Farmers intend to plant less wheat, barley and corn

Farm and Ranch April 1, 2009 In its Prospective Plantings report Tuesday the USDA said all wheat acreage in the U.S. this year is expected to drop seven percent from 2008 to 58.6 million acres. The bulk of that acreage is winter wheat, which is down seven percent from last year. Farmers say they intend to plant 13.3 million acres of spring wheat, six percent less than in 2008. Durum acreage could be down ten percent. After digesting the planting numbers and the quarterly grain stocks report, Joe Victor of Allendale Incorporated, said the hard red spring wheat class has the best upside price potential particularly given the weather in North Dakota, which could prevent plantings. Victor: "If there is a market that has the potential for a decent rally it is going to be in the September futures, as well as, especially when we get into high protein wheat, the kind of basis rally we saw last fall could be a repeat performance for end users trying to get their hands on the specialty wheat market." Spring wheat planting intentions in the Northwest are for acreage to be down 11 percent in Idaho, down 28 percent in Oregon and up six percent in Washington. If those seeding plans hold that would put all wheat acres in Idaho down 11 percent, all wheat in Oregon down nine percent and in Washington all wheat acreage would be up four percent from last year. Nationally, barley plantings could drop seven percent with Washington down 24 percent. Corn planting intentions are down one percent from 2008. Soybeans up slightly. I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.