A review of USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) recent planted acres report shows that winter wheat seeded area for 2009 is expected to total 42.1 million acres, down 9% from 2008.
NASS estimates hard red winter plantings at 30.2 million acres, down 4% from 2008; soft red winter plantings at about 8.29 million acres, down 26% from 2008; and white winter at about 3.62 million acres, up 1% from 2008.
NASS cited wet weather, delayed row-crop harvest and falling prices as reasons for the decline. Also, the latest World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) report projected U.S. wheat ending stocks for 2008-2009 would be up 32 million bushels due to lower projected domestic use for feed and residuals and seed.
The report’s range of the projected season-average farm price was reduced to $6.50-6.90/bu.
The full seedings report is accessible at: http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu.