Wheat farmers planted the smallest amount of winter wheat in five years and 5 percent less than last year, said the government, based on a survey of growers in early December. Winter wheat is planted in the fall, lies dormant during the winter and sprouts in the spring for harvest in early summer. The total of 40.2452 million acres was far below trade expectations and also was the second-smallest figure in a decade.
The Winter Wheat Seedings report is the first USDA look at this year’s crops that is based on data from growers and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.6 percent.
It suggests a winter wheat harvest of 1.4 billion bushels, in line with last year’s drought-hit crop but 6 percent smaller than the three-year average. The overall wheat crop could be 2.1 billion bushels, 2 percent smaller than average.
Economist Darrel Good of U-Illinois said “the nearly two million acre reduction in winter wheat seedings may point to another large increase in soybean acreage in 2015.”
Growers in the three largest-producing states – Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas, the heart of hard red winter wheat – reduced plantings by a combined 500,000 acres or 3 percent. Plantings in Illinois and Missouri, two soft red winter wheat states, fell by a total of 440,000 acres, or a quarter of their 2014 tally. AgriMoney said low market prices discouraged wheat plantings throughout the Wheat Belt and a late-running corn and soybean harvest precluded sowing winter wheat in the Midwest. The downturn in sowings indicates a smaller-than-expected crop, it said.
In its monthly WASDE report, USDA said the 2014 corn crop was 1percent smaller and the soybean crop was marginally larger than its previous forecasts. Both are record large. USDA raised its forecast of the average farm-gate price for the 2014 harvest – wheat up by 10 cents, to $6.10 a bushel; corn up 15 cents, to $$3.65 a bushel; and soybeans up 20 cents, to $10.20 a bushel. Nonetheless, they would be the lowest season-average corn and soybeans in five years. Wheat would be lowest in three years.
USDA projects a comparatively low prices for corn, wheat and soybeans, the three most widely grown U.S. crops, for several years to come. The crops set record high prices during the 2012 drought.