Sunflower Highlights

Post Date: May 20 2019

Crop Progress

Sunflower planting is underway. In Minnesota, sunflowers were 26 percent planted, 10 days behind last year and 9 days behind the 5-year average. North Dakota reports 8 percent of the state's sunflower planted.

Crop Progress - Monday, May 20, 2019

State	This Week	Last Week	Last Year	5 Year Average
North Dakota
Planted	8	2	11	18
Kansas
Planted	1	1	6	3
Minnesota
Planted	26	2	54	47

Registration is now open for our 2019 NSA Summer Seminar, scheduled for June 26-27, 2019. This year’s Summer Seminar will be held in Medora, North Dakota. Click here to register. You’ll find our tentative schedule too, as well as hotel information and more. Pre-registration will begin at $325 and golf at $145, so register early for the best price. A block of rooms has been reserved in Medora.To make your reservation, visit www.medora.com, select hotel reservations and enter check-in and check-out dates. You also need to enter Group Code 5781. Note: The total per/room you’ll see when making your reservation is for your entire stay; it is not a nightly rate. You can also call 1-800-633-6721 and ask for the NSA block of rooms. To reserve tickets to the Medora Musical, click here for an exclusive link or call 1-800-633-6721. Ask for reservations and let them know you’re with the National Sunflower Association and want tickets for the June 26 performance. Please book by June 5 to ensure you have access to the group block. After this date, all unused seats will be released to the general public. Contact Tina Mittelsteadt at tinam@sunflowernsa.com with questions.

Updates to the NDSU Extension Pest Management App Available

Two new features are available in the NDSU Extension Pest Management App. Efficacy tables for fungicides and insecticides have been compiled for problematic pests and will be incorporated into the app. These tables will help select an appropriate plant protection product after a pest has been identified. The other feature that has been added to the app is an image library. Both typical and atypical images of diseases, insects and weeds will be available in the image library to help pest diagnosis in the field. The app is available for both iOS and android based smart devices.

Markets

Last week sunflower prices were under pressure by increased producer sales to the plants. Nearby sunflower prices had held to levels seen last year and producers took advantage making sales of old crop. After last week’s decline old crop sunflower prices stabilized this week and ended unchanged to up 5 cents with new crop unchanged. Despite the recent downward movement, sunflower prices are still trading above historical levels. A smaller than expected 2018 crop and lower beginning stocks are expected to support prices. There is still time to take advantage of the market opportunities that sunflower can offer as processors are still offering Act of God (AOG) and cash new crop contracts. On the CBoT, soybean prices tumbled as traders expect a big acreage shift as spring planting progresslags in the key corn producing states. Much of the central U.S. is bracing for a very wet week ahead giving traders confidence to begin factoring in more U.S. soybean acres this year from farmers swapping out corn acres. U.S.-China trade woes continue to produce additional headwinds in the soy complex. Adding further pressure is Brazil making a flurry of soybean sales to China over the past few days. The country is harvesting its second-largest soybean crop on record and for the time being fulfilling Chinese demand.In the week ahead, trading will continue to focus on 2019 planting progress, export sales, plus US/China trade situation.