(WASHINGTON D.C.) – USDA expects farmers to plant 91.9 million acres or corn in 2023 and 87.51 million acres of soybeans according to the March Prospective Plantings report. The average trade guess for corn ahead of the report was 90.88 million acres while soybeans came in at 88.24 million acres ahead of the report. The wheat planted acreage number came in at 49.9 million on the report which was slightly higher than the pre-report trade guess of 48.85 million acres.
Spring wheat acreage, which falls under the all wheat number, was pegged at 10.57 million acres by USDA while durum wheat came in at 1.780 million acres. USDA surprisingly found more winter wheat acres as that number increased to 37.5 million acres.
Cotton acreage, meantime, came in slightly above the pre-report estimates at 11.256 million acres.
Meantime, the March Quarterly Grains Stocks report shows March 1st corn stocks at 7.401 billion bushels which is slightly below trade expectations. Soybeans stocks on March 1st came in at 1.685 billion bushels which was down from the trade guess of 1.742 billion. The wheat stocks came in at 946 million bushels, higher than the trade expectation of 934 million bushels.
Below is analysis with Arlan Suderman, Chief Commodities Economist at StoneX, about the USDA reports on Friday:
View the Prospective Plantings (once released) here: https://usda.library.cornell.edu/concern/publications/x633f100h
View the Grains Stocks (once released) here: https://usda.library.cornell.edu/concern/publications/xg94hp534
