Sunflower Highlights

Post Date: Sep 21 2020

Crop progress

North Dakota's sunflower crop is well ahead of last year, with 47% of the crop reported mature. That's conpared to just 16% mature at this time last year.

Crop Progress - Monday, September 21, 2020

State	This Week	Last Week	Last Year	5 Year Average
North Dakota
Petals Dry	93	88	85	92
Bracts Yellow	79	66	61	76
Mature	47	30	16	37
Texas
Harvested	59	56	65	54

Crop Conditions - Monday, September 21, 2020

State	Very Poor	Poor	Fair	Good	Excellent
North Dakota	7	13	34	42	4
Minnesota	3	4	17	70	6
Colorado	11	25	39	23	2

Submit research grant application pre-proposals

Research is an important part of the NSA’s mission. Each year, the NSA provides grants to public researchers to stimulate new or additional work that may result in lower production costs, increased quality, and higher yields. Pre-proposals for projects to be considered for funding in 2021 are now being accepted. To read more and to submit pre-proposals, click here. Grant applications are due by October 6, 2020.

USDA details CFAP 2 Aid

USDA has released details on the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program 2 (CFAP2). Payments will be based on 2020 planted acres of the crop, excluding prevented plant acres. Payments for sunflower will be the greater of: 1) the eligible acres multiplied by a payment rate of $15 per acre; or 2) the eligible acres multiplied by a nationwide crop marketing percentage, multiplied by a crop-specific payment rate, and then by the producer’s weighted 2020 Actual Production History (APH) approved yield. If the APH is not available, 85 percent of the 2019 Agriculture Risk Coverage-County Option (ARC-CO) benchmark yield for that crop will be used. Marketing percentage and payment rate for sunflowers are 44% and $0.02 per pound. Signup will begin September 21st and run through December 11, 2020. Click here for more information.

Markets

Seed prices started moving higher at the crush plants last week increasing 25 to 40 cents for NuSun and high oleics. Bird food prices remain within range of market highs in the Dakotas. The weather forecast for the next two weeks is predicting above normal temperatures and drier than normal moisture conditions in the sunflower growing region. This bodes well for crop dry down and an earlier than normal start to harvest. Harvest could be just days away in some locations of North and South Dakota after a hard freeze this month ended the growing season. Most likely harvest will not start in earnest until early October. Getting the crop harvested several weeks early can result in lower drying costs, plus reduces late season crop and blackbird damage. Harvest continues to move along in Texas and is ahead of the five-year average. In the coming weeks, several USDA reports will give producers and industry a better picture of sunflower fundamentals heading into the 2020/21 marketing year. On September 30, USDA will report old crop sunflower stocks and on October 9 USDA will give its first estimate of 2020 US harvested sunflower acres and production. Traders will be eager to see how USDA factors in any potential effect of the freeze into the production numbers. These reports along with actual harvest reports will set the tone for new crop sunflower price direction in the near term.