07/01/08 USDA says wheat acres up, corn down from 2007

Farm and Ranch July 1, 2008 USDA's June Planted Acreage report issued Monday showed all wheat planted area in the U.S. this year at 63.5 million acres. That is up five percent from 2007. In the Pacific Northwest Idaho, Oregon and Washington showed all wheat acres for 2008 harvest up 503-thousand acres to 4.67 million. Northwest growers planted 288-thousand more acres of spring wheat than last year. Like their counterparts nationally, northwest farmers planted less barley this year. The region's barley acres for harvest are pegged at 760-thousand, down 68-thousand acres from 2007. As for the impact of that Midwest flooding, USDA economist Joe Glauber says the acreage report showed U.S. farmers planted more corn than expected at 87.3 million acres, but will be harvesting less because of the floods, but not that much less on a national basis. Glauber: "It looks like it is down about two percentage points from what normally would be harvested." The 78.9 million acres of corn expected to be harvested would be down nine percent from last year but still be the second highest harvested acreage since 1944, behind only last year. Now, this is acreage not yields. Glauber: "No, and that certainly is the big issue right now." I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.