The weekly US crop progress report is out. The numbers are good, soybean and corn sowing is progressing very quickly, beans 18% in, and corn 24% sown. 15% of the cotton crop is also in the ground. Sorghum sowing is estimated at 21% complete just ahead of the 5 year average of 19% for this time of year. Texas has about 67% of their sorghum crop sown.
Spring wheat is 30% sown, much better then the 21% average, spring wheat emergence is at 5%. Winter wheat is rated at 49% G/E, 4pts better than last weeks rating thanks to some nice rainfall. About 27% of the US winter wheat is now in head, Kansas is about 29% headed. The dry start to spring across Kansas appears to have pushed heads out much quicker than the 10% average for Kansas this time of year.
A cold change in Kansas now could do some serious damage. That is not something that is in the forecast though, if anything it’s starting to look a little warm with mornings into double digits across the entire HRWW belt.
The US continues to make good wheat export sales, weekly data again strong at 647kt, well above the highest trade estimate prior to the reports release.

Russia saw the mercury fall to 0 to -3 across much of the central wheat regions west of the Volga Valley, and north of Ukraine yesterday morning. Conditions may become colder again overnight. We should know by the end of the week if frosts have done any damage, but looking at the maps one might think the impact will be minimal. Conditions across the Russian spring wheat regions continues to be very good.

I remember listening to a speech on the correlation between gold and wheat one day. We could only wish that was the case at the moment. Gold continues to move higher as wheat continues to push lower, that relationship is well in truly out the window this year.