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Sunflower Highlights

Post Date: Jul 21 2025

Crop Progress - Monday, July 21, 2025 State This Week Last Week Last Year 5 Year Average North Dakota         Blooming 10 6 5 7 South Dakota         Blooming 0 -- 2 -- Texas         Harvested 22 12 21 21

Crop Conditions - Monday, July 21, 2025 State Timeframe Very Poor Poor Fair Good Excellent North Dakota This week 0 3 31 62 4   Last week 0 2 25 65 8 Minnesota This week 0 3 12 81 4   Last week 0 1 8 88 3 Colorado This week 1 0 20 76 3   Last week 0 0 6 94 0 South Dakota This week NA NA NA NA NA   Last week NA NA NA NA NA

Scout for moths and red sunflower seed weevil

As sunflower fields begin to bloom, adults of red sunflower seed weevil (RSSW) will be emerging and will fly to the nearest flowering sunflowers. RSSW are small (2.5 to 3.1 mm long) with a snout and are reddish orange. It’s also time to scout for banded sunflower moth (BSM), Arthuri sunflower moth (ASM) and sunflower head moth (SHM). Once the decision to treat has been made, it is critical to time the spray application correctly to get effective management of all sunflower head insects, including RSSW, BSM, ASM, SHM and Lygus bug. The best sunflower plant stage to treat is when most plants are in the R5.1 growth stage. Visit www.sunflowernsa.com/growers/Insects/ to read more about scouting for insects and the best treatments. To see the insecticides registered in sunflower, visit https://www.ndsu.edu/agriculture/extension/publications/north-dakota-field-crop-insect-management-guide

Markets

Old crop sunflower prices were down 25 cents to unchanged with new crop prices unchanged at the crush plants this week. Traders are beginning to pay more attention to the Black Sea region as an extended period of above normal temperatures and below normal precipitation is a growing concern to sunflower production in the region. Recently, reports noted that there is risk for some crop damage if much needed moisture is not received in the coming weeks. The situation bears watching as Russia and Ukraine are the largest producers of seed and exporters of sunflower oil. The potential reduced availability of sunflower seed and oil production poses risks for global markets and prices will be responsive to potential production shortfalls. Last week, USDA issued its initial outlook for 2025 sunflower production and usage for the 2025/26 marketing year. Oil-type sunflower harvested acreage is expected to be 49% higher and non-oil sunflower harvested acres 6% lower than last year. Given the higher oil-type acreage, sunflower seed crush was increased by 64 million pounds to 758 million pounds on higher 2025 production. The other use category (nonoil use and residual) was increased by 145 million pounds to 1.9 billion pounds. Ending stocks are forecast to rise to 254 million pounds, a 26% increase from MY 2024/25 but well below the five-year average. USDA will provide their updated yield and production estimates for sunflowers in October.

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