05/06/26 Afternoon CommStock Report – Planting Dates Matter! – Brazil Yields Suffer In El Niño years

While temperatures remain cool to start the month of May, fields have had time to dry out allowing planting pace to accelerate.  As stated previously, there is no significant precipitation seen north of I-80 this week.  Heavy precipitation is seen falling in Missouri, Southern Illinois and Southern Indiana and most of Ohio.  Next week precipitation comes back to Minnesota and North Dakota but leaves Iowa and Northern Illinois mostly dry again despite for small pockets of scattered showers.   We finished planting corn on our farm May 1st.  I suspect those growers in Western Iowa that got an early start will already begin finishing this week.  US Corn planting pace reached 38% through last week, 4% above its historical average.  Over half of the US corn crop will be planted by this weekend.  Soybean planting is 33% complete, 10% above its historical average.  If we keep this up, we might have to adjust for a higher bean yield.   Temperatures continue to be the limiting factor as they remain 4 to 6 degrees below their average for this week.  As we progress through the month, they should reach their trendline temperatures at least for the Western Corn Belt by May…