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2026.10.01 | TB | Agriculture | Mosaic: Potash Resilience & Phosphate Pressure

原标题：Mosaic – Potash Resilience & Phosphate Demand Pressure

#agriculture #chemicals

Third Bridge · 2026-10-01

Analyst-led • 22 Sep 2026

Companies: MOS US

Jeff Tarsi (JT) Adviser at Nutrien Ag Solutions Inc

Curren Larson (CL) — Third Bridge Sector Analyst

Agenda

Key Insights

Introduction

CL [00:00:44]: Welcome to Third Bridge Interview entitled Mosaic – Potash Resilience & Phosphate Demand Pressure. I'm Curren Larson, and I will be facilitating today's Interview with Mr Jeff Tarsi, Senior Adviser at Nutrien.

Jeff, before we start today's Interview, please state I agree or I disagree to the following statement: You understand the definition of material non-public information and agree not to disclose any such information, or any other information which is confidential, during this Interview.

JT [00:01:11]: I agree.

CL [00:01:13]: Could you briefly introduce yourself?

JT [00:01:18]: Jeff Tarsi, been a lifelong Agriculturist, 40 years in the industry, grew up on a farm in the Mississippi Delta, which you can tell by my accent. Ag econ major, spent the first roughly 12 years of my career with BASF and then roughly the last 30 with Nutrien or with different names within the Nutrien organisation and such. Been around agriculture in my whole life and covered a lot of the global geography as well with that.

Questions

00:02:00] Trump has announced that the US is negotiating what he called a massive deal to purchase potash fertiliser from Belarus, ideally with the end goal of lowering prices for American farmers. That said, Belarus says it does not have enough potash, suggesting these claims might be a bit ambitious. What is your view on concerns that Belarusian potash could impact fertiliser pricing for companies such as Mosaic? Could you elaborate on why you do or do not see this as a threat?

JT [00:02:54]: It's so new that I don't know that I would say either way. I will just tell you this, that demand is high for potash and global supplies have been tight. I can't imagine that someone would be sitting with a lot of potash sitting available to ship to the market coming right up on the season now, especially in North America for fall production and then planting season in Brazil. Logistically, that would be pretty tough, too. Again, I don't know where those comments came from or what meaning was behind that, but it didn't strike me as hard when I heard it for sure.

00:03:39] How would you describe the current mood among North American growers heading into the 2027 planting season, particularly given the recent improvement in commodity prices alongside elevated input costs?

JT [00:04:03]: I think that I think generally, it seems to me, and this is somebody that's been out in the industry for a long time, that the mood has changed a bit over the last 60 days. I know in the Southern half of the United States, we probably had as fast a harvest as maybe I've ever seen in my career. Yields have been probably pretty average on corn, but really good on soybeans. A lot of growers, whether this is good or bad, a lot of them didn't have a lot of crop forward contracted, especially on soybeans. They're getting a really good price on their soybeans right now. I see things that they're a tick better. Now we're just getting into harvest in the Corn Belt. With some different weather issues this past year, and you've seen what USDA and Pro Farmer have said about yields, they're down below that 180, somewhere between 176 and 178. We got to get in the field and get some harvest done enough to see whether those are going to be reliable there. Again, you're looking at prices that if people being honest to tell you that the prices are better right now than they probably anticipated when they put this crop in the ground.

That always leads to optimism from that standpoint on it. I'd say things are a tick better. We've been in a two- or three-year pretty tough period of time really since the 2022 year in the agricultural front. I think that maybe a little more optimism now some of that is being drowned out on the other side by enormously high diesel fuel prices right now that growers are having to put out right at harvest season, which is a major period of diesel consumption for these growers.

00:06:14] Regarding that USDA [US Department of Agriculture] outlook for 2026-27, how much of that do you think is being affected by nutrient under-application vs weather and other environmental factors? Corn yield is expected to deteriorate by 4.5%, whereas soybeans remain relatively unchanged.

JT [00:06:41]: To me, it shouldn't be a great surprise that we know from a supply-demand side of it that you probably had some demand destruction with a lot of variables. Number one, low commodity prices, high equipment prices and that type of stuff and then high-priced phosphate and that type of stuff. You did have growers that tried to cut corners this year if you look at what tonnage looks like across the country. It really should come as no surprise. The bigger surprise would have been that if you cut back usage on N, P and K and then yields didn't move at all. To me, that just goes hand in hand on it that you pull back on even nitrogen. Phosphate is a pretty big pullback. You should expect that you're going to have some yield destruction there.

That's what the estimates are saying right now that you're seeing that. Two weeks from now, if the weather clears up across the Corn Belt, we'll have a lot better understanding of that. Then you throw in factors that with some weather and some dry weather that we had in some areas, you had too much rainfall on it, but not a lot of disease pressure this year, which would have helped out a bit on that front. A lot of variables, a lot of variables at play in this year's crop and on it. If you go through all of that and you end up in that… I think the thing to watch there is if you were to slip below that 176 number. I personally don't think we're going to see that happen, but if you would, then that could be another catalyst on pricing.

00:09:02] There are several factors, of course, but Mosaic's management expressed that two years of under-application have significantly depleted the soil bank for phosphorus and potassium. How widespread would you characterise this depletion across the Corn Belt? Is it becoming significant enough to affect application decisions or yields for the upcoming year? Given the narrative that farmers have pushed off applications for the last two years due to thin margins and weak commodity pricing post 2022, do you think we are at a tipping point where they have little choice before seeing significant yield degradation?

JT [00:09:54]: That is one of the unique characteristics of the soil in the Midwest is that you can bank products like P and K. That's one thing unique about a grower. They've always invested. Likely their highest asset value of anything they have in their farm operation is their soil. There's been so much work done, so much science, so much technology about balancing the soil from a fertility standpoint. I got to say that when years were really good and prices were moderate, growers probably put more product out there than they needed it, but they knew they could bank it in the soil. I do think that we're now at that point to where we likely have utilised what excess might have been in the soil from that standpoint. A lot of factors go into that, primarily yield and how much is being removed just from a yield component and that standpoint. Again, I wouldn't say that anybody since '23 has put any excess product. We know they cut back on their rates, but I don't think that in a grower's mind, growers ideally have some idea of how much product they've got banked in the soil. When we say that growers pull back 20% this year, I don't think in their mind and what was available to the crop, they thought it was 20%, might have been 10%, might have been 15% because they have figured they were carrying some extra capacity there.

I think today that that extra capacity component of the equation is probably not there on it. One thing about fertility is it's very key to keep your soils balanced. You're not going with a spike up and down of years you didn't put enough, years you put too much. You want to keep a balance between N, P and K and the soil. These hybrids that we grow today really require a lot of horsepower from that side of things. I would hate to see us get out of balance here, but I certainly understand, particularly with phosphate, the cost that's associated there that there's just a sticker shock on that component of it. I don't think you can ever fairly say somebody don't have a choice, but to use… Everybody's got a choice. You know with those choices, there's decisions that are made that are going to affect things like yield and outcome and even the health of the plant and those things.

00:13:07] Without any significant weather impacts over the next few months, if you were to see yields fall below the 176 bushels per acre threshold, would that be a sign to you that soil banks are very depleted and that we will have to see a significant uptick in application the following year?

JT [00:13:42]: I think that if you get below that level, then I think it further supports the case of that you've cut back on your applications there, and it's had some effect on yield. Again, you're still facing with one of the three essential NPK and with P, you're still facing a scenario of extremely high prices. That hasn't alleviated any and probably not going to as long as we got the disruption in the Middle East. Even if that got solved now, it wouldn't be in time to affect this fall market, in my opinion on it. I think you're going to still see people that are going to be reluctant to put what they should put or maybe what the soil is calling for. With some of the other nutrients, potash, for instance, that's pretty moderately priced. You might see people put a little more potash out for what they're using as a deficit on the phosphate side of things. It's a pretty easy math. Generally speaking, we know that corn removes about 0.37lbs per bushel of phosphate. You take somebody in one of those really big producing areas of the Midwest, and they got a 235-bushel corn crop, then they're removing 87lbs of P2O5.

That's just math, a math equation there on it. Are people going to put replacement volumes back out this fall? I don't know that from where I sit that I can see that occurring on it. Again, they're going to go through the fields, look at their yields and then they'll have a decision to make from that standpoint of everybody wants to. It's what can you afford and what can you sleep with at the prices that we're at right now.

00:16:14] If phosphate prices were to hold, at what corn and soybean price levels do you think growers would become comfortable? We see corn at about USD 5.40 right now. Is that nearing a threshold where they might start to become comfortable, given that recent uplift?

JT [00:16:34]: I think if you look at it vs one year ago, and I hadn't looked at the price vs one year ago, but I'd say corn is probably USD 0.60 per bushel higher, USD 0.60 or USD 0.70. I think they would feel better about that. Then again, I don't know if you… Let's just say something happened in the marketplace that you tipped over into corn had a six handle on the front of it, and that's a whole different situation in my opinion on it. You see people maybe start swinging for the fences a little bit more in that scenario. I'm not counting on that myself. That's just my personal belief out there. I don't see us below that 175 [sic] threshold that's been forecasted out there. I think where we see corn sitting right now is where we might see it sit. If the yields were to come up a little bit, then we take some off of that, in my opinion. It's not the only one in that scenario. Soybeans are in there as well. Corn just pull from a phosphate standpoint, it's a grassy crop. It plays a bigger influence in corn than it does in soybeans.

00:18:12] Phosphate is the most expensive nutrient in the complex right now. What alternatives or modified blends are you seeing growers use instead of traditional DAP [diammonium phosphate] or MAP [monoammonium phosphate]? How likely are those changes in application to persist into 2027?

JT [00:18:36]: Obviously, growers are survivors. They're always going to do anything in their power to make sure they're able to plant another crop out there. It depends on the region of North America you're in. Midwest growers tend to be in a little bit better balance sheet standpoint. Their land is a little bit more valuable than if you come South. That's what happens when you get in these scenarios. Growers do go out there and play with a lot of different alternatives from that standpoint. You're seeing a lot of nutritional-type products being used. You're seeing a lot of biologicals. People are playing with biologicals that might create a situation in the soil that makes those nutrients that are there more readily available. You get greater efficiency out of what you're using. I think that's going to be a trend going forward as well. Sometimes you don't ever get the full opportunity of those types of trends if you don't get in these situations where somebody is out there trying to look for an alternative.

In my mind, today, there is no pure alternative for NPK. These plants have been bred to have these products available to them during the growth cycles, but there are things out there that the industry has been working with for some time and growers are a little more open to looking at those alternatives today. I think they're going to continue to look at those alternatives. Again, we know that the biologicals are going to play a bigger part going forward. We've seen this in other countries like Brazil. Brazil is a very heavy user of biologicals in the soil to get better efficiency out of the nutrients that they have and to make those nutrients more readily available for the plant and such. That's something that you're going to have to watch here going forward is what degree of comfort do growers get with that. At the end of the day, what's going to tell the story though is going to be the yield. What are they doing? What are those products doing to help hold yields? These plants are geared up today where I said this earlier, these hybrids take a lot of horsepower for the amount of yield they're able to produce. That plant needs that nutrient available at the ideal times during plant development. You can't be two weeks late getting it there. If you are, you're going to take it in some form of a yield adjustment on that piece of it.

All this is a big learning process right now and a lot of learning, a lot of understanding. We're going to know a lot more about these things. We got so many data points today that we can use that's going to give an accurate picture for if you do this in relationship to this, what can you expect from a yield standpoint. The other thing I always mention to people is that, and this has changed very, very much so in the last 10 years, but there's not a combine out there running today that doesn't have a yield monitor. There are more farm owners that sit on the seats of combines today than I ever remember in my lifetime. Why is that, because that grower can gather so much data as that machine is going through the field. He can see firsthand himself from a hybrid standpoint, from a fertility, whatever he chose to do from a fertility standpoint, he's getting real-time data as that machine is going through the field. That used to take us 2-3 years to try to gather that data and see exactly. We tried this this year. What did that do? You had to bring a weigh wagon into the field, you had to capture the grain, you had to go weigh it. If a grower was in a hurry, he didn't even wait for you to do that. Today, with these yield monitors, man, the verdict is in when the combine goes through the field.

00:23:24] If expected yields were to hold at 178, how would you think about necessary application rates relative to 2025? Do you still see a 20% uptick as reasonable, or would that be ambitious if yields were to hold at 178?

JT [00:23:51]: You mean a 20% uptick over last year?

CL [00:23:54]: Yes.

JT [00:23:55]: On usage? Again, this is just my personal belief on that. We had a fairly open fall last year. It wasn't anything that weather-related would have hurt a lot of things. 20% would be pretty aggressive in my opinion, if we stay right. You have to remember that a lot can happen on this because if you look at fertilisation, you really look at it from a crop year standpoint. You got the fall and then you've got the spring. Now most growers, especially up in Midwest in the Corn Belt, they would like to get their P and K applications and the anhydrous applications out in the fall. Then that lets them go right into planting in the spring, but you do still have a spring window. There's a lot of scenarios here, but you can see somebody pull back and be a little bit more conservative this fall and then some things adjust between now and March or April, and they still got an opportunity to come out and overlay some product there at planning time.

Again, I think where pricing is right now and if yield doesn't fall off too much, you got to remember that at 176, that's the whole United States, and you got a lot of areas, particularly on the very Western side, the Corn Belt that drags yield down. Your big key for what you need to look at is really Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Nebraska, Ohio, those type of states because that's where your big consumption of product goes, especially from a fall application standpoint.

00:26:04] How would you characterise current phosphate availability and inventory levels across the North American distribution channel, given the recent price volatility and tight sulphur markets?

JT [00:26:42]: From a production side of things, I wouldn't think that people… Let's just say three months ago, I wouldn't think that a lot of people would have been seeing much more to the fall than what they saw last year. I can't imagine that you would have produced a lot of excess product into the market. That's one thing that you have to question yourself, too, is, "Hey, let's see if you had a crazy demand this fall, could you even meet that from that standpoint?" I think generally, what people are going to want to use and want to put out this fall, I think people are going to be able to have available to that. If you had something crazy happened that made demand just spike, I don't know if you'd have that much product sitting around.

CL [00:27:40]: A fair way to think about it is that the extreme upside would certainly be capped by the distribution channel today.

JT [00:27:52]: Yes. I think so.

00:28:01] When we think about the increase in sulphur and other input costs, how much of that cost inflation is ultimately being passed through to growers vs absorbed by distributors and retailers? To what extent do distributors and retailers actually absorb some of that cost?

JT [00:28:25]: That cost of the sulphur and the nitrogen and that piece of it is being priced in the finished product MAP and DAP. I think most of that's likely being passed on in the price. Now margins might be and probably are less for a retailer in that standpoint, but I think manufacturers obviously have to try to pass along as much of their cost as they can on that. Who would ever think that you'd be at that price of phosphate and there will not be a lot of margin in it from that standpoint. That's just a unique… There were times in my lifetime in this industry when basically people were given sulphur away. That's certainly not a situation anymore.

00:29:25] Mosaic had reported a Q3 2026 Tampa sulphur contract at USD 705 per long ton, which is significantly below spot levels. Does having that lower cost supply meaningfully change the pricing and margin dynamics that you'd see at the retail level?

JT [00:29:50]: I don't think it will do a whole lot on that side of it. I really don't follow that sulphur market that close other than the fact that I know that it's a major component in the price of finished phosphate that we sell and use to our growers and such. You haven't seen a whole lot of indication of price coming down on those products.

00:30:23] Turning to the potash side, prices are relatively low compared to historical levels, yet North American potash sales volumes have softened by roughly 14% YoY in Q2 2026. What is holding growers back from increasing potash applications despite this relatively lower price environment? Is excess from previous years remaining in the soil bank impacting this?

JT [00:31:03]: Very rarely do you have an application just pure potash going out. It's always going out in a blend with phosphate. Almost, say, 90%-plus of the time. I think that growers are out there just balancing their cost with the real high phosphate side of things. Again, I think everybody was looking at where they could cut a few corners. Again, I think that under more reasonable periods of time, there was product that was banked in the soil as well that they thought they could lean on that from that standpoint. Out of the three, I think potash is the most favourable price product out there today. I think growers will see that when they go in and get fall production. Another big indicator for potash is that where it is different from corn and soybeans, but soybeans pull a lot of potash. They're a big user of potash. We've had some tremendous soybean yields in some of these areas this year. That crop that's been cut, has been a really strong crop. I think growers recognise that they've depleted a lot of potash with these big soybean crops. A big soybean crop can pull as much or more potash than a corn crop can. Again, I think that soybeans is priced at over USD 13 right now. I think growers is probably going to spend some money and build soil back up from a potash standpoint.

00:33:15] When I consider that potash volumes are partially dependent on phosphate – with roughly 90% of applications being a blend, as you mentioned – what would actually need to happen for retail phosphate prices to normalise? Do you expect affordability will have to improve through lower fertiliser prices and therefore depend on the crisis in the Middle East, or could we see it driven by higher crop commodity prices?

JT [00:33:58]: Probably a combination of both. Hell, if corn went USD 7 per bushel, that would change things a lot from that perspective and probably more so for next year's crop than this one we're in now. If you had another USD 1.50 or if you had another USD 1, then again, you see growers swinging for the fences on that side of it or like you said, you get into a more reasonable priced product and with sulphur price coming down and some other components of the phosphate production. It's probably some of both, to be honest with you, from that standpoint. Now each one of them like USD 6-7 corn, that can create issues, too. You can cut back demand if you get at those type prices. What I think everybody would be happy with if you just had a good balance on this. You had product in a reasonable price range, where potash sits at today, and you had corn at a reasonable price range somewhere where it's sitting at today, it can either… I don't want to say tip down some. If you could just get balanced again where you don't have these peaks and valleys, that's what makes… If you're an investor in the market, what makes you unsettled is a lot of volatility from that standpoint.

You'd like to have it in a situation where a grower wouldn't have to be thinking, "What can I do to cut a corner here? What can I do? I know I'm going to cut back on some nutrients here and it's going to affect the yield." You'd rather be in a balance where if they call for 100lbs or a call for 85lbs of phosphate that you'd say, "That's what we're going to put out. That's what we pulled out in the soil, and that's what we're going to replenish from that standpoint vs trying to balance all that."

CL [00:36:35]: Just to clarify, would you say that around USD 6.50 or more is where farmers start swinging for the fences, or is it closer to USD 6.00?

JT [00:36:47]: You probably got a six handle on it. You'd probably see swinging for the fence in my opinion. Growers aren't out there trying to produce less yields ever. When you get in a tough situation, the most important part of the equation is yield from that standpoint. When you get to where that P&L is starting to really tip to the good side of it, that's where you see people start saying, "Hey, how far can we push this thing? We only got a window of opportunity to do this."

00:37:26] Do you think anything is currently misunderstood regarding global supply chain disruptions and their impact on product availability at the local US retail level that would be important for investors to understand?

JT [00:37:48]: I think at the retail level, an agronomist, their job is to go out there and try to help create ROIC for a grower. They're going to do everything in their power to… Sometimes you think of yourself as a consumer or you think of as a grower, sometimes you can overthink how do you cut cost, and I think a great balance that any retailer brings out there, especially those that have really qualified agronomists out there is to sit down with a voice of reason, look at it on a spreadsheet, look at it on a piece of paper of, "Hey, that's what your gut is telling you to do, but here's what the analytics they do on this side of it." We don't want to cut ourselves into a problem on this thing. Again, the one thing I keep hinging on, too, is that you got an acre of Midwest soil up there that's USD 13,000-15,000 per acre in a lot of areas there. It's the biggest investment you got. You probably spent the last 10 years since we had really good analytics on this, and we do so much soil testing today. You spend all that time and effort to get that soil balanced out nutrient-wise. You don't want to go too far the other way because catch-up can be expensive, both from a yield standpoint and application standpoint on that side of it.

Your really good growers with strong balance sheets all understand that. You got a lot of folks that understand it, but maybe just don't have capability financially to do everything in the wheelhouse on it. That's the other part of it, too, is agronomists to keep growers grounded on what's essential, what's essential to produce yield out there from that standpoint. Then, hey, a better job of marketing as well, these crops. Right now, I would think a lot of people would want to be taking advantage of forward contracting for '27 into these markets right now when you can lock in. What's not good to do right now, in my opinion, is to get greedy. These things can change in a heartbeat. You could get a USDA report next month that said yields were three bushels better than what anybody was projecting. Without a doubt, you know as well as I do, you're going to take the top side off of this thing. I think in today's world, there are not many growers out there today that aren't astute business people. They're doing a lot of analytics and a lot of data. As retailers out there, they're helping provide a lot of that information to be able to make sound decisions. It's not just an emotional decision that people are making out there. There are a lot of analytics that go into that.

CL [00:41:15]: In your view, where does Mosaic genuinely hold a competitive advantage in the North American retail channel today? Where do you think the company might become vulnerable due to production curtailments?

JT [00:41:37]: I'd probably rather not go into that question on it. Obviously, they've got great production capability here in North America. They can get product into the channel really quickly as long as they got to production there. I'd rather not get into differences and advantages and that type of thing, if you don't mind.

00:42:06] CHS and OCP recently announced plans for a one million tonne phosphate facility in the US. Even though the project is years away, how does the prospect of additional domestic phosphate supply affect how retailers think about their long-term relationships with Mosaic?

JT [00:42:44]: I don't think in the near term, that's going to have a big or any effect. Again, you're a number of years of getting that up and going. I don't think people think about that 3-5 years down the road. Right now, you think about it YoY. Relationships are built over a long period of time from that standpoint. Most growers don't care where their product comes from at the end of the day. They just want to have product available out of their retail outlet and they want it at a fair price from that standpoint. I think it'd be really early on to be drawing a whole lot of conclusions from that. CHS obviously has a big network of retails through the cooperative structure that they can move product into from that standpoint. I wouldn't assume that they would invest in that and then not look to put some of that through their own distribution.

00:44:03] Moving over to Mosaic's Biosciences portfolio, the company has been leaning into that given the revenue growth. You already alluded to its biologicals performance earlier. From your view, how much traction are these products actually gaining with growers as a substitute for or supplement to traditional nutrients? Do you see this as a serious cannibalisation threat over the longer term?

JT [00:44:39]: How much cannibalisation I see from it? I think it's an exciting frontier. I think that I always liken it, too, that, hey, growers, like anybody else, they get bored doing the same thing over and over and over and over again. They're interested. If you look at the median age of growers today, I think it's somewhere around 65. Don't quote me precisely on that, but I know it's over 60. You're going to have a huge turnover of growers. When I say you have a turnover there, you're either going to have a dad turning off to a son or somebody retiring, somebody else picking up a piece of ground or whatever. You're going to have a new set of growers there. A lot of it is hopefully going to bring youth into this. Youth, especially, I know myself when I worked on our farm, always tempted to want to do something different than what my dad did. I think biologicals, I think nutritionals, I think spoon-feeding crops during the season are things that are of interest out there. Can we do something different and produce a different result off of it? I think this area is going to be…

That biostimulant area is very interesting to me. I've been around it for a long time. I can see without a doubt that there are plant effects there from it. Now not all products are created equally. It's like any other market. You got some people out there with products that probably shouldn't be on the market from that standpoint. Those get weeded out pretty quickly today, especially when I go back to my comments about yield monitors and those types of things. The key to biologicals and that stuff is having a channel to the marketplace. Where you got direct selling retailers, that's a little easier to get that product to the market than if you're somebody out there just trying to market something and you don't have a direct link to the grower. That's one of the biggest… Two hold-ups. (1) Products that don't bring efficacy. You hope that you wouldn't have much of that, but sometimes you do. Then (2) access to the market is absolutely key.

00:47:21] We discussed how, if you saw a sudden demand surge, the pinch point potentially becomes the retail channel. How quickly do you think the North American retail channel could absorb a sudden surge in demand if affordability dynamics were to flip in H1 2027? How long would it actually take the retail channel to be able to meet demand without servicing bottlenecks?

JT [00:47:58]: If they can get the product in place, that's not a problem. The problem is just getting it to the retail channel. I say it's a problem. If that's considered an issue and/or how much inventory out there is available and that sort of thing. You got to remember two years ago, we were putting out considerably more tonnage than we're putting out today. The capacity is there on the retail side of it as long as producers get it to the retailer. Now you can't decide, you can't get… It's going to be difficult to get in here to the 15-20 November and then decide, "Hey, we want to put a lot more of this product out," especially maybe on the phosphate side. I don't think potash is going to be a problem from that standpoint. It won't be a problem. You can't decide two-thirds of the way through the fall application season that suddenly you want to have a lot more product available. That would be difficult. You'd have pinch point there from that standpoint. These rigs are going to be going across the field regardless. You're putting something out this fall. I say this, the other thing to watch on this is how open is your fall? What's we forecast for the fall? A lot of stuff with El Niño and that side says you could have wet fall. That drastically affects your window for application on that side of it. That's something just to watch for, in my opinion.

00:49:52] If we have a wetter season from El Niño, could you elaborate on the other cascading implications of that? How would that change product demand? Does it simply compress the window for application rather than change overall demand?

JT [00:50:15]: Just a matter of how much time you got to get that application out. Two components here. First of all, you can't apply anything until you take the crop off. The first thing is if you get into a real wet fall is, does that delay harvest? If you get into a real wet fall, it will. If you delay harvest, then you got a smaller window for application. That's for everything on it. That's not what you want to see happen. If it does, then you just got more pressure on your spring to get application out. That's how that works is I don't see brutally cold in some of the forecast up there, which that's positive from that standpoint. If you get real late, you might actually want frozen ground to run application and that thing. First thing to keep your eye on is harvest progress. That's released every week, I think, by USDA on what progress you got on harvest. That's one thing I'd be looking at. The earlier the harvest, the bigger your wind is by application.

00:51:44] What would your potash volume outlook be for this fall application season relative to 2025, given that it is fairly affordable – again, relative to higher-priced phosphate – but also considering that phosphate pricing could impact the overall affordability of potash?

JT [00:52:17]: Yes, I think we have. I think we should see some pickup in demand on that. Again, I stated earlier that the crop in the South is out probably the earliest I've ever seen it out. You wouldn't have had a lot of fall application last year. I think because yields were as strong as they were, I think you'll see more demand in that area. Again, because relatively affordability of it, if you can get that crop out in the Corn Belt in a reasonable period of time and get a good open window, I think that speaks positively for it.

CL [00:53:00]: Do you think you see more than 3% growth, or is that probably about in line with what you would expect?

JT [00:53:07]: I really hadn't done it from a percentage basis. I think that that's certainly possible on it. Again, growers want to get as much of this… If I look today, I would say the way the corn is priced today that you could see more corn acres in '27 than '26. If that's the case, I think growers would like to get as much of that application out this fall as possible so they get a good open early window next spring, then they can just go with the planters on it. That could play a factor in that.

00:53:47] Regarding Belarusian supply, let's say Trump does make a deal and they try to bring it back online. Again, I think it is important to note that prior to sanctions being put in place, Belarus supplied maybe 700,000 tons of potash, which is not really needle-moving. If that were to be the case, how long do you think it would take to actually see that supply impact US supply-demand dynamics?

JT [00:54:29]: I just don't see it impacting it, in my opinion. It's not like North America is the only place you use potash. I don't want to go much into that because I haven't done a lot of work on that side of it. I don't see that as an impact right now, unless there's something out there that I obviously have missed.

00:54:57] What do you think is the most important factor to watch over the next four months to determine whether US phosphate demand can recover to 2024 levels in 2027? If your answer is yield, what would that yield figure need to look like?

JT [00:55:30]: My answer is yield and price and grower sentiment. They're all affected by yield and price on that side of it. I think that we can be reasonably assured, probably not going to be anything happen soon enough to really alter the price down a whole lot on it. Your factor would be yield. I think you probably need to be… Yield, if it's too high, then it's going to affect the price of corn. It's a pretty delicate balance there on that piece of it. I think at the end of the day, you'd have to say grower sentiment. How does a grower feel? How did his balance sheet, his P&L this year did turn out better than he expected it to turn out from that standpoint? At the end of the day, price is going to have to come down here somewhere in this piece of it, in my opinion, to get a lot of exuberance around it.

CL [00:56:47]: I think that's about all my questions for today. I'll leave it there, but I just want to say thank you for joining me and sharing your insights on Mosaic as well as the broader fertiliser space.

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