Sunflower Highlights

Post Date: Jun 19 2017

Crop Progress

Minnesota's sunflower crop looks good so far: 83 percent of that state's sunflower crop is reported in good to excellent condition. Meanwhile, planting is wrapping up in the remaining reporting states. North Dakota producers are 98 percent finished, with 80 percent of the crop reported emerged.

Crop Progress - Monday, June 19, 2017

State	This Week	Last Week	Last Year	5 Year Average
North Dakota
Planted	98	96	97	89
Emerged	80	51	79	NA
South Dakota
Planted	92	72	78	69
Emerged	61	37	NA	NA
Kansas
Planted	67	34	67	65
Emerged	32	10	41	38
*Texas*
Planted	80	70	84	90
Colorado
Planted	67	29	64	59

Crop Conditions - Monday, June 19, 2017

State	Very Poor	Poor	Fair	Good	Excellent
Minnesota	0	0	17	75	8

Grower Report

Mohall, North Dakota producer Jeff Oberholtzer is grateful for the inch and a half of rain that fell on his crops over the past week. It’s the first significant moisture recorded on his north central North Dakota farm in over a month. Oberholtzer is now getting ready to spray his 1,600 acres of high oleic sunflower. He says aside from some wireworm issues, the crop looks good.

NSA Summer Seminar is Next Week

Farmers are heavily invested in the crops they plant, from soil conditions, seed variety, fertilizer, pesticides, and their combines. So when it comes time to harvest, it’s important to use the best equipment possible. That’s just one of several topics we’ll cover. This year is the 35^th annual NSA Summer Seminar, planned for June 27-29 in Rapid City, South Dakota. There’s still time to register – click here to register online. Online registration will close Friday at 4:00 p.m. You can still register at the door, but registration will increase to $400 and golf to $140 at the door, so register now!

Markets

Sunflower prices continue to move upward gaining 20 cents this week at the crush plants. This is the third week in row with positive price gains for old crop prices. Sunflower planting is wrapped up in North Dakota and Minnesota with South Dakota finishing soon. Planting is moving along in the High Plains states at or close to the five-year average in most states. In the past week, a larger area of the US sunflower production region has slid into a moderate to severe drought situation. There appears to be no relief in sight as the two-week weather forecast expects below normal precipitation to continue in the Northern Plains. Private estimates continue to roll out ahead of USDA’s June 30 planted acres report. Last week Informa estimated the US 2017 corn planted acres near 90.2 million versus 94 million last year. They estimated soybean acres at near 89.4 versus last year’s 83.4 million. There have also been rumors that USDA could look at the lack of prevent plant acres especially in North Dakota versus what they accounted for in the March intentions report and could make some acreage adjustments based on this. This could increase planted acres beyond what traders are currently anticipating and pressure new crop prices. Weather forecasts and crop condition ratings will remain the top mind for traders in the week ahead.