Sunflower Highlights

Post Date: May 21 2018

Crop Progress - Monday, May 21, 2018

State	This Week	Last Week	Last Year	5 Year Average
North Dakota
Planted	12	2	28	20
South Dakota
Planted	13	0	10	6
Kansas
Planted	7	2	2	2
Colorado
Planted	1	0	4	4
*Texas*
Planted	34	25	50	45

Grower Report

Among those North Dakota acres already planted are Bismarck, ND producer Clark Coleman’s sunflower fields. Coleman finished seeding 950 acres of high oleic sunflower on May 15, just in timely for nearly an inch of rain last week.

Register now for the 2018 NSA Summer Seminar for just $300. Registration will increase to $350 on June 3, 2018, so register early and save. Registration at the door will be $400. This year’s Summer Seminar will be held June 26-28, 2018 at the Arrowwood Resort in Alexandria, Minnesota. Click here to register on our website. You’ll find our tentative schedule there too, as well as hotel information and more. A block of rooms has been reserved there for June 25-28. There’s a link on our website, under “Hotel Information” to make your reservation. The room block will be released May 25, 2018 but may fill up much faster so don’t wait! The program is being finalized now and more information will be coming soon. Check the NSA website for further updates. Contact Tina Mittelsteadt at tinam@sunflowernsa.com with any questions.

Markets

Old crop prices ended the week unchanged to up 10 cents. Sunflower prices have maintained a positive trend in comparison to last year at this same time. Nearby prices for oil-type sunflower are up about 20 percent from a year ago. Last year at this same time, ample supplies, strong deliveries by producers and a large old crop inventory kept the pipeline full at the crush plants keeping a lid on prices. That’s not the case this year as a smaller 2017 crop coupled with smaller beginning stocks has the industry using up stocks to meet demand. New crop prices are also significantly higher. Last year at this same time new crop NuSun prices were in a range of $14.90-$16.65 with high oleics at $16.90-$17.00. Looking at current new crop prices this represents an increase of $2.05-$2.80 for NuSun prices and $1.75-$1.95 for high oleics versus last year. This positive price trend should continue through the rest of the 2017/18 marketing year. Talk at the CBoT continues to be dominated by headlines regarding US/China trade tensions. Chinese buyers canceled more orders for US soybeans last week; at the same time, farmers in China are being encouraged to plant more soybeans. This is creating extreme volatility in the market and is dragging down soybean prices on the CBoT. China, weather and planting progress will remain the biggest short-term question marks for traders.