Listen to Ken’s report on the Stock and Acreage reports by clicking here.
USDA’s June 28 Stocks and Acreage reports shocked the grain trade.
In the longest wet spell since 1993, USDA said farmers planted 97.4 million acres of corn, almost 100 thousand acres more than the May estimate. Those figures were also a shock for Midwest farmers able to water ski across their fields.
Market analyst with AMS Commodities Rich Balvanz says there are two possibilities for the discrepancy.
Either the March intentions were too low, or people were able to follow through and plant most of the acres they intended to plant in spite of wet weather, and from here on forward, we’ll have to see how yield adjustments will be made to accomodate what we know are some real problem areas in parts of the Corn Belt.
The state-by-state corn acreage did not decrease in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, and dropped by only 200 acres in Iowa and by 300 acres in Minnesota. Nebraska, which saw good weather for planting and growing, saw its corn acreage increase by 300,000 acres.
Soybeans, at a record-smashing 77.7 million planted acres, gained 600,000 acres since May.
The stocks report showed 2.76 billion bushels of corn in storage on June 1, and 435 million bushels of soybeans. Those numbers suggest there will be supply left even though harvest in the major regions is expected to be a month later than normal this year.
