Sunflower Highlights
Post Date: Oct 16 2023
Crop Progress - Monday, October 16, 2023
State This Week Last Week Last Year 5 Year Average
North Dakota        
Mature 87 78 91 90
Harvested 7 2 24 20
South Dakota        
Mature 81 64 -- --
Harvested 10 3 16 16
Minnesota        
Harvested 36 17 23 28
Texas        
Harvested 87 80 88 77
Kansas        
Harvested 58 37 29 27
Colorado        
Harvested 34 16 19 31
Crop Conditions - Monday, October 16, 2023
State Timeframe Very Poor Poor Fair Good Excellent
North Dakota This week 0 5 25 63 7
  Last week 5 7 27 56 5
Minnesota This week 0 5 40 54 1
  Last week 0 4 44 51 1
Colorado This week 0 2 29 64 5
  Last week 0 2 20 75 3
South Dakota This week 1 3 46 47 3
  Last week 4 5 42 46 3
Grower Report
Onida, South Dakota grower Chuck Todd has not started harvesting sunflower yet himself but his neighbors have. They have had good harvesting weather with temperatures in the 70’s. Rain looks to headed their way which will halt harvesting. He thinks his sunflowers look good. He is seeing holes in the seed due to the red seed weevil but he won’t know how deep they got until he starts harvesting.
Markets
Nearby prices at the crush plants were down 25 to 50 cents this week. About 15% of sunflowers were in the bin as of last week, up from 7% seven days earlier and slightly behind the five-year average for this time of year. In the past week, producers harvested an additional 86,525 acres pushing 2023 harvested acres to about 176,000 acres. Harvest progress remains slightly behind last year at this same time. Last week USDA pegged 2023 sunflower production at 2.19 billion pounds, down 22 percent from the revised 2022 production of 2.81 billion pounds. USDA cut 1.77 million pounds from 2022 oil sunflower production but added 455,000 pounds to non-oil type production from last year. Acreage updates were made in several states. Area planted, at 1.32 million acres, is down 2 percent from the June estimate and down 22 percent from last year. Sunflower growers expect to harvest 1.26 million acres, down 2 percent from the June forecast and down 21 percent from 2022. The overall average yield for all sunflower types is forecast at 1,738 pounds per acre, is only 13 pounds lower than last year’s yield and will be the third highest on record for the U.S., if realized.  The forecasted production in North Dakota would make it the leading sunflower producing state this year at 1.08 billion pounds, a decrease of 20 percent from 2022. The next estimates will be released in early January.
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