cmr261021

The October 21, 2026, Closing Market Report covers late-stage corn and soybean harvest progress with Greg Johnson, noting strong soybean yields but disappointing corn returns due to lower prices and high input costs. Soil scientist Sam Indorante discusses the significance of resampling Illinois' oldest soil test site from 1861 to measure agricultural impacts over time. Finally, Drew Lerner provides a global weather outlook, highlighting beneficial moisture moving into dry regions of the US Corn Belt, Western Europe, and Australia.

01:06 Ag Markets with Greg Johnson, Total Grain Marketing
10:17 Resampling 1861 Prairie Site to Measure Soil Change
18:27 Ag Weather with Drew Lerner, World Weather Inc.

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Todd Gleason: From the Land Grant University in Urbana, Champaign, Illinois, this is the Closing Market Report for the 21st day of October 2026. I’m Extension’s Todd Gleason. Coming up, we’ll talk about the commodity markets with Greg Johnson. He’s at TGM, Total Grain Marketing, right here in Champaign County. We’ll hear from yesterday’s soil survey event that took place in southern Illinois, south of Mount Vernon, where the University of Illinois along with NRCS USDA agency folks took a soil sample in the very same place that there was one taken in 1861. That was the very first one in the state. It’s a really fun and good interview there. You’ll want to stay tuned for that. And as we wrap up our time together, we’ll talk with Drew Lerner at World Weather Inc. in Kansas City about the global growing regions and weather forecast here in the United States, South America, and we’ll pick up Western Europe as well, all on this Wednesday 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.

01:06 Ag Markets with Greg Johnson, Total Grain Marketing

Todd Gleason: Greg Johnson now joins us from TGM, that’s Total Grain Marketing, the elevator right here in Champaign County. Hi Greg, thanks for being with us. Still full-fledged harvest mode in Champaign County. Corn and beans, corn this week as opposed to beans maybe?

Greg Johnson: That’s what we thought and it is a bigger percentage of corn, probably 85 percent, 90 percent corn and 10 or 15 percent bean trucks still coming in, which is more beans than I guess what I thought. I thought we would have wrapped up beans over the weekend for the most part and a lot of people did. But if you remember we had a lot of dry weather late last week, really for quite some time now, and the beans got below 11 percent, they got down to 10 percent. Not as dry as last year’s 8 and 9 percenters, but they were getting down to 10, 11 percent. And so I think some people held off harvesting those dry beans last week hoping for the rain, which we did get. We got about a half inch on Friday and that put some moisture back in them, and it took a couple days for them to dry down to 13 and now we have seen bean harvest pick up. So it feels like with no rain in the forecast, I don’t think anybody’s going to wait now, I think they’re just going to get the beans out and we should see bean harvest probably wrap up, other than the double crop beans, probably wrap up this weekend. So it’s mainly corn, but still more beans than what you might think.

Todd Gleason: Historically, there are years when one crop does better than the other, corn may yield better than soybeans, the other way around, sometimes this appears to be that. That’s one of those years in your opinion?

Greg Johnson: Yeah, and not just an opinion, I think it’s fact here through central Illinois. Everyone I talk to is very, very happy with their bean yield results. A lot of 75 to 82 bushel beans, which is probably either the best or the second best ever. There’s some yields that are even in the 90s in places depending on, you know, the kind of ground and how much water stood. If it didn’t stand for very long, you’ve got some very good bean yields. But corn, corn yields are down about 30 bushels. I hesitate to call it a disaster, although some people would with the higher input costs, 30 bushels less is a lot of money being left on the table. So, yeah, corn yields, if you were used to 240, 250, you’re getting 210, 220. If you’re used to 260, you’re getting 230, it seems like. Not always, I mean there are some exceptions to that, but in general I would say corn yields are down 30 bushels from last year, and the bean bushels, the beans are every bit as good if not a couple of bushels better than last year.

Todd Gleason: Did basis for either in the central Illinois area really break this year?

Greg Johnson: No, no. I think because corn is such a big space user, that 30 bushel less yield is translating to less demand for storage space. So it, you know, we’re only halfway through harvest, so we’ll see if the last half, if the yields pick up or if the farmers fill their bins first and the last half comes to town, but so far, it feels like most elevators that I talk to and ourselves as well feel like we’re going to have plenty of space. We’ve always got the million bushel ring that we can go outside as a backstop, but at this point it’s kind of 50/50 as to whether we’ll have to use that million bushel ring or not for additional storage.

Todd Gleason: And so that brings me to the next question, which is, maybe, and we’ll find that the crop size stays as it is from USDA or gets a little smaller for corn depending on what it looks like across the whole of the Corn Belt. I’m going to guess you lean towards smaller, but we’ll think about that. However, if basis didn’t break because of space needs, are farmers looking at this and saying, hey, corn probably needs to go up, bean basis also didn’t break, it probably needs to go up well, but it may be a corn impact on beans as opposed to something else.

Greg Johnson: Yeah, I would say that the farmers have no interest at all in selling corn at these levels. December futures were 5.44 back in September, just a month ago, September 22nd. And now we’re at 4.61. So we’ve lost 83 cents in the corn market in just right at a month. Whereas the beans have only lost 87 cents. So on a percentage basis, that’s only a 6 percent drop in bean prices. And with the better yields, farmers are still very happy selling beans if they need cash flow at $12 plus with the kind of yields we’ve had. Corn on the other hand with the lower yields and now the extremely, you know, lower price, farmers just aren’t in any mood to sell corn. They’re going to hold on and see what happens, right or wrong, but we just have no interest really in farmers selling corn at these levels.

Todd Gleason: So the question really I think I’m asking is do you see corn rebounding but soybeans sideways?

Greg Johnson: Well, the government’s going to have to change those numbers based on the quarterly stocks report and then the October supply and demand report. If they don’t change those numbers, the numbers are what they are. We have almost a two billion bushel carryout again. So, you know, if the government doesn’t change any numbers, maybe we just go sideways from these lower numbers. So it’s going to take something that we haven’t, that we don’t know about today. It’s either going to take a lower yield or it’s going to take increased demand, and I’m not sure where the increased demand would come from other than China, because the government in that last October WASDE report raised ethanol usage, raised exports, raised feed and residual numbers. So they’ve really increased those really about all they can. So, you know, they’re either going to have to lower the yield or we’re going to have to see some additional export demand probably from China to really get this market to bounce much from where it is.

Todd Gleason: This week, the farmdoc team, Gary Schnitkey and company, wrote about diesel fuel prices. Yesterday in fact for the farmdoc daily website, it’s a good article to read. The long and short of it is that they say that the price of diesel fuel will increase the cost per acre for corn as it’s related to how much they spent on that. Six, six dollars and five dollars for corn and soybeans respectively. That’s quite a bit of money per acre. Have farmers complained to you, and I know they have, probably, about what it costs and the surcharges that are coming back to them?

Greg Johnson: No doubt, no doubt. Diesel fuel prices are one of the hottest topics or most often talked about topics that we hear about, and rightly so. I mean, you know, it was $3 just not even a year ago, and now it’s $6 plus. And so that’s a double, and, you know, as you said, as the U of I documented, not all inputs didn’t go up that much, but that certainly lends a big percentage to the increased cost of production. So, you know, I know there’s some government talk about, you know, the diesel fuel, we haven’t seen the details of that yet, but some assistance to try to offset some of these higher costs. But there’s no getting around the fact that it’s costing a lot more percentage-wise to grow corn than it did, and the price is not reflecting that. So bean farmers are probably making good money at these prices and yields, but the corn guys, it’s going to be a struggle this year, there’s just, unless something changes.

Todd Gleason: And I should be clear that that $6 and $5 is an additional cost over what last year’s balance sheet would have shown. So the actual cost is $28 an acre and $24 an acre for the fuel needs as it’s related to each of those crops. Anything else before I let you go for the day?

Greg Johnson: No, you know, the technicals would say we’re getting close to a bottom that we’re oversold, but we’ve been down six days, now seven days in a row, today is day eight. So we are due for a little bit of a bounce, but it might just be the proverbial dead cat bounce if nothing changes fundamentally and we don’t get another USDA WASDE report until November 9th or 10th. And so barring any new information, it just feels like we’re going to stagnate at these lower levels here for a little while.

Todd Gleason: Hey, thank you much, I appreciate it.

Greg Johnson: Hey, thank you, Todd.

Todd Gleason: You’re certainly welcome. That’s Greg Johnson. He is with TGM, TotalGrainMarketing.com, right here in Champaign County, Illinois. You’re listening to the Closing Market Report on this Wednesday afternoon. Our theme music is written, performed, produced, and courtesy of Logan County, Illinois farmer Tim Gleason.

10:17 Resampling 1861 Prairie Site to Measure Soil Change

Todd Gleason: Now coming up next, some lead researchers from right here on campus are returning to historic sites across the state to measure more than a century of agricultural impact on soil. The effort coincides with the 150th anniversary of the Morrow Plots, which we’ll celebrate on campus next week. However, yesterday I was on site in southern Illinois where the very first soil sample was taken in the state. That happened, as you’ll hear, in 1861.

Todd Gleason: I’m University of Illinois Extension’s Todd Gleason. We’re now joined by Sam Indorante, a soil scientist. We’re in southern Illinois, not too far from Mount Vernon, about a half hour to the west. And I’m at an event that is really unique. As you probably know, this is the 150th anniversary of the Morrow Plots at the University of Illinois, and over the last five, maybe a bit more years across the state, we have been trying at the University of Illinois to resample places that were soil sampled generations ago, a hundred years ago. As it happens, the oldest sample in the University of Illinois collection is from 1861, from the farm I am standing on today. Sam Indorante found this site and is helping Andrew Margenot at the U of I to discover the differences between these two soil samples pulled in 1861 and one pulled today, or this year as well. Sam, I know you’ve been passing these on to Andrew, but tell me about this event today and what you think the importance as a soil scientist is to be able to go back to the same places and pull a second sample more than a century later.

Sam Indorante: Well, we all know about and read about climate change, and it’s important, but I also think that soil change is important over time. And what this does, going back to this 1861 site and then coming back and resampling, is we can measure to a certain extent the changes that have happened from the original site, which was prairie, and now it’s been farmed for probably 90 to 100 years, so we can measure changes, and some of the changes could be negative and some could be positive. But I guess one way to look at it, this is kind of like a time capsule. We know that it was 1861 when it was originally sampled, so we come back and we’re like opening up the time capsule and looking at the soil, the different soil properties, the different soil layers, to see the changes that have occurred. Now, Dr. Margenot has hundreds of samples from Illinois, from different dates all the way within 100 years, 50 years, 20 years, that have been accumulated over time, and he finds the locations and then he gets permission from the landowner to go back and resample, just like we’re doing now. And the significance of this is that I think it’s a very good example of what we can do if we study soils in a detailed, orderly way over time to see what’s going on. There’s only so much soil, and this is a way to make sure, help make sure that we have the information we need to make wise land use decisions.

Todd Gleason: What does it tell a farmer, the surrounding community, the economy about the soil itself and its value?

Sam Indorante: There’s only so much soil, and we’re fortunate in Illinois that we have some of the best non-irrigated cropland soils in the world. We also have some of the best forested soils in the world when you look at the Shawnee National Forest. The point I like to make is that we need to do the best we can to understand the soil and use it wisely. Because there’s just so many different uses of the soil. And one of the important parts of soil survey is that it’s interpreted for many types of uses, not just agriculture, but forestry, building, roads, natural areas. There’s just a lot of information. But when we came across this, Mindy Siner and I helped come across this site for Andrew, he was said, yeah, this is worth taking a look at. And I see what he’s doing and it makes me very happy to see what the future of soils and soil survey is. I think he’s at the cutting edge for sure.

Todd Gleason: What would you like to see happen in soil surveys? I know you suggested that Andrew probably will have a lot to do that with that, but with your experience, what do you think should happen?

Sam Indorante: Did you, in 1928, when the comptroller of the university wanted to find out when the soil survey was going to be complete, R.S. Smith wrote back and said it’ll never be complete because we don’t ever think that our knowledge of soils will be complete. And that’s true for any science. So even Smith back in 1928 said, hey, you know, there’s we need to keep moving forward. And what’s nice now, and we have so many products that are available in the palm of your hand or on your computer, where before it was all hard copies of maps, and that’s how the information was shared, is just with hard copies. So Dr. Margenot says, okay, I can study these areas, make digital maps and show how changes have occurred in parts of Illinois. Now, the thing with Illinois is that it’s probably our greatest natural resource. You know, there’s coal also is another one and timber. But I know it sounds very trivial, but there’s only so much soil. And we’ve got some of the best non-irrigated soils in the world for growing crops. That’s a fact.

Todd Gleason: Finally, for you, what’s the importance of pulling this sample today? What does it mean to you, your career, just personally, how has this impacted you?

Sam Indorante: I’ve been a soil scientist almost 53 years, and to me, this is kind of the, what is it, cherry on top. But it shows the importance of the work that I did and my colleagues have done over all these years. You know, we’ve dedicated our lives, our professional lives to soil, soil conservation, good land use, water quality, air quality, and the parts the soil plays. But it makes me very proud that we’re moving it forward still. But another thing is to tell the next generation, teach the next generation how important it is. Yeah.

Todd Gleason: And before I let you go, I have to ask you about that University of Illinois hat that you’re wearing today.

Sam Indorante: My master’s degree is in soils in 1979. And then I ended up in working in Perry County, Illinois on the soil survey for four years, and that’s one of my part of my interest in the area. And I’ve lived most of my life in southern Illinois. And but yeah, 79 is a long time ago, but it was good. I had a wonderful advisor, Dr. Ivan Jansen. Kevin McSweeney, Dr. McSweeney who was this, he also had Dr. Ivan Jansen as an advisor. We both worked on prime farmland reclamation, and then when I came here I worked on the soil survey because I had experience in prime farmland reclamation. So it was a good experience, it prepared me well, and both Kevin and I say the same thing, we stood on the shoulders of giants. We did.

Todd Gleason: Sam Indorante is a soil scientist. He and many others were gathered, including USDA agency staff and professors from the University of Illinois in southern Illinois yesterday to celebrate the state’s soil survey and witness the resampling of a soil first examined in 1861.

18:27 Ag Weather with Drew Lerner, World Weather Inc.

Todd Gleason: Let’s turn our attention to the growing regions across the planet. Drew Lerner is here to walk us through it. He is with World Weather Incorporated in Kansas City. Hello Drew, thanks for being with us again. Tell me about the growing regions of the United States. What are you watching and how will harvest progress, particularly in the Corn Belt?

Drew Lerner: Yeah, you know it really, a decent period of weather here right now. We had a lot of difficulty in September as you recall in the western Corn Belt in particular with Iowa just being crazy wet. And here recently we’ve really turned the other cheek and we’ve actually managed to get quite a bit of drying to take place across all of the Midwest. And right now it looks like the majority of the region will be dry through the weekend. And then the eastern corn and soybean producing areas are getting no rain for about 10 days. And then at the end of that period, we’ll start getting some rain in there. Now it’s kind of interesting, it’s been dry in the Delta for quite some time. There’s only been one rain event in the month of October in the Delta, in the northern Delta. I think Memphis had 86 hundredths of an inch early in the month. But it hasn’t rained since. And prior to that, I think they they were 17 days without rain. So I mean, it’s just crazy dry in the Delta and the Tennessee River basin. It’s been great for harvesting, but they do need moisture for winter crops. And we’ll keep a close eye on that. In hard red winter wheat country, you know, Oklahoma got a good amount of rain a week ago, really helped them come out of their serious dryness issue. And now it’s been driest in the High Plains region from the Texas Panhandle and eastern Colorado into western Kansas and Nebraska. And a lot of concern about the drying out there, especially with temperatures going back to the 80s in the next few days. But come this weekend, we are expecting to see rain right in that dry area. So most of the hard red winter wheat country by early next week should be in really good shape and the crop is likely to become better established throughout the region.

Todd Gleason: Now turn your attention to South America, begin in southern Brazil.

Drew Lerner: Yeah, southern Brazil as you may recall was getting excessively wet about 10 days ago. In fact it was to the point where they were saturated down three feet into the ground and we were very concerned at that point that any more rain that occurred there would cause a notable flood event. Well they have just completed a period of five or six days of no rain. And that has really helped the situation at least temporarily. Now as we go forward through the coming week though, there will be a return of rain and it will become fairly persistent again in that very same area. So by this time next week, again the interior southern part of Brazil is going to be excessively wet and vulnerable to flooding. So what happens in the second week will become very important for that area and we will be watching that fairly closely. I do think there’ll be some alternating periods of rain and sun in that second week forecast, but it’s probably not going to rain every day. So perhaps they can get by without a serious flood. In the meantime, center west Brazil, the latest planting progress just blows you away on how good they’re doing in Mato Grosso in particular. And it looks like the weather is going to continue very, very good through the weekend. Next week, scattered showers and thunderstorms are going to occur. So all of the newly planted crops will get a drink of water and it’s going to be a fairly good scenario. And I think for those who are thinking El Nino is going to cause a problem up there, at least for now, that is not a reality.

Todd Gleason: Argentina?

Drew Lerner: Argentina is seeing a good balance of rain and sunshine for most crop areas. Northwestern Argentina has been a little dry, but that’s not a part of the main corn and soybean production area. So we’re not really paying it a whole lot of attention. They do need some rain out that way and it is going to stay out of there for a while. The temperatures in Argentina have been cool, and that’s really helped to conserve the moisture in the southern and eastern areas where for a while it was getting a little dry. But like I said, they’ve been getting a good mix of rain and sun, so I think they’re in good shape there as well.

Todd Gleason: Has Western Europe recovered from the dry drought conditions, very hot conditions that they suffered through all summer long?

Drew Lerner: Well they have not yet, but in the next few days, a big change is going to occur. The United Kingdom, France, the Low Countries which is Belgium and Netherlands as well as Germany, will get a series of three large storm systems going through that area and a significant amount of rain will fall and finally put some moisture into the topsoil for better planting and emergence conditions. The second storm I think it will occur Friday into the weekend I believe is going to be a very powerful event and there may be some wind damage and maybe local flooding in a few spots only because the rain falls too quickly. But the bottom line is that they are going to see some improvement. The second week of the outlook turns drier there again, so farmers will have an opportunity to get into the fields if they haven’t already done so and make some progress with the recent moisture.

Todd Gleason: And the Eastern Europe then, Russia, Ukraine?

Drew Lerner: You know for Eastern Europe proper, I think most of that area is still needing some moisture, especially in the Danube basin area. And we’re not going to see much more than erratic rain in that area for a while. Now for the Black Sea region, in particular Ukraine has been relieved from its dryness the past week or 10 days or so. It’s been bringing in some periodic rain, and the moisture profile is much improved. And it has been warmer biased over there, so a lot of the crop has not moved into dormancy, and so there’s an opportunity here for a much improved establishment. A little farther to the east though in Russia’s southern region, it’s still pretty dry. Now they had some timely rain very early in the planting season, but it’s been pretty dry in the last several weeks, and so the crop is not established as well as it should be, and there isn’t much rain in the pipeline for at least 10 days. So that area should be closely monitored since it’s such a rich production area.

Todd Gleason: The Danube of course an alternative route for corn coming out of Ukraine, still a problem apparently. How about other things, anything from the El Nino around the rest of the planet, the super El Nino and issues or good things that it’s managing to pull off?

Drew Lerner: Yeah, you know in Australia, Australia is one of those places like Indonesia that almost always has a negative impact with an El Nino event, especially the stronger ones. And that includes Queensland and New South Wales. Well it started raining late last week and it’s rained almost every day in portions of Queensland and northeast New South Wales, and there’s summer sorghum and cotton areas. And it looks like it’s going to rain for another full week, almost every day in parts of the region, which is highly irregular for a strong El Nino event at this time of the year. So there may be some increase in overall planting in those two areas. If farmers decide that they’re going to take the chance that maybe rain will occur more timely down the road. They’re in that part of the world they’re used to having El Nino being a really nasty hot dry scenario. So it may be hard to convince the producers to get out and plant extra. So we’ll see what happens as the time goes along here, but it’s very impresses me how much rain has occurred and will be occurring over this next 10 day period in relation to the strong El Nino. And we’ve kind of seen that in other places too this year. I mean, even though India was drier than usual, it was not droughty in the sense of hurting the majority of the crops there. Now I know everyone’s going to call me and tell me that’s not true, but if you stop and look at the Indian Meteorological Agency’s assessment of the monsoon this year, they will show you that 94% of the rainfed crop areas in India actually had timely precipitation during the summer and will not be seriously impacted by the lack of precipitation. But the cursory areas of the country will have some losses.

Todd Gleason: Thank you so much Drew, I appreciate it.

Drew Lerner: You bet, have a great week and enjoy the weather.

Todd Gleason: You too, that’s Drew Lerner. He is with World Weather Incorporated in Kansas City, joined us on this Wednesday edition of the Closing Market Report. It came to you from Illinois Public Media. It’s public radio for the farming world online on demand at WILLAg.org. I’m Todd Gleason.