With USDA weekly crop progress reports now up and running, Tuesdays will be at least half interesting again. With the cold weather once again pushing across the northern USA we see average temperatures dropping to as much as 10F to 15F below normal across the SRWW belt and much of the eastern spring wheat region too. This is in stark contrast to California where temperatures are trending as much as 10F above normal. Snow was recorded across parts of the PNW yesterday, the first time since 1936 for this late in April.
The cold weather has slowed the sowing of spring sown crops. Corn planting progress is at just 2% complete, Iowa just 1% sown. Being so early in the sowing window this is not a major concern at present.
The cold snap may be of a concern for wheat crops though. Temperatures across SE Kansas did get down to -4.5C, not quite down to the -7C needed to see considerable damage from stem frost. The weekly crop progress report also indicates that there is no wheat heading in Kansas yet. To the SE in Missouri though, 3% is in head. So there could be low lying fields showing some white heads in the weeks to come. Kansas does remain abnormally dry in the west, possible pushing crops to head quicker over the next couple of weeks.
Remember the big rally from ANZAC day after the big frost in Kansas in 1997, sure you do.
This date also brings up an important point, Kansas experienced a terrible wheat yield in 1996, just 31bu/ac (2.08t/ha). Around 3 million acres was abandoned in Kansas that year, around 25% of the area sown. An early freeze at sowing and a dry windy winter hurt establishment, sound familiar. Crop rating there in April fell apart, 52% of the crop rated poor to very poor by mid-April. The following year, 1997 was also decimated by frosts, a hard freeze occurring on April 12th and 13th. An ideal season after the freeze saw the 1997 crop recover to yield 3.09t/ha, futures prices fell steadily after May.