An agricultural commodity brokerage and analysis firm releases its annual acreage survey results. Analysis implies United States growers intend to plant more soybeans than corn in 2018.
Allendale’s Annual Acreage Survey sets corn planting intentions at 88.514 million acres, down 1.653 million acres from 2017. Rich Nelson, Allendale chief economist, says if realized, this would be the smallest number of acres planted in three years.
?For corn. we?re expecting a 88.514 million acre planting,? Nelson said. ?In this case, that would be down from last year by 1.65 million acres. A little less corn than the trade has been talking about in recent weeks.?
Allendale estimates corn production at 174 bushels per acre, or 15.4 billion bushels in total. The estimate implies a production decrease of 459 million bushels from 2017.
The Acreage Survey sets soybean planting intentions at 92.104 million acres, up 1.962 million acres from 2017. Nelson says this would establish a new planting record.
?As far as soybeans, we?re looking for maybe a little higher number than most people have been discussing, 92.10 million acres,? Nelson said. ?This actually would be almost 2 million acres over last year, and this is going to be a brand new record planting for soybeans.?
Allendale estimates soybean production at 48.5 bushels per acre, or 4.46 billion bushels in total. The estimate implies and a moderate production decrease, down 63 million bushels from 2017.
Growers from 27 states made planting decisions based off crop rotation and economics. Nelson says most farmers will stick with a general crop rotation. However, he did not a slight change in those persuaded by economics.
?Most of our survey respondents suggested they were going to stay with a general rotation,? Nelson said. ?Some producers told us about maybe moving to all soybeans or ? soybeans. Those producers certainly pushed the balance. Overall it looks to be a moderate change in terms of the next year.?
