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February 8, 2010
SD DATE OF PLANTING RESEARCH
 Kathy Grady of South Dakota State University completed three years of planting date studies in South Dakota. The purpose of the research was to confirm that delaying sunflower planting dates will not increase Risk Management Agency (crop insurance) indemnities. There are two planting zones in South Dakota. The northern zone has a June 10 planting deadline while the southern zone has June 15 as a deadline. Some producers have found that later planting can enhance yield. Grady found that extending planting dates by 5 or 10 days in both zones did not significantly impact yield. Yields in the latest planting, over numerous locations, were all higher than the average T-yields.

| NSA AT MEXICAN CONFERENCE
 NSA will be a presenter and exhibitor at the U.S. Dry Bean Council International Convention February 11-14, 2010 in Mexico. The event will have attendees from Spain, United Kingdom, Italy, France, South East Asia, Japan, Haiti, and Dominican Republic in addition to Mexican and Central American countries. NSA will present information on consumer and trade promotion activities, growing regions, planted acres, and sunflower production in the USA. In Mexico, there is a growing trend toward using healthy ingredients such as sunflower kernel in bakery, candy and snack products making this a potential growth market for U.S. sunflower kernel exports. Mexico is now the eighth largest importer of U.S. kernels having been completely new to this product just a few years ago. SunOpta Sunflower, Red River Commodities, Northern Bag and Box Company and CalDak International LLC are NSA members that will also be attending the event.

| MEXICAN BAKING SEMINARS
 NSA will conduct the first of three baking seminars in Mexico on February 15. A renowned Mexican pastry chef will demonstrate the use sunflower kernel in bakery products. Attendees will be given recipe booklets on how to make breads, muffins, cookies and cakes using sunflower kernel. According to recent market research there is a definite trend in Mexico toward healthy ingredients in bakery products and sunflower products have a very healthy image among consumers. Mexico has evolved from a small importer of kernel to the eighth largest importer last year.

| MARKETS
 The world soybean crop gets bigger each week with excellent weather in South America. Early yields are above expectations. This is placing pressure on the U.S. soybean market. Soybean meal is taking the price hit as well while the oil portion of the market is least impacted. That, of course, is good news for high oil content seeds. But the Chicago Board of Trade soybean oil market needs some help from the Senate to pass the biodiesel tax credit. Without this legislation the Chicago market will disconnect from the petroleum market. To some degree that may have already started. Sunflower prices have remained relatively firm despite most commodity price declines. There are unconfirmed reports that additional U.S. crude sunflower oil sales have been made at the U.S. Gulf. If or when confirmed, this would increase the crush and reduce the amount of estimated carryover stocks of seed and oil at the end of this market year.

| DAILY MARKET NEWS
 For sunflower prices at various locations, refer to our Daily Market News page.

| | Weekly Prices Recorded on Monday, February 08, 2010 ($/CWT) | | Deliver | Last Year | Last Week | This Week | Change | | Chicago Oil | | Nearby | 33.40 | 36.19 | 37.95 | +1.76 | | Fargo, ND | | Linoleic Nearby | NB | NB | NB | ---- | | NuSun Feb | 13.50 | 13.35 | 13.65 | +.30 | | NuSun Mar | 13.70 | 13.55 | 13.75 | +.20 | | Enderlin, ND | | Linoleic Nearby | NB | NB | NB | ---- | | NuSun Feb | 13.50 | 13.35 | 13.65 | +.30 | | NuSun Mar | 13.70 | 13.35 | 13.75 | +.40 | | Red Wing, MN | | Linoleic Nearby | NB | NB | NB | ---- | | NuSun Feb | NB | NB | NB | ---- | | NuSun Mar | NB | NB | NB | ---- | | Goodland, KS | | Linoleic Nearby | 14.35 | NB | NB | ---- | | NuSun Feb | 14.85 | 14.15 | 14.55 | +.40 | | NuSun Mar | 15.00 | 13.90 | 14.30 | +.40 |
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