 Good said that anticipating planted acreage of the two crops is
complicated by a number of factors. The first issue is the magnitude
of acreage available for planting of all spring crops. Some
additional cropland acreage has become available in 2013 due to less
acreage being enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program. That
acreage is reported at 27.04 million acres, 2.62 million less than
enrolled last year.
"How much of that reduction will be planted to crops in 2013 is
not known," Good said. "Winter wheat seedings reported by the USDA
in January were nearly 600,000 acres larger than seedings of a year
ago. The acreage of soft red winter wheat is up about 1.3 million
acres, while seedings of other classes of wheat were less than those
of a year earlier. Some of the increase in soft red winter wheat
acreage may be double-cropped with soybeans. The condition of the
hard red winter wheat crop going into dormancy this winter was
generally quite poor. While ratings have improved somewhat, the poor
condition suggests that more than the normal amount of that acreage
may be abandoned. Depending on moisture conditions going forward,
some abandoned acres may get replanted to other crops this spring,"
he said.
Additionally, the acreage of spring-planted crops will be
influenced by spring weather conditions and the magnitude of
prevented plantings, Good reported. Prevented planting acres totaled
only 1.24 million acres in 2012, after being quite large in 2009,
2010 and 2011. In those three years, prevented plantings were
reported at 4.18 million, 6.89 million and 9.62 million acres,
respectively. Prospects for prevented planting this year once again
focus on the northern Plains states, where snow cover suggests the
potential for spring flooding. An increase in prevented plantings
would presumably reduce the total acreage planted this spring. The
potential magnitude of that acreage will not be known for several
weeks.
The second issue surrounding acreage is the share of the total
available acreage that will be planted to individual crops. "In
general, it is believed that corn and soybeans will be very
competitive with cotton and rice acreage in the Delta and portions
of the Southeast," Good said. "As a result, corn and soybeans are
expected to garner a larger share of the acreage pie in those areas.
In the northern Plains states, the relevant competition will be
between spring wheat, corn, soybeans and other oilseed crops. The
outcome of that competition may be mostly a function of spring
weather," he said.
Taken together, the issues Good described suggest that total corn
and soybean acreage could be near the level of 2012. Early
expectations were for corn acreage to increase modestly and for
soybean acreage to be almost unchanged. Changing price relationships
and a more favorable spring price for soybeans for crop revenue
insurance may have altered those expectations slightly.
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Good said the USDA will report the results of the spring planting
survey in the Prospective Plantings report to be released on
Thursday. "Intentions for corn and soybean plantings equal to or
slightly larger than those of last year would not be a surprise,"
Good said. "Given that planting of those crops in the Corn Belt will
be later than last year’s planting, there is more opportunity for
actual plantings to deviate from intentions this year. Weather
conditions, planting progress and price relationships will be
monitored closely to judge potential changes," he said.
The later planting this season is also generating some further
discussion of yield potential, particularly for corn.
"As learned again last year, corn yields are mostly determined by
summer weather conditions," Good said. "However, agronomic research
clearly indicates that planting date, everything else being equal,
can have some influence on yield outcome. In particular, there is an
increasingly large yield penalty associated with corn planted late.
That same research suggests that maximum yield potential is
associated with corn planted in a fairly large window of time. For
much of the Midwest, that optimum planting window is from about
mid-April through early May, with increasingly large yield penalties
after mid-May.
"At this juncture, the potential for U.S. average corn and
soybean yields near trend value in 2013 are still in place," Good
concluded. "Still, the likelihood of some planting delays, along
with lingering drought conditions in western areas, provides the
basis for considerable yield uncertainty for corn in 2013. If these
conditions persist, new-crop corn futures could regain some of the
losses occurred since late 2012. For those with crop revenue
insurance, pricing opportunities for both corn and soybeans should
probably be judged in context of the spring crop insurance prices,
with prices well above those levels representing sales
opportunities," he said.
[Text from file received from the
University of Illinois College of Agricultural, Consumer and
Environmental Sciences]
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