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Sunflower Highlights

Post Date: May 18 2020

Crop Progress

Sunflower planting is in full swing across the major sunflower states. Kansas, Minnesota and Texas all report 16% of the crop has been planted.

Crop Progress - Monday, May 18, 2020 State This Week Last Week Last Year 5 Year Average North Dakota         Planted 2 NA 6 15 South Dakota         Planted 3 NA NA 4 Kansas         Planted 16 2 1 2 Minnesota         Planted 14 6 19 45 Colorado         Planted 18 16 NA 2 Texas         Planted 16 NA NA NA

Corteva announces changes for 2021 seed sales season

Corteva Agriscience is introducing Brevant™ seeds in the U.S. for sale exclusively through retail, focused in the Midwest and Eastern Corn Belt. Brevant™ seeds was successfully launched in 2018 in nine countries outside the U.S. following the merger between Dow and DuPont. Brevant™ will replace Mycogen® Seeds as Corteva’s primary U.S. retail-focused brand and will be available for planting in 2021. As previously announced, Corteva will continue to serve U.S. farmers through regional seed brands in the U.S., such as NuTech®. and AgVenture®. Pioneer® will remain the company’s global flagship seed brand. Corteva is committed to ensuring a smooth transition, and will honor program, product, and service obligations for existing seed orders and the 2020 growing season.

Canada sunflower acres projected to increase

Canada will likely see its largest sunflower crop in several years in 2020. According to Statistics Canada data, Canadian farmers intend to plant 104,400 acres of sunflowers this spring, which would be up 36 per cent from 2019 and the largest acreage base for the crop in a decade. The majority of Canada’s sunflower crop is grown in Manitoba.

Markets

After robust producer sales with prices drifting lower the past few weeks, old crop sunflower prices stabilized and ended unchanged to up 20 cents at the crush plants this week.  Nearby NuSun prices are trading $2.15-$2.45, with high oleic $2.00-$2.35 per cwt. higher than a year ago at this same time. A smaller than expected 2019 crop, lower beginning stocks and good demand are continuing to support prices. New crop prices ended the week unchanged to down 15 cents. Producers continue to sign 2020/21 market year contracts as new crop continues to trade above historical prices. Last week USDA released its first detailed forecast of the 2020-21 crop projections with a 15.99 billion bushel (bb) corn crop that would lead to 3.318 bb ending stocks at the end of the marketing year and a stocks-to-use ratio at a whopping 22.4% for the crop. The 2019/2020 soybean ending stocks are estimated at 580 million bushels compared with the trade’s expectations of 488 million bushels and the USDA's April estimate of 480 million. Old crop wheat 2019/2020 ending stocks are pegged at 978 million bushels vs. the trade’s expectations of 969 million bushels and the USDA's April estimate of 970 million. Overall traders thought the USDA report did not have a lot of supportive data for prices. Bearish expectations were largely anticipated and provided few incentives for market participants to change their current market outlook.