Fundamentally Speaking

Mid-May Corn Plantings vs. Acreage Change

Joel Karlin
By  Joel Karlin , DTN Contributing Analyst

The next major USDA reports will be on January 12 when the final 2014 crop production figures will be released as will the quarterly grain stocks report as of December 1.

Hence, the supply-demand report also furnished that day will incorporate that stocks data while the first USDA estimate of 2015 U.S. winter wheat seedings will also be released.

If history is any guide, these will be a market moving set of numbers but even before then the Farm Services Agency (FSA) will release another planting update with the latest data crop insurance companies have furnished and given the fact that NASS and FSA acreage data differs by over 2.0 million acres for corn we could see some buying on ideas that FSA data release will imply NASS will reduce 2014 corn planted acreage in the final crop report.

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This graphic shows the percent of the U.S. corn crop planted by May 15 vs. the percent change in U.S. corn planted area from the August to the January crop report.

This year 62% of the U.S. corn crop was planted by May 15 and that is the third lowest percent since 1996 and below the ten year average of 75%.

Note that last year only 46% of the 2013 crop had been seeded by May 15 which contributed to a 2.014 million acre or 2.1% decline in planted acreage from the August to the January crop report.

This year the USDA in its prospective plantings report issued at the end of March indicated U.S. farmers seeding 91.691 million acres of corn and that only declined by 50,000 in the end of June Acreage report.

The first of the FSA data was incorporated in the October crop report and that showed seedings at 90.885 million, down 756,000 from the June numbers.

The graphic shows that on average acreage declines by 0.5% from the August to the January report and that project to 91.183 million but the official USDA number is already below that point so we feel any acreage changes will be minimal next month.

(KA)

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Freeport IL
12/12/2014 | 10:54 AM CST
A look head to 2014-15 corn planted aces. Playing with current option values and past price relationship, it appears the market is expecting something like 2 million less corn planted acres next spring. The numbers seem to indicate each million acre change in planted corn acres might equal something like a $0.15 change in the CME price. If these projection are any indication of a future price-supply relationship, concerns of production dropping weather or a major corn/soybean acreage battle will be needed the see the high $4 mark at the CME for December futures. Freeport, IL