According to survey work done by newswire services, both corn and soybean plantings will be substantially higher this spring than a year earlier. USDA is scheduled to release its first survey-based acreage estimates of the year next Wednesday morning.
The average pre-report estimate for corn acreage is close to 89.2 million acres, which would be a 2.7-million-acre increase from 2009. Soybean plantings are expected to be up nearly a million acres, which would put that total just below 78.5 million acres.
An increase in plantings of both major crops is possible because winter wheat acreage has been pegged at down 6.2 million acres. In fact, cotton plantings could also be up this year by as much as 1.5 million acres.
Editor’s note: Richard Brock, Corn & Soybean Digest's marketing editor, is president of Brock Associates, a farm market advisory firm, and publisher of The Brock Report.