Tuesday's USDA Report Results

The much anticipated March USDA reports were released on Tuesday of this week. For the first time in about three years total acreage dedicated to primary crops are down across the United States. Planting intentions for corn was estimated at 89.2 million acres. All wheat planted was estimated at 55.4 million acres.
Washington State University Thomas B Mick Chair Professorship in Economics Sciences Dr. Randy Fortenbery shares more results
Fortenbery: “Corn is down about 2 percent relative to 2014 that was not unexpected because corn prices - like wheat prices — have not performed as well as some of the other commodities. All wheat was down 3 percent but we knew that was likely to happen because we already had known that winter wheat seedings were down significantly. But it turns out that total spring wheat is going to be down a little bit as well.
Grain stocks reported were as follows: corn stocks in all positions on March first totaled 7.74 million bushels which is up 11 percent compared from last year. All wheat stocks totaled 1.12 billion bushels on March 1st — up 6 percent from a year ago. Though Fortenbery mentioned that Washington state wheat stocks were actually down quite significantly — farmer-held wheat stocks were down 43 to 44 percent in comparison to last year and commercial was down 13 percent.
Fortenbery continues
Fortenbery: “But again what really matters is when we get to June 1st and see if all these acres got planted and/or whether additional acres were planted. So this is what farmers are planning on doing early in the season but sometimes — especially in years of tough weather — there can be some significant changes when we get to the actually acreage report in June.”