The Chicago company that was the standard bearer for corn and soybean bulls because of its lower corn and soybean production estimates last year is gearing up for a new round of forecasts for 2010.

As DTN is reporting today, the company, Lanworth, is still firm in its 2009 estimates, which remain about 800 million bushels below USDA's revised corn crop production total and about 275 m bu below USDA on soybeans. [See "Lanworth: Stocks Reports Key"]

DTN and Lanworth have had discussions about possible business partnerships but have no agreements at this point.

I asked Nick Kouchoukos, Lanworth VP-products, to talk about the company's expectations for 2010.

He said one possibility is that farmers will do what they did last year in terms of rotation.

"In our rotation database, we track the percentage of corn each year that is planted to corn, soybeans, wheat, other, and fallow. And we do the same for soybeans to corn, soybeans, wheat, other, and fallow. We then apply these frequencies to last year's acreage to project next year's acreage.

"Though we consider a repeat of last year's rotation practices unlikely across the board, the scenario is still worth considering because:

* There is some conservatism to rotation practices in the sense that there are historical limits on what can be successfully planted where; transitions are gradual so no matter what farmers do this year, there will be a trace of last year in it.

"* This spring may be another wet one and weather may ask of farmers what it did last year

"* Although the South American crop is a big one indeed, projected U.S. ending stocks are smaller this month, and the way Lanworth sees things they are going to get smaller still. Probably not in time to drive plantings, though."

A second possibility is that farmers will return to a more average pattern, and that would favor corn, and there'd be an increase in continuous corn acres, Kouchoukos told me.

He sees these two scenarios as the parameters, and with the markets in flux and the weather at play, it could be the truth may be between the two, with farmers wanting to plant more corn, but needing the weather to cooperate.

I also asked him about the company's assessment of this year's crops in South America. He said Lanworth has not released any of that data except to its clients, but he added, "One thing we can share is it's nice not to be contrarian for a change! In South America, there are some great crops down there. We differ in details from other sources, but we don't stand apart from the crowd."