cmr261020

The October 20, 2026, edition of the Closing Market Report covers commodity market trends, the value of soil science, and regional agricultural weather. Brian Beckler of Total Farm Marketing analyzes recent fund liquidation and harvest pressure affecting corn and soybean prices, noting that long-term bullish factors like the Russia-Ukraine conflict and strong demand could eventually drive a market recovery. Next, soil scientist Kevin McSweeney discusses his career transition from studying land reclamation in Illinois strip mines to evaluating how agricultural practices alter soil profiles over time, emphasizing the importance of detailed soil surveys. Finally, Don Day of Day Weather provides a forecast detailing dry, warm conditions favorable for harvesting across the Corn Belt, with most near-term precipitation limited to the western United States.

01:30 Ag Markets with Brian Beckler, Total Farm Marketing
08:44 A Soil Science Journey
21:30 Ag Weather with Don Day, Day Weather

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Todd Gleason: From the Land Grant University in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, this is the Closing Market Report. It is the 20th day of October 2026. I’m Extension’s Todd Gleason. Coming up, we’ll talk about the commodity markets with Brian Beckler of Total Farm Marketing. Naomi Blohm is away today. A bit later in the program, we’ll hear from a soil scientist about his journey and the importance of soil science, and in particular of the soil survey. Then we’ll turn our attention to the weather forecast too; Don Day will be here from Day Weather on this Tuesday edition of the Closing Market Report from Illinois Public Media.

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

Todd Gleason: December corn for the day settled at $4.62 a bushel, down a nickel. The March down 4.5 at $4.76. And May at $4.84, down 4.5 cents. November beans 5.25 lower for the day; they finished at $12.59. The January futures at $12.63, down 5.25 cents. Bean meal futures $6.10 lower, the bean oil 4 cents higher. December wheat futures soft red down 12 at $6.43. The hard red December at $6.91; that finished 8.5 cents lower. Crude oil for the day in the Brent is now trading at $108.65 a barrel, that is down 90 cents. Live cattle futures are up $2.15, the feeders $2.70 higher, and lean hogs up 80 cents for the day.

01:30 Ag Markets with Brian Beckler, Total Farm Marketing
Todd Gleason: We’re now joined by Brian Beckler, he is at TotalFarmMarketing.com out of West Bend, Wisconsin. Hi Brian, thanks for being with us. I’m so happy to get a chance to talk with you. It’s been a long time since we’ve had any discussions. I appreciate you taking the time with me this afternoon.

Brian Beckler: You bet Todd, happy to be here.

Todd Gleason: Tell me about the marketplace as you see it. Start with the down days over the past couple of weeks in corn.

Brian Beckler: I think what we’ve seen here is a USDA report has really led to major fund liquidation here. The yield number on the USDA report is fairly suspect when we look back at 2024. We saw final crop ratings quite a bit higher at 67% good to excellent. Here we are at 56% good to excellent this year, and crop ratings are actually quite a bit higher than 2024. We also saw poor to very poor at 7% in 2024, and this year they’re 17% poor to very poor. Something doesn’t seem to quite add up, but these reports are treated like gospel, and so we’ve got fund liquidation. Right now I think what we’re seeing is if I’m a buyer in the market, the most compelling argument for me right now is price. We still have the long-term bullish factors out there like Russia-Ukraine and the drought in Europe, but certainly looking at low price is something that is going to bring the buyers back in and help this market find a bottom.

Todd Gleason: We began to roll over because of grain stocks and then the October crop production report. I assume that a lot of pressure coming from the marketplace this week as the combines are rolling, particularly now in the western Corn Belt. Iowa had been behind, they are moving, Nebraska is moving again this week. How much hedge pressure do you see in the marketplace?

Brian Beckler: I think that’s a major factor. You’re seeing Iowa finally get back in the fields and hit their average harvest pace. That is absolutely a major factor right now, the fact that they’re able to get in the fields. And that is also the state where we have our best yield potential as well. We do see the market start to form a seasonal low around the midpoint of harvest, so we want to stay hopeful that might be the case again this year.

Todd Gleason: I was going to ask about that next because this probably would be about that time of year, about the time we make that 50% harvested level. How much recovery would you expect and how soon might it come?

Brian Beckler: I think what we’re looking at in corn is we’ve got the South American growing season right around the corner, and we also generally see a strong demand window here going forward. I think there’s a great opportunity to see corn rally back towards the $5.00 level here definitely before the end of the year. We don’t know what the weather is going to look like in South America, but again we still have the same bullish factors that drove us to the highs here with Russia and Ukraine. They account for 30% of the world’s wheat exports and 12% of the world’s corn exports. You take that away from the market, and it is a bullish factor in the backdrop that doesn’t seem to be going away anytime soon.

Todd Gleason: Do you suppose that corn and its rebound will be hampered in any way by a record low wheat crop and declining wheat prices in the United States?

Brian Beckler: That’s an age-old debate as to which market influences which market. We did actually have something along the lines of a crop failure this year in the U.S. for wheat, but we haven’t seen the exports really shine for us here, even in spite of the fact that Europe had a major drought, basically a 40-year drought over there, and we have limited exports out of the Black Sea. Somebody’s going to have to pick up the slack. I think we will plant more wheat here in the U.S., and I think wheat prices eventually will find a bottom. Generally what we see is corn and wheat, they’re going to track together, they’re not going to trend in completely opposite directions. I think again the age-old question is, is wheat the driver or is corn the driver, and that’s something we’ll just have to wait and find out at this point and see how that goes.

Todd Gleason: Finally, the soybeans have been driven by U.S. biofuels policy. They are still above $12.00. Do you expect recovery there?

Brian Beckler: Long-term, yes, when we look at the big, much bigger picture. But short-term, the bean market is also subject to fund liquidation. The funds had built a substantially long position in that market as well, and they haven’t gotten back to some major trendline support that corn has already surpassed to the downside. The bean market to me, short-term I would still be looking for more downside pressure in the bean market. China has bought about 15 million metric tons of the 25 that they had signed up for. I think we’re looking at the potential for China to continue to fulfill their obligations and continue to buy beans into the end of the year, and that should be a long-term bullish support for the bean market.

Todd Gleason: Thank you very much, Brian. I appreciate it.

Brian Beckler: You bet, I appreciate being here, Todd.

Todd Gleason: That’s Brian Beckler. He is with TotalFarmMarketing.com.

08:44 A Soil Science Journey
Todd Gleason: I’m University of Illinois Extension’s Todd Gleason. We’re now joined by Kevin McSweeney. He is a soil scientist and came through the U of I to begin with to start his career, but as you’ll hear, he is not from the United States originally, from Wales. Can you tell me how you arrived at the university and maybe what your first day or two were like here?

Kevin McSweeney: I’m originally from Wales and grew up in the United Kingdom. As I was finishing my undergraduate studies at the University of Sheffield, I became interested in land reclamation. I decided to explore opportunities for graduate study, and to cut a long story short, a wonderful option appeared at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. I looked on the map and saw where Urbana-Champaign was and thought it’s right next to Chicago, I’ll go there. More seriously, I had some correspondence with Professor Ivan Jansen in the agronomy department and was provided with a really wonderful opportunity to join a very important project on land reclamation following surface mining, mainly in southern and western Illinois.

Todd Gleason: That brought you to this part of the world, where we are today in southern Illinois. You looked out across the vista and saw something I don’t think many people would see when you were looking at the strip mines. Can you tell me about that?

Kevin McSweeney: For me, this exposure, we’re talking 50, 60, 100 feet of material removed above the coal seam, and that’s what they’re after in the strip mines is the coal obviously in this part of the world. Above that lay a very fascinating array of geologic and soil materials. It gave me an opportunity to really appreciate soil landscape variation. Here we have a long wall, let’s say half a mile long, and you can look at the soil and its variation, how the hydrology changes, the colors, the organic matter content, in a big broad sweep. It was very helpful as an aspiring soil scientist to have an opportunity to work in a very interesting disturbed landscape.

Todd Gleason: You were awed by it, if I remember correctly.

Kevin McSweeney: Absolutely. With students, we work in soil pits maybe 10 to 12 feet wide. Here I had a vista of half a mile.

Todd Gleason: And it was beautiful to you.

Kevin McSweeney: It was to me absolutely gorgeous, yes.

Todd Gleason: So as you made your way through your career, what happened with you next, and how does that incorporate into the soil surveys for the state of Illinois?

Kevin McSweeney: Following graduation with my PhD, I took a position at the University of Wisconsin in Madison in the Department of Soil Science and worked there for some 30 years. Then came back to Illinois more recently as director of the Arboretum. I’ve since stepped down from that post and now occupy myself full-time on soils-related issues. I’ve had the good opportunity to work closely with the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service during my time here in Illinois and have become very interested in the use of soil survey information for a whole range of different purposes. I have also been involved in the celebrations for the 150th anniversary of the Morrow Plots. We’ve got an international conference next week with experts on long-term research trials from various different countries around the world coming in to share ideas, so I’ve spent quite a bit of time on that. I’m curiously interested in the longer-term history of soil survey in Illinois and how it’s evolved, so I’ve spent some time digging into archival material on that.

Todd Gleason: What are the things you think that are most important about the reasons behind a soil survey to be taken?

Kevin McSweeney: I mentioned the Morrow Plots. We do quite a lot of what I would call site-specific research, a given location under a given climate, given soil conditions. The question is how relevant is that elsewhere. Soil survey, through detailed mapping, provides a vehicle, a platform if you like, to translate that information more broadly. I see this coupling of research, and if you want to extend it, soil survey provides a very valuable vehicle for doing that.

Todd Gleason: When you pull a soil sample, what does it tell you every time? What does it tell you about the soil you’re looking at?

Kevin McSweeney: Depending on the location, one can get a sense as to how disturbed the soil might be based on surface conditions. Has it been subject to extensive plowing? Has it been subject to extensive compaction? Has it had a period of growth under cover crops and careful management? You can see these things visually in the shape, the arrangement of the soil materials. As I look further down in the soil, I’m very interested in the colors that are expressed. Iron is a strong indicator of hydrologic conditions. When I see grayish, bluish-gray colors, I’m getting a sense that we’re moving into the poorly drained, somewhat poorly drained portion of the landscape. If I see red, oxidized, rusty colors, I’m knowing that we’re in well-drained settings, well-oxygenated subsoil. Very quickly I can get a sense of the surface conditions, I can look at the color and get a sense of the organic matter content and the physical condition of the soil. I can look at the subsoil and get a sense of the drainage conditions. Then I can further, using hand texturing, get a sense of the particle sizes that I’m dealing with. Is this a silty material? Is it a sandy material? Is there a lot of gravel in the subsoil? Very quickly using sensory skills, you can put together a picture of the characteristics and properties of the soil.

Todd Gleason: Clearly, and I think factually, those things that are happening in the uppermost few inches of the soil, the practices that a producer might be using, what crops, what cover there might be on that soil, make a difference and maybe can change the soil type. You can tell me whether that’s possible or not. And then I’m interested to know what you think about tile drainage, if you can see that and the changes, if it does make a difference in soil profiles at all, because there are places of course that have been tile-drained for 100 or more years in the state of Illinois certainly. Other places around the planet, and pattern tile drainage is an entirely different thing, much usually closer to the surface. So start with the changes that happen with cultural practices.

Kevin McSweeney: Tillage is the obvious one. I’m aware of situations where, depending on how deep the tillage is, you’re incorporating organic matter-rich material into subsoil layers that don’t have as much organic matter, and so in a sense you’re diluting that beneficial organic matter in the soil. There are extreme examples, for example in northern Wisconsin where we have soils forming under coniferous vegetation and they produce very distinct horizons. If they are converted to agriculture, that soil will literally move from what we would call one soil order into another, because we’ve in essence incorporated several distinct soil layers or horizons into one homogenized layer. There are instances if we look at it from a classification standpoint where human activities can actually significantly alter how we would classify the soil. I’m not an expert on the tile drainage question. People are looking at it. My suspicion is as you alter the hydrology, so you alter a lot of the chemistry, and I think we see in some instances increasing examples of oxidation within the subsoils, which were previously deoxygenated in reduced condition, very gray, grayish, bluish-gray colors, and now with tile drainage you’ll see examples of redder coloration within these subsoils associated with iron that has been transported down. There is probably some movement of clay-sized particles from upper portions of the soil into the lower subsoil. That would require pretty detailed investigation to really document it thoroughly. One can hypothesize, but I’d prefer to actually do analyses to confirm my suspicions.

Todd Gleason: As the state of Illinois attempts to pull samples from places across the state that are more than 100 years old for a second time, what do you hope the comparisons of those two soil samples might show, or maybe better yet, what do you suspect might be the probabilities that they show something different?

Kevin McSweeney: I suspect you may well see differences associated with the management practices that have gone on in the last 150-plus years. We’ve been adding fertilizer, we’ve been conducting tillage operations. I think we won’t get a fairly good idea on physical and chemical changes, but the nature of the way these original samples were taken, they were likely heated, sieved, stored for over a hundred years. The interesting microbiological properties probably won’t be evident. But I think we’ll get some insight into physical and chemical changes.

Todd Gleason: Thank you very much, I appreciate it.

Kevin McSweeney: Thank you very much, Todd. Appreciate it too.

Todd Gleason: Kevin McSweeney is a soil scientist. I’m University of Illinois Extension’s Todd Gleason.

21:30 Ag Weather with Don Day, Day Weather
Todd Gleason: Let’s turn our attention now to the weather forecast. Here’s Don Day. He’s with Day Weather in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

Don Day: A quiet stretch of mid-October weather is developing across the nation’s midsection, as we’re going to see most of the precipitation here over the next week in the western United States and the western high plains. Another California storm system will bring rain and some high country snow to the Great Basin, southern Rockies, and parts of the northern Rockies. We will see some rain late this weekend and early next week get into portions of Nebraska, Kansas, portions of the panhandles, and into eastern Colorado, stretching into parts of Minnesota, northwest Iowa. However, for the rest of the Corn Belt, it’s a very quiet forecast. Very little precipitation over the next seven days, with temperatures a bit above average, low humidity, so we’re going to have some good harvest weather conditions over most of the central and east-central parts of the United States, just those wetter areas that will be further west. With those temperatures above average and at least for the next seven days, no signs of a big Canadian cold front, don’t see any really cool temperatures or hard freeze conditions at least through the next seven days or so. Ten days out, as we get towards the end of the month and early November, there are some hints of some colder weather for parts of the U.S., and that’ll be something to keep an eye on.

Todd Gleason: That’s Don Day. He’s with Day Weather in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Joined us on this Tuesday edition of the Closing Market Report that came to you from Illinois Public Media. Find us online at WILLAg.org.