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In this episode of the Closing Market Report, host Todd Gleason speaks with Mike Zuzolo and Eric Snodgrass to cover current commodity markets and agricultural weather forecasts. Mike Zuzolo of Global Commodity Analytics and Consulting analyzes the recent USDA report, noting the bullish surprise of lowered corn yields and the ongoing geopolitical pressures from the Russia-Ukraine conflict impacting wheat prices. Following a brief discussion on a recent live taping of "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me," Eric Snodgrass from Nutrien Ag Solutions details the arrival of cold, snowy weather in the Midwest, contrasts soil moisture levels between the Eastern and Western Corn Belts, and explains the unpredictable nature of post-El Niño weather patterns on global crop production.

01:00 Ag Markets with Mike Zuzolo, Global Commodity Analytics and Consulting
10:04 Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me
12:47 Ag Weather with Eric Snodgrass, Nutrien Ag Solutions

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Todd Gleason: From the Land Grant University in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, this is the Closing Market Report. It is the 13th day of November, 2026. I’m Extension’s Todd Gleason. Coming up, we’ll talk about the commodity markets with Mike Zuzolo; he’s with Global Commodity Analytics and Consulting out of Atchison, Kansas. Eric Snodgrass will join us as well from Agrible and Nutrien Ag Solutions to talk about the weather forecast for the growing regions across the planet. Along the way, I’ll remind you to stay with us on our home station if you can for the full hour to hear all of our commodity week program with our panelists yesterday recorded, including Logan Kimmel of Roach Ag, Brian Stark of The Andersons, and Greg Johnson of TGM. It was a really good program, so stay with us if you can. Many of these radio stations will carry it over the weekend, and it’s already up on the website at willag.org.

01:00 Ag Markets with Mike Zuzolo, Global Commodity Analytics and Consulting

Todd Gleason: Mike Zuzolo of Global Commodity Analytics and Consulting out of Atchison, Kansas, now joins us to take a look at the marketplace. Well, November actually arrived over this week, Mike. It got cold and started a little wet here. How about in your part of the world?

Mike Zuzolo: Yeah, we’re still pretty dry in our neck of the woods, Todd. We aren’t critically dry at this stage because of the time of year, but we’re definitely seeing the temperatures drop and had our first hard freeze on Friday morning, looking for a couple more here. It does look like the El Niño is taking shape at this point, both in South America and in feedlot country especially. Many of the forecasters, it seems like, are starting to line up that it could be a pretty wet, sloppy, cold area from the I–70 corridor, essentially from Colorado all the way across into Illinois and Indiana. So, that’s something that we’re watching here in cattle country for sure, given the limited number of cattle on feed and how big and fat they’re getting as we back them up more and more.

Todd Gleason: Before I forget, and we get to the end of this, I want to mention that you and I and Arlan Suderman will be together next Thursday at the NAFB, the National Association of Farm Broadcasting convention, in Kansas City. I’m really looking forward to that in part, and Mike, you know that Arlan is retiring really quickly after this NAFB convention, so I’m looking forward to having that conversation with you, and thank you for being there and helping me out with this too.

Mike Zuzolo: Oh, it’s always nice to see you every year, Todd. It’s a highlight for me to get to see everybody at the NAFB and we will miss our colleague Arlan. He sure has done a good job over the years and I respect him immensely.

Todd Gleason: Okay, so now let’s talk about the marketplace. We should begin with the report released earlier this week from the United States Department of Agriculture. They lowered the corn yield and increased the soybean yield. How did things change for you at all?

Mike Zuzolo: Well, I think one of the things that was a pleasant surprise was that they did lower the corn yield, and I was fighting the USDA trend of big crops get bigger ever since the October report. I had a monthly yield that I kept internally at 180; my final yield that I’ve broadcast out is at about 178.2. So, I feel pretty good about the numbers right now on the corn yield, especially after this report. I think the keys were, as we talked about last week, not to feed the bear, and we didn’t feed the bear. In fact, we fed the bull because of the surprise in the corn. I think we would arguably have said we fed the bull in the soybeans; even though the yield went up a little bit, the US stocks and the world stocks both went lower versus October. Both the stocks-to-use ratios domestically and globally are now down to levels that are near the five-year lows made back in 2022 and 2023. I think that was a big reason why the beans were able to do so well compared to the corn and wheat this week post-report. The other big elephant in the room which we talked about—and the other big piece to the puzzle on the price—was what was going to happen between Russia and Ukraine. That whole thing seemed to fall apart by Friday. The trade had been pricing in a much better outlook for the grain corridor to open up, even though USDA did cut back on the Russian exports for wheat and the Ukrainian corn exports a little bit. By taking the December wheats off right down to the mid-February lows in the several days after the report, it signaled to me that the wheat was being punished for the idea that we were going to get the grain corridor opened up. That changed on Friday, so we were able to close higher on the wheat, but corn was caught up in that. I think corn would have done a lot better on the week fundamentally speaking, and especially given the near 3 million metric ton weekly export sales—a marketing year high—had it not been for the wheat. So that’s something to really watch next week.

Todd Gleason: Do you expect then next week—that was my question—for corn to continue to be supported?

Mike Zuzolo: I am. I’m expecting the wheat market will find a lot more support. We had more strikes by Russia in Odessa on Friday, several times. We had two kernel oilseed facilities hit this week. The Ukrainians returned volley by hitting both intelligence AI data centers as well as more refineries. And so it’s just not getting better; it’s actually getting worse as we head into wintertime. As I said a couple of weeks ago after I did that special report, I really thought November was kind of a make or break month to signal whether we were going to see Ukrainian and Russian exports get out the door or still be trapped. If they’re still trapped, will end users have to make different moves? And I think we saw that this week with some pretty big moves by Turkey in the corn market and some pretty big moves by Algeria, who bought a lot of wheat. So, yeah, I’m looking for wheat to turn the tide next week and find some good short covering, especially if those commitment of traders numbers later today show what I think they will.

Todd Gleason: Are President Trump and President Xi still on for next week at APEC?

Mike Zuzolo: They are, and they’re calling that the new Yalta meeting where Putin, Xi, and President Trump are getting together. That is probably the key element, along with the fact that the dollar has made a new 19-month high this week in the aftermath of the election and the inflation data. We’re seeing some pressure build in those outside markets again, but I didn’t want to get too caught up in those this week; it was more about whether the supply-demand fundamentals can find some support. And I do think we found that, especially with the corn carryover domestically going lower. I think this tracks with what you and I talked about last week: the corn and bean old-crop and new-crop spreads performed exceptionally well this week after the report. The March-November bean spread gained about 33 cents, and it’s now a positive 50-plus. The March-December corn spread gained about 8 cents, and it has now cut its carry to 22 cents or so. That also coincides with the European futures. European Paris corn is still about $7.25 a bushel. So those are still very key leading indicators, and they worked very well this week after the report.

Todd Gleason: Do you think the Nvidia issue will create problems for the US-Chinese relationship?

Mike Zuzolo: I think it could. It depends on whether we drop a cabinet official or two and take the hit domestically as opposed to trying to push out into the foreign policy and trade realm. I would also say that Mexico is on my radar because 99% of what they buy in corn is from us, they’ve got a large swath of people coming to the border, and President Trump is not happy about it. So, these two countries are still very much at play. Offsetting that, though, is the mistake that the funds have made by assuming Russia and Ukraine would have peace and the Black Sea grain corridor would open back up again. That is still not nearly done in terms of playing out in price because the official USDA export drop in corn for Ukraine was only 2 million tons, whereas the attache dropped it by 11 just a few days prior.

Todd Gleason: So you came back to that. How much upward pressure do you think that has in the marketplace, and when?

Mike Zuzolo: I would say now is the time because we do have a certain amount of runway space to keep those exports going strong. As we get into December, I think El Niño is going to be more important in South America, so if we get an El Niño development that could curb production for corn and beans in South America, that would add to my upside. But if we don’t, and we have good prices and production looks good in South America, we’re going to need to get some cash sales done between now and the new year if we do get a pop here in these markets. So, to answer your question, I would guess if the wheat is making a low in that $5.45 to $5.50 area, or $5.82 in the nearby soft red wheat, that level needs to hold. If that’s a low, I would say we’re maybe halfway there where we can get maybe another 40 to 60 cents on beans and another 25 to 30 cents on the corn.

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

Mike Zuzolo: You too, Todd. Thank you.

Todd Gleason: That’s Mike Zuzolo. He’s with Global Commodity Analytics and Consulting out of Atchison, Kansas.

10:04 Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me

Todd Gleason: Let’s take a look at the growing regions across the planet. The climate and the weather for each of them. Eric Snodgrass is here from Nutrien Ag Solutions and Agrible. Hi Eric, thank you for being with us.

Eric Snodgrass: Hey, you bet. Good to be back on again.

Todd Gleason: Hey, I want to start with last night because it was cold. It was cold and wet, and I thought to myself yesterday, well, it took a while, but November finally arrived. For me, my wife Claire Ann and I had gone to Bloomington last night to watch a live taping of Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me. That’s an NPR program that airs on many stations over the weekend. We do it on AM 580 at 10 a.m. for a half-hour program on Saturday, and then at noon again on Sunday. It was fabulous. Brendan Hunt, who you may know as Coach Beard from Ted Lasso, is an ISU alum, and he was funny as all get out. We just had a blast. Here’s another thing: you know that when you and I talk, we record ahead of time, so we’re never live on the program exactly; they’re live-to-tape like we are. They do editing, but man, it’s a half-hour program, and I think we recorded for at least an hour and 45 minutes. They’re funny as all get out, and I didn’t realize this—they didn’t say this, but the five regulars on stage the whole time (the host, an announcer, and three panelists), plus Brendan Hunt as the guest, are really vying to see which one of their jokes or laugh lines will get into the program. It’s clearly what was happening. I just had a blast, and there were 3,000 people there. Can you imagine that? Great show. Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me again, that’s 10 o’clock tomorrow on our home station, and noon on Sunday. I hope people get a chance to listen to it and go at some point because it’s usually done in Chicago—it’s a WBEZ program—and they record there regularly. This is only the second time since 2005 that they’ve come downstate. They were in Springfield then, so downstate doesn’t see the crew very often. Anyway, it was a great program. I think I should go back to: last night was the first night it was cold and it felt like November. And then this morning, you had to see this, the snowflakes this morning, right?

12:47 Ag Weather with Eric Snodgrass, Nutrien Ag Solutions

Eric Snodgrass: Oh yeah. That was amazing. Why?

Todd Gleason: Well, a couple things are going on here. First of all, a fun statistic: since March 1st, nearly every climate reporting district in the state of Illinois—in fact, nearly every climate reporting district in the country—is having their warmest year on record when looking at average temperatures. The majority of them have been very, very mild. Of course, we had this mild October and this mild overall November. Well, finally, there’s a big low that snuck through here. I don’t know if you heard about it, but we had a little bit of severe weather in Indiana yesterday. Anyway, that low got off to the East Coast and flipped our winds around to the north, pretty brisk. Even though there’s not a big storehouse of cold air in Canada, it at least brought down that cooler Canadian air and swept across Lake Michigan out of the north-northeast. That would put any flow coming off Lake Michigan aimed directly at Champaign-Urbana. This morning, we had some lake-effect graupel at first, at about 5:30 or 5:45, and then we had lake-effect snow shortly thereafter. Some of the flakes got really big. When the snowflakes are wet but there’s still good, deeper convection in the lower atmosphere in some of these little clouds, the snow rates can become high, and those snowflakes will aggregate and stick together. We call them silver dollar snowflakes, but some of these this morning were huge. I took some video and pictures just because I always like to remember the first snow of the season. But yeah, big fat flakes this morning, and if you got a little snow, you experienced some lake-effect snow this morning. All right, lake-effect snow right here in Champaign County, Illinois. Very nice. It seems like it’s a couple hours south of the lake in order to get that, but that’s okay. All right, so tell me about the Corn Belt as you see it today.

Eric Snodgrass: So a couple things come to mind. We’re at this point where some folks are still finishing harvest, and we’ve got to get some fall application done. Temperatures have finally backed off, so that’s going to bring the soil temps down. There is some moisture in that topsoil around here, so it really helps things out. But it’s really an East versus West problem, Todd. What I see here is that the Western Corn Belt still has relatively wet soils, and the Eastern Corn Belt—especially the southern half of Illinois, getting over to Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, and parts of Tennessee as well—have been really dry. It’s just got me thinking about the longer-term pattern in winter because of El Niño. Now, El Niños like to leave the Ohio Valley a little drier than normal. They don’t do that in the Western Corn Belt. My thought process here, if we just think about winter, is that if we see the Western Corn Belt have plenty of moisture this fall and get moisture over the winter, they become quite susceptible next spring to the risk of having saturated soils and tighter windows. Versus the Eastern Corn Belt and Ohio Valley, which I’m going to lump us into here, where we’re a little drier, and as a result, we may have more capacity for that overwinter moisture and then the moisture coming in next spring. I’m a little worried about Iowa and maybe their problems coming next spring with not having a fall drought that survives all the way to next March or April. I think it’s going to be a neat story to watch.

Todd Gleason: Interesting. What else are you thinking about as it relates to this? I will say that we did have a listener write in and wanted to know what happens post-El Niño, particularly in the Corn Belt.

Eric Snodgrass: Yeah, the post-El Niño question is a good one, and there is some unfortunate news about it: there’s no set rhyme or reason. I wish I could say ‘post-El Niño, you’re going to get this’. I have looked at all of it, and the fact is the previous nine largest El Niño events have all given us entirely different flavors. Let me give you a case in point. 1988 was a post-El Niño year. Big El Niño. Guess what else was? 1998, and so was 2016. I just painted out for you a couple of years that were absolutely incredible for yields, and one that was devastating. Which means when you get into the next season and El Niño fades very quickly, you get entirely different control mechanisms having their handle on what’s going on with the weather. So the top thing I’ll be watching, Todd, is the North Pacific ocean temperatures. That’s your main early-season clue. Here it is in a nutshell: if by May and June those ocean temperatures start to cool off, our risk of having a hotter, drier summer increases, just like we saw in 2012. It was cool just off the California coast, and it was cool off of the Alaskan coast. If it follows most of the last 20-year trend where that water is in fact warm, then all the heat tends to go to the West, we tend to get a lot of ridge-riding storms in summer, and that’ll be the top thing to watch. Even though El Niño is the big story now, it is likely going to fade very quickly as we get into spring and become almost a non-issue. It becomes challenging to use it as a forecast metric, but Todd, I will tell you this: every big El Niño we’ve had since 1950—including the ’72 El Niño, the ’82, the ’97, the 2015–16, and even the ’23–24—almost all crash hard into La Niña, and some tend to be double or triple dip La Niña years after that. So two to three years after a big El Niño, we tend to not see those warm ocean temperatures along the equatorial Pacific much anymore. There’s a lot stirring, but I can’t make any definitive statement on it, which kind of stinks, but I wish I could.

Todd Gleason: Finally, which has more correlation with crops and weather in South America, La Niña or El Niño?

Eric Snodgrass: Well, they both do. It just flip-flops the pattern. If you have a big La Niña year, you tend to be wet in Brazil and dry in Argentina. If you have a big El Niño year, you tend to be drier in the Amazon and maybe parts of the center-west, and then wet into southern Brazil and Argentina. It flip-flops back the precipitation. But you have to remember, in parts of the center-west in Brazil, you can have half your normal rainfall in January and February and still grow a monster crop. They just have enough rainfall for that. Even if we make a call for drier, you’ve got to have issues with the timing of the monsoon and its persistence in order for there to be a big issue with Brazil’s first crop of soybeans. That crop has gone in fast, and right now, looking at the NDVI space-based plant health indicators, it’s the best we’ve seen down there for 20 years. They are at a record pace, 96 to 98% planted right now. They’re moving and almost done. It is the La Niña year in Argentina that is really the target. They tend to worry a lot about that. This year, they’re probably just worried because it’s been a cold spring for them and very wet in southern Brazil, so they’re a little delayed down there. But it’s not catching much of the news stories because the center-west seems to be firing on all cylinders.

Todd Gleason: Thank you much, Eric.

Eric Snodgrass: Yeah, you bet.

Todd Gleason: Eric Snodgrass is with Nutrien Ag Solutions and Agrible, and he helped us wrap up this Friday edition of the Closing Market Report. It came to you from Illinois Public Media.