As I write this April 29, the long-range forecast is for mostly sunny and warm weather for most of the Prairies. I hope it is correct.
We might avoid a repeat of 2010 and 2011 if rain and snow hold off in May.
In those two years, a wet May compounded the excess moisture problems presented by a heavy snow pack.
April was drier than normal in much of the northern grain belt and Manitoba this year, so farmers might be able to make quick progress once the snow is gone.
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However, it has also been a wet spring in the U.S. Midwest, with a lot of the area receiving 150 to 200 percent of normal precipitation in April. This has delayed seeding.
The shift over the weekend of April 27-28 to a wetter outlook for this week caused the corn market to catch fire April 29.
Thirty-one percent of the U.S. corn crop is normally in the ground by the last few days of April, and about 37 percent of spring wheat is seeded.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture reported that only five percent of the corn crop and 12 percent of spring wheat were in the ground as of April 28.
The last time there was a similar slow seeding pace was 1993, when the great Mississippi flood occurred, one of the worst to ever hit the United States.
Corn yields that year were the worst of the 1990s, down 23 percent from the previous year and down 16 percent from the previous three-year average. Also, corn harvested acreage fell 13 percent from the previous year.
It was also a challenging year for prairie production, with cool and wet summer delaying maturity. In September, frost hit the still immature crop, knocking down grades.
Luckily for American Midwest farmers, 1993 is not a perfect analogy for 2013.
This year’s extra moisture fell on land that had suffered drought last year, while in 1993 the soil was already saturated from a rainy autumn and heavy snow pack, and the water ran off into creeks and rivers, leading to the Mississippi flood.
The market impact of that flood was reduced because of a huge carry-in of corn from the previous bumper crop.
This year, the carry-in will be tight, leaving little room for production problems.
If May turns out to be wet, all those predictions of a huge U.S. crop weighing down the price of all grain will have to be reassessed.
Another factor to keep an eye on is the recent turn to dry weather in Ukraine and parts of Russia
Meanwhile, wheat analysts participated this week in the U.S. Wheat Quality Council’s annual hard red wheat tour.
They are expected to release a production forecast by May 2. Hot weather early in the week might have made the freeze and drought damage more apparent.
We’ll cover the results at Producer.com.
We also update market happenings continually on Twitter@darcemcmillan.
