CNS Canada — While many Canadian crops are wishing for more rain right now, one expert sees sunflowers, primarily grown in Manitoba, doing relatively fine for moisture.
“There’s no weather worries on sunflowers right now. A lot of the acres went in because it was forecasted to be a very dry summer, but it hasn’t turned out that way yet,” said Ben Friesen, purchasing manager for Legumex Walker in Winnipeg.
“If they didn’t get any more rain, they’re probably good,” he said.
However, he cautioned, this could change if heavy rains emerge in August.
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“If August turns out really wet then we get concerned because of diseases and stuff,” he said, “but the crop out there right now is growing nice.”
This year’s crop stands to be in the 100,000- to 125,000-acre range and, at this point, looks like it will be slightly larger than last year’s, he added.
Market-wise, Friesen said, supplies of old-crop sunflowers, particularly confections, are moving slowly.
“They’re just carrying on at a slower pace at the moment, probably due to Ramadan and some of the things going on in the Middle East (that have) slowed down shipping.”
According to Friesen, confection seeds have been sitting around 28 cents per pound for quite some time.
Black oil sunflower seeds were 27-28 cents per pound for old-crop supplies, he said, while new-crop supplies were back down to 20 cents per pound.
“The bird food (market) is going fairly strong even though shipments are a bit slower,” he said.
— Dave Sims writes for Commodity News Service Canada, a Winnipeg company specializing in grain and commodity market reporting.
