This is the SFN Market Report with Brooks Schaffer of Palmetto Grain. Reach him at brooks@palmettograin.com or 843-540-4540.
Is the strait open or closed? Is the war back on or over? It depends which hour you happen to be watching the news. After the initial stages of the war killed so many of the leaders, there was concern if we or they would know who was in charge of the country, and that seems to be playing out. The political actors doing the negotiating may not have complete control over the ones who are doing the shooting. On Friday, everyone was sure the war was pretty much over, and crude oil dropped like a rock. At first, the grains followed crude oil lower but spent much of the day gathering strength and managed to pull out decent closes for the week in corn, wheat and soybeans. On Monday, when the strait was closed again and the status of talks was called into question, crude rallied back, which was at least not an anchor to the grains. U.S. Vice President JD Vance is heading to Pakistan for talks, but a spokesperson from Iran says they will not attend the talks. We have found Iranian spokespeople to be very unreliable, even more so recently than before the war. There are continued weather concerns in wheat from extreme dryness and then a frost threat over the weekend. The middle of the Corn Belt continues to get adequate moisture, but in the West and in the East we remain way too dry. The strength in wheat helped corn find buyers, and beans continue to price in very good domestic demand.
The forecast calls for much warmer conditions across the central U.S. as we move into the week. Midwest farmers will likely start picking up the pace in planting in the coming week before the rain returns late in the week for parts of the Eastern Belt. We should see the increased planting pace reflected in next week’s crop progress report. For this week, as of Sunday, USDA estimated 11% of the corn crop was planted, which was what the market expected. That advanced 6 points from last week and is the same amount planted last year this week. It is ahead of the five-year average of 9%. Soybean planting was estimated at 12%, which was also right on the money as to market expectations. That advanced 6 points from last week and compares to last year at 7% and the five-year average of 5%. Wheat conditions dropped 4 points from last week and were estimated at only 30% rated good/excellent. That was 3 points below market expectations and well below last year’s 45% and the five-year average of 41%. There are rains forecast in the 10-day period for some of the Plains, but the forecast has shown rain many times before that never materialized.