Sunflower prices end the week unchanged

Sunflower prices at the crush plants ended the week unchanged. Birdfood prices continue to see little movement in either direction. Sunflower harvest continues to slowly move along in the U.S. Most states are trailing the five-year average harvest pace per U.S. Department of Agriculture. Wet and below normal cold weather has hampered harvest progress in the largest production area of the Dakotas and Minnesota. A week ago, producers harvested an additional 87,000 acres pushing 2018 harvested acres to almost 798,000 acres. This represents 70 percent of this year’s projected harvested acres and is behind the five-year average. Last year at this time 84 percent of the crop was harvested. Yields are being reported in the 1,500 to 2,800 pound range with some reports over 3,500 pounds. Seed quality remains generally very good. On the Chicago Board of Trade, traders are concerned about U.S. soybean export demand and a mostly favorable South America weather outlook. This has led to choppy trade on most days. With the USDA November production estimate in the market and harvest wrapping up in the Northern Hemisphere attention will continue to be more focused on demand news and to South America’s oilseed production prospects.For most commodities, producer selling will likely slow down given current pricing unless storage is an issue with the hope of a rally occurring later this year or early 2019.