can go into details on that later. But I still want to be pretty flexible if I get too overextended on my sales.

Todd Gleason: As a reminder, this edition of commodity week was recorded on the March at the Beef House in Covington, Indiana. Our panelists included Matt Bennett, whom you just heard, along with Mike Zusolo, Brian Stark, and Kurt Kimmel. There was audience participation as you'll hear.

Todd Gleason: I wanna take up feed and residual, but I wanna check something with you. How many of you have cattle, raise cattle, have cattle on the farm at the moment? Raise your hands up. Okay. That's kinda what I thought.

Alright. So I wanna come back to the beef, but let's start with just feed and residual because I'm hearing that residual might be a lot in that number as opposed to, you know, the feed usage. So what is the loss? You're in the elevator operation system. How much loss is there in that supply chain that kind of runs through the residual side?

Brian Stark: I think Matt hit it on the head. If we if we knew the answer to that, we'd all be, in a better spot. The residual piece, I think, is what creates the volatility we've all talked about because it's really hard to to measure. I think from stock report to stock report, we've seen the government struggle with the ability to really have a good handle on, you know, is the crop understated, overstated, and how that blends into true feed usage, especially when we've seen so many substitutes. In the past twelve months, up until we started to see relaxation of our disputes with China, you know, we didn't touch exporting milo out of the Western Corn Belt.

All right? That has impact to corn feed usage, and we saw where Milo couldn't be given away out in the West. You know, flip it to today, where now we're back exporting Milo. And so now you may see a scenario where the feed actually represents a bigger percentage than residual. But I don't know if there's a great answer for how you calculate the actual loss through that residual figure.

Todd Gleason: And then on the beef side, and we probably won't come back to this very much, but is the transition and, Mike, you might might want to jump in on this given your proximity to the beef herd. But is the transition of the closing of plants in The United States, the opening of plants in Mexico, is that going to cause the beef herd in The United States to stay relatively small as it is. Now it's at it's at really small levels. I don't know. Either one of you could take that up for Yeah.

Mike Zuzolo: I'll just say physiologically, yes. It's gonna take at least two years to get back to a sizable herd.

Todd Gleason: Well, that would just be that would just be normal cycle how long it takes to build the herd. But I I mean, is is has the demand curve demand for animals in The United States been lessened enough that they actually will just be fed out Mexico? And does that really mean anything, for the for the for the feed and residual number? Because it appears, and you've talked about this, that both the corn's being counted as an export and as a feed both doubly some somehow.

Mike Zuzolo: Yeah. I don't see it for two reasons, Todd. One, the weights are, you know, what, 900 plus, 960,000. Right. 960 pounds dressed at this point.

Some, you know, crazy number that we'd probably never thought we'd get to at this point. Number two, the Ag Attache just put out a new livestock update for Mexico, and they're gonna pump out 6% more beef exports. That screwworm has changed their livestock industry permanently. They are going to start retaining. They are going to start growing and finishing cattle instead of sending feeders across the border at this point.

That that that Adichie wrote it in no uncertain terms that that pattern, that change is a permanent change undergoing. But they're sending most of those exports to The United States. So the beef consumption is not going down. The demand's not going down. We're just gonna get it from other places.

Todd Gleason: That's Mike Zuzlow with globalcommercesearch.com out of Atchison, Kansas. He made the trip from Atchison to the Beef House in Covington, Indiana on the March to join on stage Brian Stark of the Andersons out of Mansfield, Illinois, Kurt Kimmel from Normal, Illinois, and agmarket.net's Matt Bennett from Windsor, Illinois. Commodity week, of course, is taken from that program. You can hear it all right now if you'd like on willag.org, willag.org. And many of these stations will carry it over the weekend.

You've been listening to the Closing Market Report on this Friday afternoon. I'm University of Illinois Extension's Todd Gleason.