Registration is now open for our 2026 NSA Summer Seminar, scheduled for June 23-25, 2026. This year’s Summer Seminar will be held in Deadwood, South Dakota. You can register on our website – go to 2026 NSA Summer Seminar You’ll find our tentative schedule too, as well as hotel information and more. Pre-registration will begin at $375 and golf at $140, so register early for the best price. A block of rooms has been reserved at The Lodge under the “National Sunflower Association Conference." To reserve your room, call 605-584-4800.  The rate is $169.00 per night plus taxes for a King, Queen, King Accessible, or Queen Accessible or $199.00 per night plus taxes for a King Balcony or Queen Deluxe.  The block will expire on May 23, 2026, and regular rates will apply.  Contact Tina Mittelsteadt at tinam@sunflowernsa.com with questions.

With another production season upon us, we at the National Sunflower Association likewise have begun planning for the next publishing season of 'The Sunflower' magazine.  As always, our goal with the magazine is to provide news and articles of real interest and use to our readership which consists mainly of sunflower producers around the U.S. and Canada.  Our goal, of course, is to provide information that our readers won't find elsewhere. Would you please aid us in this endeavor; over the coming weeks and months, by suggesting potential topics or persons to interview for articles?  We rely upon folks such as yourself for story 'leads' and would be grateful for any suggestions you can pass along.  Submit your ideas to: johns@sunflowernsa.com  Thanks very much for helping us to keep 'The Sunflower' out-front in providing timely, interesting - and useful - information for its thousands of readers.

Nearby sunflower prices continue to trade above the 60-day moving average price at the crush plants. Last week nearby prices were down 20 cents to unchanged with new crop unchanged to up 25 cents at the crush plants. If you are concerned about the weather impacting yields, plants are still offering Act of God (AOG) new crop contracts for fall delivery.  On the CBoT, traders are on the lookout for fresh headlines regarding the Iran-U.S. war. This will likely keep risk premium heightened across grain markets, though a continued brisk planting pace may limit upside. Soyoil futures have led the soy complex higher as speculators bought actively in anticipation of greater biofuels demand. However the managed money net long in soyoil futures has swelled to a record, which could leave the soy complex vulnerable to a profit-taking selloff. U.S. farmers also face stiff competition from cheaper South American supplies, with Brazil having mostly wrapped up what’s believed to be a record harvest. StoneX boosted its estimate for Brazil’s 2026 soybean crop by 1.96 MMT, or 1.1%, to 181.62 MMT (6.67 billion bushels). USDA, by comparison, forecasts the Brazil harvest at a 180 MMT, up 4.3% from 2025 and a record for the third year in the past four. This week USDA will release the World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) report for May, which includes the first detailed forecast for 2026-27 production of corn, wheat and soybeans. WASDE news, weather and planting progress will be the main price determining factors in the week ahead.

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