WILLAg Radio Week 28 in Review

The following is a summary of the WILLAg.org content from the work week ending July 10, 2026. WILLAg.org is a partnership of Illinois Public Media and University of Illinois Extension. Its mission is to distribute regionally, nationally, and internationally information and analysis of commodity markets and agricultural weather.

Agricultural Markets Synthesis

The agricultural commodity markets experienced a post-holiday upward surge early in the week, driven out of contract lows by deteriorating international crop conditions, technical buying, and an adverse domestic weather outlook. Curt Kimmel highlighted an initial rally sparked by rumors and subsequent confirmation of China purchasing multiple soybean cargoes off both the Pacific Northwest and the Gulf Coast. Kimmel stressed the logistical importance of these early sales clearing out before global shipping transitions to the Southern Hemisphere in the spring, advising producers to utilize the $12 soybean and $4.80 December corn benchmarks to implement flexible price floors. Univeristy of Minnesto ag economist Ed Usset characterized the early-week action as a classic weather market driven by dry domestic forecasts and extreme heat hitting major crops in France. Usset urged producers to treat this unexpected rally as a valuable “second chance” to clean out remaining old crop inventories and execute scale-up sales on new crop corn and soybeans before defensive seasonal trends could resume.

As the week progressed, the market encountered strong technical resistance and shifted toward two-sided trade and profit-taking ahead of the Friday USDA WASDE report. Naomi Blohm reported that an overnight technical buying surge pushed November soybeans through key moving averages, but noted that the rally placed U.S. supplies at a price disadvantage on the world market. Blohm cautioned that historical data over the past 20 years shows December corn rarely maintains upward momentum past the July WASDE report, reinforcing the need for defensive risk management. Greg Johnson noted a brief mid-week market retrenchment triggered by renewed geopolitical tensions in the Middle East, which pressured commodities while driving crude oil up. Johnson explained that corn had achieved a 50% technical retracement from its May highs, indicating a prime area for scaling in sales given that local crop conditions in Illinois showed ponding issues but remained viable overall. Matt Bennett concluded the week’s market assessment by attributing late-week losses to profit-taking and technical squaring before the government report. Bennett observed that while early-week strength in corn was primarily weather-driven, producers should incrementally reward the market while maintaining minor flexibility in case automated weather revisions or unexpected Chinese corn demand alter the baseline fundamentals.

Reviewing USDA’s July WASDE

Wheat: U.S. new-crop wheat supplies for the 2026/27 marketing year are tightening. The July WASDE pegs total U.S. new-crop wheat production at 1.536 billion bushels, a 7-million-bushel reduction from last month. This marks the lowest U.S. production since the 1970/71 marketing year, driven by a 22-million-bushel drop in old-crop ending stocks—which limits new-crop beginning supplies—alongside lower new-crop production. The new-crop winter wheat forecast is 990 million bushels, a 3.8% decline from June and a 29.3% year-over-year drop, representing the smallest crop since 1963. New-crop Hard Red Winter wheat takes the brunt of this pressure, dropping to 471 million bushels, its lowest level since 1957, with only 26% of the crop currently rated good-to-excellent. The new-crop all-wheat yield is 47.9 bushels per acre. These reductions lower U.S. new-crop ending stocks by 22 million bushels to 722 million.

Corn: Domestic old-crop corn ending stocks fell by 125 million bushels to 2.0 billion. This adjustment reflects a 150-million-bushel increase in old-crop feed and residual use, which outweighed a 25-million-bushel reduction in old-crop ethanol use. For the 2026/27 new crop, U.S. production remains relatively flat from June with a yield of 183.0 bushels per acre, but robust international demand pushed new-crop export projections up by 50 million bushels. This combination drives U.S. new-crop ending stocks down by 170 million bushels to 1.8 billion. On the global front, old-crop production was raised by 2 million tons, bolstered by favorable mid-harvest yields in Argentina. However, global new-crop coarse grain production is forecast 2.5 million tons lower. The European Union saw a sharp 3.7-million-ton cut to its new crop, heavily impacted by a 24% reduction in the French forecast. Severe heatwaves and drought have pushed the French new crop to its lowest expected output since 1990.

Soybeans: The soybean balance sheet shows active movement across both marketing years. U.S. old-crop exports for 2025/26 were raised by 10 million bushels, accompanied by increased old-crop soybean meal exports. For the 2026/27 new crop, U.S. production is projected at 4.475 billion bushels, adding 40 million bushels driven by the June acreage data. The national new-crop yield holds at 53.0 bushels per acre. Total U.S. new-crop supplies grew by 30 million bushels, but a matching 30-million-bushel increase in new-crop export projections left net U.S. new-crop ending stocks unchanged at 310 million bushels. Globally, soybean crush estimates rose across both old-crop and new-crop marketing years, driven by strong import demand for feed in China and Algeria. Global new-crop trade expanded by 1.2 million tons due to higher shipments from the United States and Brazil, offsetting lower Russian new-crop exports.

Despite the localized crop shortfalls, adjustments to usage, and shifts in ending stocks, none of these revisions altered the USDA’s projected direction for cash prices. The July report leaves the projected new-crop season-average farm prices completely unchanged from the previous month for all three commodities:

New-crop Wheat: The projected season-average farm price remains unchanged at $6.00 per bushel (compared to the old-crop final price of $5.06).

New-crop Corn: The projected season-average farm price remains unchanged at $4.40 per bushel.

New-crop Soybeans: The projected season-average farm price remains unchanged at $11.40 per bushel, with soybean meal and oil also holding flat at $310 per short ton and 70 cents per pound, respectively.

While the balance sheet adjustments confirm tighter near-term fundamentals for corn and wheat and slightly larger supplies for soybeans, the steady price forecasts indicate that these shifts were already largely anticipated or neutralized by offsetting global factors, leaving the broader price outlook baseline intact.

Weekly Agricultural Weather Synthesis

Global and domestic weather patterns introduced significant volatility into agricultural forecasts, highlighting a stark contrast between localized crop stress and broader regional stability. Mark Russo initiated the week’s tracking by identifying a highly intense ridge of high pressure expanding eastward from the Rockies. Russo noted that while the core U.S. Corn Belt remained relatively secure from extreme heat, next-week forecasts indicated severe crop-stressing temperatures climbing into the upper 90s and triple digits across western Plains states like Nebraska, Kansas, and South Dakota during critical pollination stages. Internationally, Russo reported a disastrous third seasonal heat wave accelerating severe corn deterioration across France and Eastern Europe, alongside anomalous winter rainfall slowing the safrinha corn harvest in southern Brazil. Don Day extended this forecast by warning of a massive, unseasonable “heat dome” migrating over the northern Corn Belt, centered primarily over Iowa, Wisconsin, and northern Illinois. Day detailed a unique meteorological setup where a central “island” of triple-digit heat and dry conditions would be completely encircled by a clockwise-circulating “Ring of Fire” moisture pattern, drawing deep rain into the Southeast and the drought-stricken West.

By mid-week, the progression of weather models intensified concerns for specific growing pockets while offering relief to others. Drew Lerner verified that extreme heat approaching 110°F would hammer the northern Plains and northwestern Corn Belt for several days, rapidly depleting subsoil moisture reserves despite isolated heavy downpours. Lerner anticipated that a late-week Canadian low-pressure trough would successfully push the ridge back into the Rocky Mountains, allowing normal temperatures and scattered showers to return to the central and eastern Midwest. Lerner also confirmed that the extreme drought in France remained critical, with the region receiving less than half its normal precipitation since March. Mike Tannura concluded the weekly outlook by highlighting the extreme volatility of 10-to-14-day computer models, which flashed conflicting runs of intense heat waves and sudden 10-to-30-degree cooling trends due to the sharp boundary between the Plains heat dome and cool Canadian air. Ultimately, Tannura noted that a rapidly developing, unseasonably strong La Niña signal historically correlates with a lack of late-summer Midwestern heat waves. Furthermore, he emphasized that current soil moisture across the Midwest remains exceptionally strong, with only 11% of the U.S. corn crop tracking drier than normal over the past 30 days, providing an adequate buffer for pollination.

Week’s News and Other Items

Advanced Soybean Genetics: Eliana Monteverde detailed (LISTEN) how the University of Illinois utilizes the USDA germplasm bank to isolate ancestral genes from public introductions. These traits are used to stack multi-genic resistance against soybean cyst nematodes (SCN) and aphids, modify fatty acid profiles for high-oleic commercial lines, and map amino acid composition variations across diverse environments. Monteverde will be a featured speaker Thursday at an Illinois Soybean Association Field Day near Heyworth.

Farmland Investment Dynamics: Agricultural economist Bruce Sherrick provided a comprehensive analysis of agricultural real estate (LISTEN), noting a profound global mismatch where nearly 90% of the population resides north of the equator on only 68% of the land mass. Sherrick highlighted that U.S. farmland remains an exceptional long-term inflation hedge, characterized by remarkably low sector leverage (13% debt-to-value ratio) and unique tax efficiencies like Opportunity Zones and 721 operational partnerships. He also critiqued structural inequities in federal crop insurance subsidies that disproportionately favor southern crops over the Midwest.

Glyphosate Import Protections: Major commodity organizations, including the National Corn Growers Association, aggressively pushed back against a formal request by Bayer to impose federal anti-dumping and countervailing duties on Chinese glyphosate imports, citing severe concerns over expanding input costs and narrowing producer margins.

Farm Bill Food Aid Restructuring: Senate Agriculture Chair John Boozman announced legislative efforts to transition jurisdiction over vital foreign food aid initiatives, including Food for Peace and the McGovern-Dole program, back to USDA. The programs were largely shifted under the State Department following the Trump administration’s dismantiling of USAID.

Disease Monitoring: Detections, Monday, handled by the Crop Protection Network revealed minimal immediate disease pressure, identifying highly isolated instances of Tar Spot across individual counties in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Nebraska, and Kansas, alongside rare occurrences of Red Crown Rot in two Illinois counties. Visit the CropProtectionNetwork.org to see the up-to-date disease detection maps for the nation’s primary crops.

Summer Extension Field Days: The University of Illinois announced a robust late-July extension calendar, featuring targeted agricultural field days at the Orr Center on July 15, the Illinois Soybean Association’s “Focus on the Farm” day in Heyworth on July 16, the Monmouth Field Day on July 22, and the annual Beef Field Day at Dixon Springs on July 23. Scroll down for more details and links to each of these in the calendar.

Wildlife Medical Clinic Rescue: Todd Gleason shared a detailed account (LISTEN) of an unexpected short-notice absence caused by a neighborhood wildlife emergency. Gleason coordinated local efforts with arborist Phil Smith, utility provider Ameren, fiber internet provider Volo, and the University of Illinois Veterinary Medicine Wildlife Medical Clinic to safely return a displaced baby Cooper’s Hawk back into its 65-foot-high tree nest.

That is a comprehensive look at the markets, the weather, and the news driving agriculture this week. You can find all of these segments, plus daily market updates from our farmdoc team, online anytime on demand at WILLAg.org.

Editor’s note: This article was adapted from the week’s WILLAg.org radio broadcast transcripts, formatted for print with the assistance of Google’s generative AI tool, Gemini, and reviewed by Todd Gleason.

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University of Illinois Extension and Crop Sciences Agronomy Days

July
15 – Orr Agricultural Research and Demonstration Center Field Day
16 – Illinois Soybean Association Field Day
22 – Monmouth Field Day
23 – Ewing Agronomy Field Day
30 – Resources, Services, and Tools for Farmers with Disabilities

August
06 – Crop Physiology Field Day
12 – Insect Management and Field Plot Tour
26-29 – 1st International Miscanthus Summit

September
16 – Alma Mater Plots Agronomy Day

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