The great majority of the US corn crop looks set to be planted after the May 10 date when sowings are seen attracting a yield penalty although many commentators are sanguine over the threat.
US farmers had sown 12% of corn by Sunday, compared with an average of 47% by now, thanks to the persistent rains which have slowed plantings, and cold which has delayed crop development and persuaded some farmers to hold off seedings for now, US Department of Agriculture data showed.
In Iowa, the top corn-growing state - where plantings were 8% complete, compared with an average of 56%, some growers - "delayed planting early in the week due to the forecasted snow and cold temperatures", with the state indeed receiving snowfall which "smashed all previous records", USDA scouts said.
In second-ranked Illinois, "most farmers were limited in what they could accomplish due to saturated soils during the week with even more rains falling late in the week to bring all fieldwork to a standstill again", scouts said.
"Just as floodwaters were receding an additional 3-4 inches were received in some locations."
Yield penalty
The weak pace of plantings, the slowest since 1984, has left farmers looking at having a proportion of crop in the ground by May 10 well below the average of approaching 60%.
While there is some talk of seedings reaching 40% by Sunday, May 12, "based on last week's pace, and talk of some showers mid-to-late this week, producer will have to be running near 24/7 to reach such planting pace", Kim Rugel at broker Benson Quinn Commodities said.
May 10 is viewed by many commentators as the cut-off date after which sowings have less yield potential, although with the US covering a broad geography, some other dates are used, including May 15.
The yield potential is seen, broadly, as reducing 1 bushel per acre per day after the closing of the ideal sowing window, although some observers use refinements.
A common one is a 0.5 bushel-per-acre drop per day in yield potential up to May 20, a 1.0 bushel-per-acre penalty per day up to the end of the month, with prospects falling 1.5 bushels per acre per day thereafter.
'Corn price fall exaggerated'
Indeed, the latest corn planting data were viewed as bullish by Commerzbank, which said "it looks virtually impossible for farmers to catch up the delay entirely by mid-May, when the window for corn planting closes".
A drop of some 3% in Chicago futures on Monday, on hopes for improved sowings progress, appears, "exaggerated", the bank said.
At Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Luke Mathews said that sowing progress remaining "well behind" the average pace "should ensure production concerns remain a feature of the corn market over the next week or so".
Time for catch-up?
However, the prospect of an improved seeding window next week has boosted hopes of farmers being able to play catch-up on seedings without sustaining too much penalty.
Richard Feltes at RJ O'Brien, the Chicago-based broker, cautioned investors against taking the slow pace of sowing last week as bullish, saying that "the market is well aware of the slow pace, in addition to knowing that the US can plant 7-8% of its corn area a day when the weather opens up".
The record for US corn plantings, in terms of percentage of intended area sown in one week, was 43% in the week beginning May 3 1992, according to Mark Welch at Texas A&M University.
Furthermore, the crop, initially pencilled in by the USDA at a record high of more than 14bn bushels, is seen as having a large margin for disappointment, with the department in its monthly Wasde report on Friday, giving first full forecasts for 2013-14, expected to show inventories doubling to 1.39bn bushels over the season.
