Sunflower markets

Old crop NuSun and high oleic prices were unchanged to down $0.10 at the crush plants. New crop prices were unchanged to down $0.25 as producers stepped up the pace to lock in prices for 2020 crop deliveries. Despite the recent softening in 2020 new crop prices, they continue to be higher than a year ago at this same time with oil crushers still offering Act of God and cash contracts.

The seemingly never-ending harvest of the 2019 sunflower crop is finally coming to a close. In the past three months, producers harvested an additional 200,000 acres pushing the harvested area to about 1,170,750 acres. This represents 96% of last year’s projected harvested acres leaving approximately 50,000 acres to be harvested this month in the Dakotas and Minnesota before spring planting begins.

The trade’s reaction to USDA’s April US/World supply and demand report was mixed last week. USDA pegged the U.S. 2019-2020 corn ending stocks at 2.092 billion bushels versus the trade’s expectations of 2.00 billion and the USDA’s March estimate of 1.89 billion. For soybeans, the USDA estimates US 2019/2020 ending stocks at 480 million bushels versus its estimate of 425 million last month and the trade’s expectation of 430 million. Overall traders thought the report gave very little new information as coronavirus related adjustments reflected in the report were largely anticipated and provide few incentives for market participants to change their current market outlook.