All wheat acres in U.S. down but they are up in PNW

Farm and Ranch April 1, 2010 In its Planting Intentions report issued Wednesday the USDA said total U.S. wheat acres this year could be down nine percent from 2009. USDA chief economist Joe Glauber says the combined winter and spring wheat acreage is 53.8 million acres.

Glauber: “The big news of course, and we have known this, is the winter wheat area is down. And we are looking at the winter wheat area at about 37.7 million acres. The lowest since 1970. I think the overall wheat number 53.8, we will see a little more spring wheat come in. Durum wheat is projected down at this point. In some of the areas, particularly the northern plains, what we suspect is that some of the area that might have been planted to winter wheat wasn‘t able to get planted because of the late harvest and that we will likely see that turn into spring wheat.”

USDA’s report puts total wheat acreage in the Pacific Northwest at four million 635-thousand, which is up about three percent from last year. Washington’s winter wheat acres are up a little, spring wheat acres down, so its total wheat acres are unchanged. Idaho’s acreage is up five percent from last year with increases in both winter and spring wheat. Oregon total wheat acreage is up eight percent reflecting more winter wheat acres but less spring wheat.

Farmers told the USDA they plan to increase corn acreage three percent this year to 88.8 million acres. Intentions are to increase soybean acreage one percent. Barley planting intentions nationwide are down eight percent to about 3.3 million acres.

I’m Bob Hoff and that’s the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.