It’s All Eyes to the Sky as Weather Dominates

Greetings from lovely Portland, Maine, USA, where I am visiting 5m’s sister company, Fish Vet Group.

While I’m not in the Midwest at the moment, I was over the last week and weekend and Mother Nature left many scratching our head.

For northern Illinois, it was a mostly sunny weekend with highs in the 70s F / 20s C. However, parts of Iowa and the western Midwest were dealing with up to 6 inches of snow. Yes, it’s May. And I just said snow.

Without a doubt the late-season snow, rain and cool temperatures slowed corn planting last week in many parts of the Corn Belt. USDA’s Crop Progress report released Monday afternoon showed the critical “I” states increased nominally over last week with Illinois up to 7 per cent planted from 1 per cent last week, and Iowa and Indiana were up to 8 per cent planted from 2 and 1 per cent respectfully.

Missouri was up to 22 per cent planted, and Nebraska was starting to show some momentum at 14 per cent planted.

Overall, the top 18 states showed 12 per cent planted versus last week at 5 per cent planted.

All that said, traders are now looking to the future and forecasts for drier and warmer weather have many thinking that significant corn acres could get planted this week. It will be a critical week for corn planting as we hit the critical May 10 planting date. From a soybean perspective, analysts are optimisitic that corn will get in the ground soon and there will be limited acres switched over to soybeans. 

On a more personal note: To those who are headed to the field, I know there is a rushed sense to get the seed into the ground, but please be safe.

Have a great week!