Highlights
Markets are closed for Good Friday
Yesterday morning USDA reported sales of: 680,000 mts of old crop corn to China 340,000 mts of new crop corn to China
A year ago this month, the Canadian prairie soil moisture was about 25% less than normal. The rains to make-up the shortage never came. Thomas Elder Market (TEM) is an independent, data-driven market analysis service that provides premium agricultural market insights and reports.
TEM’s Andrew Whitelaw reported last evening,
This morning I pulled the soil moisture for Saskatchewan and three sub-regions. Saskatchewan and these regions are major producers of Canola. A quick glance at the soil moisture shows that the moisture levels are lower than last year. This doesn’t bode well for the crop, especially with an active La Nina. In this report, I have only included Saskatchewan, but this province contributes a huge percentage of the Canadian national crop across a number of commodities.
His data collected yesterday shows the top 5 feet of soil averages 25 to 26% less than normal moisture for this time of year, which is slightly drier than April a year ago. The Upper Midwest into Canada is predicted to receive about two feet (60 cm) of snow today. For Canada’s farmers, the further north the better.
Dry weather continues to plague China’s “worst winter wheat crop ever”. When China says something is in poor shape, it is much, much worse than that.
Meanwhile, the world leader of wheat exports, good weather continues to favor the winter crop and now the planting of spring cereals. By April first, Russia had already planted 3.86 million acres (1,563,000 hectares) of spring cereals, 4.3 times the area planted 1 April last year.
The ruble’s recent strength from 120 rubles per dollar to 70 rubles per dollar has increased the price of their export wheat 41% in the same length of time. After (probably) the largest March wheat exports ever, April will not be a good month for Russian wheat exports, which will be just fine for the consumers of Russia.
With the effects of La Niña still a major influence on world weather, Australia and India are looking forward to another record wheat crop this year. Those are the two countries with enough extra wheat to more than cover the shortage of old crop wheat exports from the Black Sea.
Ukraine’s effort to ship by rail export wheat and corn to ocean ports east has hit a snag for which there seems to be no solution at the present time until someone cuts the bureaucratic red tape. There are 1,100 train cars with Ukrainian grain stuck near the main rail border crossing into Poland. Ships are waiting to transport those grains abroad.
Philadelphia announced mandatory indoor masking as of April 18th.
For those of you wondering if corn prices are being supported by late planting potential, the past 15 years of market action does not show the market gets concerned about late planted corn until the middle of May and only then with a wet forecast for already wet soils. The best example was 2019, when a third of the corn was panted in late May and another third in June, the contract low was made on May 13th.
USDA said no US corn was planted last week in addition to the 2% planted the previous week. Spring wheat is 6% planted, up 3% last week. Cotton is 7% planted, up 3%. Sorghum is 14% planted, up 1%. The winter wheat condition improved 2% in the top two categories, but still only 32% good or excellent.
The Climate People updated the ENSO situation yesterday. Below is the chart of the Pacific Equatorial temperature deviation from normal. To learn all about ENSO, El Nino and La Nina, go to:
Export Inspections Update
Also below is the weekly Inspections for Export released late yesterday morning.
Market Data
This morning: Crude oil is at $96.56, up $2.27 The dollar index is at 100.09, up 0.16 July palm oil is at 5,932 MYR, up 124. The contract high was made March, 9th at 6,531 MYR. Palm oil owns 36% and soybean oil owns 28% world market share. December cotton is at $118.15, up $0.53 per cwt. The contract high was made yesterday at $118.29 per cwt. Cotton competes with soybeans and corn for acres. July natural gas is at $6.924, up 0.137. The contract high was made today at $6.982. Natural gas is the primary cost to manufacture nitrogen fertilizer. July ULSD is at $3.1170 per gallon, up 0.0414. The contract high was made March, 9th at $3.7675. ULSD stands for Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel.
Rain Days Update
The Western Corn Belt has 1 more rain days in the 10 day forecast than yesterday and the Eastern Corn Belt has 3 more rain days than yesterday.
