Question: I've been running some numbers in regards to planting acreage and I'm missing 5888 million acres.

When I add up all the possible acres planted in 2006 and compare it to all the possible acres in 2007 I'm missing 5.888 million acres. Since wheat and cotton seem to be stable in their planting acres and most people agree that corn acres have shot up is it not reasonable to think that soybeans took a hit in terms of acreage since soybeans and corn are generally planting in the same areas. I would just like to hear your opinion.

And yes as you may be thinking I am long in soybeans and short corn for this coming USDA report.

Enjoy your writing,
Rick

Answer: Rick,

I appreciate your insight on details concerning U.S. agricultural plantings. I'm not sure what you mean by missing 5888 million acres when the main U.S. row crop acres only total about 250 million. I presume you dropped a decimal for 5.888 million. If this is the case, I'm not sure that you have all the crops that are planting in the table that you are referencing. See this pdf document that has a table in the right that has the 2006 and this year's March & NARMS June acreage ideas. Overall, I'm expecting this year's overall acres to increase 5.1 million acres over 2006.

I can now hear you thinking, "How can this year's total acres be higher?" Don't producers plant all available? No, they don't.

If prices aren't profitable they might not plant 20-40 acres down by the creek or the 160 acres in Kansas that has poor soils, or they might decide to just pasture the land. When prices rally, they then decided to plant these so-so acres.

Also in some areas of the country, producers drop crop their land. They plant winter wheat on their land in the fall, harvest this crop in late spring or early summer, and then plant a second crop (normally soybeans) that will mature and be harvested before the farmer needs to seed the field back to wheat in the fall. So the price of soybeans and the weather for planting (even up to the current time) can influence the number of soybean plantings in the U.S. each year.

I hope this helps you understand the ebbs and flows that occur in U.S. plantings. Give a call if you need further clarifications.

Jerry Gidel
312-373-5271