USDA’s reports held some bullish surprises for old crop corn and soybeans but confirmed a big increase in corn and wheat acres for the 2023 season.
Farmers intend to plant an estimated at 92 million acres, which is up 3.4 million from the 88.58 million acres planted in 2022. USDA pegged soybean acres at 87.5 million acres up just 55,000 from a year ago. All wheat was projected at 49.85 million acres, which was above expectations and the 45.74 million seeded the prior season. Winter wheat came in at 37.5 million verses. 33.27 last season. Other spring wheat acres are projected at 10.6 million, a 265,000 drop but durum acres are expected to be up 140,000 to 1.78 million. And as expected USDA also confirmed lower cotton plantings by 2.5 million at 11.3 million versus last year’s 13.76-million-acre figure.
There were some surprises comes in the state-by-state breakdowns for planting intensions on corn and beans. Both corn futures and strong cash prices have incentivized more corn plantings this year, especially when you look at the state-by-state breakouts. Corn acreage is up or unchanged in 40 of the 48 estimating states. Increases ranged from 100,000 to 250,000 in the eastern corn belt, southeastern states are up 14% to 21% and the northwestern corn belt states are up from 150,000 to 800,000. While on soybeans most of the states in the eastern corn belt and southeast are down from 2% to 9%. Yet, in the northwest farmers intend to plant from 100,000 to as much as 850,000 additional acres in North Dakota.
Market analysts say prices and crop insurance guarantees on corn at $5.91 make corn more profitable, than soybeans. Jim McCormick of AgMarket.Net says, “I think the corn acres number came in there aggressively because that’s where the money is. When you talk to a lot of producers all fall, all winter long, all they saw are headlines that hey that is where I’m going to plant, and the money says to plant to corn so they did it.”
The biggest increase in corn planting intensions came in the northwestern corn belt where North Dakota was up 800,000 acres, Minnesota up 350,000 and South Dakota up 150,000. However, fields in the Dakotas and Minnesota are sitting under several inches to feet of snow, so the question is how much of this increased corn acres in these areas gets planted.
McCormick says, “But now the real debate I think when it’s all said and done, Michelle, is you know, these are the assumptions people gave us on the early weeks of march, but the reality is gains change dramatically weather-wise. The Midwest is relatively wet. But more importantly, the Northern Plains continued to deal with a ton of snow and ah, you know, our clients up there aren’t talking, you know, will there be prevent plant, excuse me, it’s how many acres will be prevent planted.”
He says that also puts spring wheat and the additional durum acres in the Northern Plains at risk of not getting planted.
In fact, the increased wheat acres at 49.9 million came partially from the increase in durum acres, plus winter wheat acres were also increased by over a half million from USDA’s January small grain seedings report. However, McCormick thinks a portion of the hard red winter wheat acres will also be abandoned, so the wheat numbers on the June 30 report will be much lower than this.
Quarterly grains stocks were the bullish surprise coming in at 1.685 billion bushels for soybeans which was below expectations and down 247 million from last year. Corn stocks were also bullish at 7.4 billion bushels, down 357 million from 2022 and the lowest since 2014. Quarterly wheat stocks pegged at 946 million, which compares to 1.029 billion last year, but above estimates.
