Oct 17 | Weather Update and Market Review
The 2025 Farm Assets Conference is scheduled for Friday, December 12 at the Agri-Center in Bloomington, Illinois. The doors open at 7:30 a.m. central. The program starts at 8:00 a.m. Registration for 2025 is $80 per person through noon December 8 and $100 thereafter. Media and Extension personnel may register for free.
CLICK TO REGISTER and for complete Farm Assets Conference details.
You may also want to register for the 2025 Illinois Farm Economic Summits. Visit the IFES website for more details about these ag econ meetings in DeKalb, Peoria, and Mt. Vernon.
Contact Todd Gleason at tgleason@illinois.edu or (217) 333-9697 if you have questions.
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LET’S TALK FUNDAMENTALS
Commodity Markets and Crop Budgets
Trade, Transportation, and the Global Grain Markets.
DEMAND ON THE HORIZON
Signs Point to a Bullish Biofuels Policy
BioManufacturing and the Future of Ag
Ag Policy Objectives and Prospects
SPREADSHEETS AND MUDDY BOOTS
Why you should use the N-Rate Calculator
Crop Sciences for the 2026 Growing Season
RESEARCH, OUTREACH, AND WORKING TOGETHER
Round Table with the Ag Leadership
CLIMATE REVIEW & WEATHER FORECAST
We are officially in the second half of meteorological fall, and still experiencing warmer weather as winter approaches. Average temperatures this week ranged from the high 50s to mid-60s across the state this week, between 3 and 8 degrees above average. The fall season so far has been a top 10 warmest on record throughout the Midwest, including in Chicago, Peoria, and St. Louis.
by Trent Ford, State Climatologist
ISWS PRI University of Illinois
Precipitation was hard to come by yet again this week, with only measurable rainfall for the western third of the state. Virtually all of the state north of Interstate 64 has had less than 50% of normal rainfall since early September. The U.S. Drought Monitor expanded both severe drought and extreme drought across central and northern Illinois this week, in response to low flow on several streams and declining reservoir levels across the state. 2025 to date has been the 3rd driest year on record in Champaign and 4th driest on record in Normal.
So, now for the good news. A major weather change is on its way, bringing both cooler and wetter weather this weekend and into next week. A series of fronts will move through the state on Saturday and Sunday and bring measurable rainfall to pretty much everyone. Forecasted totals have been moving around quite a lot, but currently most of the state is expected to pick up at least an inch over the next 5 days, with some areas of south-central Illinois maybe getting as much as 3 inches. Irrespective of the totals, we need as much rain as we can get, even if it makes for some pretty poor football and apple picking weather. Behind the fronts is some cooler air that will make it feel like real fall. High temperatures early next week are in the 60s statewide, and lows will dip into the low 40s and high 30s. Farther out, the final week of the month is expected to bring back the above average temperatures, but with near normal precipitation as we remain in a bit more of a disturbed pattern. The latest outlooks for November show us absolutely nothing, with equal chances of warmer, cooler, wetter, and drier than average weather. That is, in fact, good news as we don’t see strong indications of our recent dry and warm weather persisting, because we need months of wetter weather to climb out of our current drought situation.
PUBLIC RADIO FOR THE FARMING WORLD
WILLAg.org radio programming for the work week ending October 18, 2025. Commodity Week can be heard in the 2 o’clock hour central time on WILL AM580 or you may subscribe to it using the links in the player below. This week the panelists include Aaron Curtis with MID-CO, Arlan Suderman of StoneX, and John Zanker from Risk Management Commodities.
The Closing Market Report airs at 2:06 p.m. central daily on WILL AM580. It, too, is a podcast. Subscribe using the link in the player.