Old and new crop sunflower prices were unchanged at the crush plants this week. Sunflower planting continues in all states and is ahead of the five-year averages in Colorado, Kansas, North Dakota and South Dakota. Minnesota and Texas are behind the five-year average planting pace. In the past week, producers made excellent progress and planted an additional 285,000 acres pushing 2026 planted acres to about 387,400 acres. This represents 29% of this year’s projected planted acres and is ahead of the five-year average of 17%. Last year at this same time 22% of total projected acres were planted. Drier and warmer than normal weather conditions are forecast for the Dakotas and Minnesota and should allow for good planting progress in the week ahead. According to USDA’s May Oil Crops Outlook report, U.S. production of sunflower seed in 2026/27 is expected to increase as acreage intentions are up 8%. The increase from MY 2025/26 is largely driven by oil type sunflower, whereas confection sunflower area remained relatively steady. Using a trend yield of 1,766 pounds per acre, U.S. sunflower seed production is forecast to rise to 2.4 billion pounds. Oil type sunflower production represents 2.2 billion pounds of this total, up 5% from MY 2024/25. Global sunflower production in 2026/27 is forecast to increase 13% from the previous year to 61.8 million metric tons.