News
Unclear planting window creates market uncertainty
A market analyst says recent rains have delayed U.S. corn and soybean planting progress more than expected.
Naomi Blohm with Total Farm Marketing tells Brownfield it’s unclear how wide of a planting window is ahead.
“We’re not ahead of schedule. There’s rain on the radar. There’s more rain coming. The places that are wet are staying wet and are slower to dry out. It’s going to keep the pace for planting lower than normal and that means we keep weather premium in the markets for now.”
Blohm says it’s a weather market right now and traders will pay close attention to what happens in the next week.
“The market always likes corn and beans to be about 50% planted from Mother’s Day weekend. If we’re not 50% planted by then, that’s when we start to think about down the road how that can take perfect, ideal or record yields off the table. The later the crop gets planted, the more it takes away.”
As of Sunday, USDA says 36% of U.S. corn is planted, compared to 42% a year ago while 12% has emerged. And 25% of U.S. soybeans have been planted, compared to 30% last year, with 9% emerged.
She says the next pieces of market moving information will come from the May USDA Supply and Demand report, released later this week and next week’s crop progress report from USDA.
