US corn plantings miss expectations after eking out small rise

The pace of US corn plantings continues to be dogged by bad weather, with progress showing just a one percentage point increase to 3% in the week ending April 15, data from the USDA revealed Monday.

The slow pace surprised market participants who had been anticipating progress would reach 5%.

At 3%, progress is half that seen at the same point of 2017 and two percentage points behind the five-year average, but the early stage of the harvest still leaves ample time to close the gap.

“The specs have gotten pounded the last three years trying to play the 'delayed planting game', only to see the US farmer seed half of his crop in a week and a half,” ED&F Man’s Charlie Sernatinger said in a market note.

Spring wheat plantings are similarly well behind last year’s progress and the five-year average, with six key states attaining 12% planting completion by April 15, 2017, versus 3% in the same week of 2018.

Winter wheat data showed another slip in quality terms, with the percentage of wheat in both the poor and very poor condition increasing one percentage point week-on-week to 22% and 15% respectively. 

That means the percentage in the poor category is twice as high as the prior year, with "very poor" five times higher.

Finally, the data also showed that the average number of days for field work continued to lag the same period of 2017, with Minnesota continuing to see no field work undertaken for the second consecutive week. 

Barley plantings completed an underwhelming data set revealing a familiar pattern as the five key states of Idaho, Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota and Washington saw progress reach 7%.

That’s half the progress seen in 2017 and a third of the progress seen versus the five year average.