The grain markets are focused on planting progress — or the lack thereof.
July corn prices were up 16.5¢ and December corn prices were up 3¢ for the week ending April 14. July soybean prices were up 5¢ and November soybean prices were down 8¢. Wheat prices were up slightly to 18¢, depending on the contract.
Jerry Gulke, president of the Gulke Group, says the markets are building in weather premium as progress could see delays periodically especially in northern areas.
“This is the time of the year when you can’t afford a week’s delay going forward because this is not March 1 or March 15,” he says. “This is pretty much the end of April, and any delay takes us out into May.”
USDA’s latest planting progress report shows as of April 9, 3% of the nation’s corn crop was planted, which is up 1 percentage point from last week, last year and the five-year average.
The state-by-state breakdown shows:
- 61% of Texas’ corn is in the ground, 3 percentage points ahead of the five-year average
- 12% of North Carolina’s corn crop is planted, 2 points behind average
- 7% of the corn crop is Missouri is planted, 4 points ahead of the five-year average
- 6% of the crop in Kansas is in the ground, up 2 points from average
While some progress is being made, many key crop production areas are still facing cold, wet or even snow-covered fields.
“I was looking at 80-degree weather in northern Illinois, but it was too wet to do anything,” Gulke says.
However, he says, normally it is late or the end of April before he makes much planting progress on his Illinois farm.
In many parts of North Dakota, Gulke says, some farmers are predicting mid-May before they can make any major planting progress.
“The word I’m hearing from farmers up there is there’s going to be a lot of prevent plant in North Dakota especially in the Red River Valley area,” Gulke says. “They’ve still got snow on the ground in places, and if not, frost is not out yet.”
In the March 31 Prospective Plantings report, USDA projected North Dakota farmers to plant 3.75 million acres of corn, which is 27% more than 2022. For soybeans, the state is projected to hit 6.6 million acres — a 15% jump from last year. There was a lot of prevent planted acres last year.
“So, North Dakota is pretty key this year again because a swing of 1 million or 2 million acres one way or the other could really change things,” he says.
With all the weather worries, Gulke says the market may have found a price bottom.
“At worst, we go sideways for a while,” he says. “I think the lows are in for now, and we certainly have a line in the sand that if we go below this week’s low, then all bets are off. That would mean there’s something’s going on out there in the world that supersedes the supply and it’s more of a demand problem.”
Check the latest market prices in AgWeb’s Commodity Markets Center.
Jerry Gulke farms in Illinois and North Dakota. He is president of Gulke Group Advisory Services.
Learn more at GulkeGroup.com
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