Back to Main US Wheat And Corn Find Extra Million Acres

• Published: 2009-07-01 20:36:42

  The USDA Planted Acreage report was released overnight and contained some unwelcome surprises to all but those short row crops. Both the corn and wheat acreages were at least a million acres above trade expectations, and were sharply down on futures overnight. Soybean acreage estimates were also high, but bean futures are somewhat tempered by the very tight carryover stocks.
  
  Wheat plantings were pegged at 59.775 million acres, up from the USDA's March estimate of 58.638 million. The highest trade expectations had been around 58.8 million. Moreover the spring wheat crop acreages were higher than first thought, despite difficult planting conditions.
  
  The situation for corn was far more bearish, as the USDA projected 2009 seeded acres at 87.035 million, a significant increase from the March estimate of 84.986 million acres. The highest trade expectations were around 86 million acres.
  
  The USDA Quarterly Stocks report, also released yesterday, revealed that corn stocks totalled 4.266 billion bushels as of June 1, higher than the market estimate of 4.190 billion and up from the total of 4.028 billion at the same time last year. This has put paid to any fears of a shortage of corn in 2009/10, and saw funds sell 8000 corn contracts in trade yesterday as the nearby contract tumbled 29 cents to 347USc/bu.
  
  Soybean planted area of 77.5 million acres is a record high and a 2% gain over 2008, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said in its annual acreage report. The USDA estimates harvested area at 76.5 million acres, up 3% from 2008. If realized, this would be the largest harvested acreage ever for soy, however this estimate was still below market estimates, given the firmness in the soybean price compared to other row crops.
  
  Without fresh demand or a significant weather event in wheat and corn/coarse grains, and with the Northern hemisphere harvest getting underway, there is likely to be continuing negative pressure on price as the effects of this report sink in.
  

  Tags: Feature Daily Article ,  Oilseeds ,  Coarse Grain ,  Wheat ,  Grain ,  Commodities , 

  

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