Informa Acreage Forecast

24 Jan 2017

By Chris Clayton
DTN Ag Policy Editor

OMAHA (DTN) -- U.S. farmers will boost soybean acres by 5.2 million acres this spring, while dialing back on corn planting by 3.5 million acres, according to a survey released Tuesday by Informa Economics EIG of prospective crop planting projects.

Informa's projection comes a month before USDA's Outlook Forum on Feb. 23-24 that also offers an initial forecast from USDA on planting intentions. USDA also releases a more detailed Prospective Plantings report on March 31.

CORN

Corn planted acres are pegged by Informa at just under 90.5 million acres, down from 94 million acres in 2016. That would be a 3.7% decline in corn acres.

With a yield assumption of 170.4 bushels per acre, Informa pegs corn production for the 2017-18 marketing year at 14.2 billion bushels. If realized, that would be 978 million bushels below 2016's record harvest.

DTN Senior Analyst Darin Newsom noted, "There is some chatter that 90.5 million acres of corn may not be enough if national average yield dips below 170 bpa. However, we need to remember that 2016-2017 ending stocks near 2.4 bb become the 2017-2018 beginning stocks, giving some wiggle room for the 2017 crop."

SOYBEANS

Soybean planted acres under the survey are projected at 88.6 million acres, up from 83.4 million acres in 2016. That would be a 6.2% bump in soybean acreage.

Despite the bump in acres, Informa uses a soybean yield assumption of 47.2 bpa, which is 4.9 bushels below the 2016 record yield of 52.1 bpa. If that plays out, then 2017 soybean production would be 4.2 bb, which is 153 mb lower than 2016's record production.

Newsom added that the key for both crops remains the demand for the 2016-17 crops. If DTN is right, then the 2016-17 ending stocks for soybeans will come in near 170 mb.

OTHER PROJECTIONS

Spring wheat acres are projected at 11.2 million acres, down 391,000 acres from 2016. Durum wheat acres would be 2.165 million acres, down 355,000 from a year ago.

Upland cotton acres are pegged by Informa at 10.5 million acres this spring, up from 9.88 million acres last year, or a 6.7% increase.

Grain sorghum planting is pegged at 6.35 million acres, down from 6.69 million acres from 2016.

Chris Clayton can be reached at Chris.Clayton@dtn.com

Follow him on Twitter @ChrisClaytonDTN

(AG/ES)