All wheat acres up in PNW and U.S. Barley too

Farm and Ranch April 1, 2011 USDA’s Prospective Plantings report issued Thursday had revisions for winter wheat acreage for 2011 and the first estimate of spring wheat acres farmers may plant this year. USDA chief economist Joe Glauber says all wheat acreage is up almost 4.4 million acres from last year.

Glauber: “We upped our winter wheat estimate by about 100,000 to 41.1 million acres and then total wheat acres at 58 million acres. And again this is up 4.4 from last year again reflecting very strong prices.”

So, overall U.S. wheat acreage would be up eight percent from 2010 which includes a five percent increase in spring wheat at 14.4 million acres. Hard red spring accounts for 13.6 million of those acres.

All wheat acres in Washington, Oregon and Idaho this year could total about 4.9 million, a five percent or 235-thouand acre increase over last year. USDA pegs the predominant wheat in the region, white winter at 3.7 million acres.

Barley acreage could be up in the PNW this year too. While Oregon farmers plan to hold their plantings steady, Idaho growers plan on two percent more acres, Washington farmers six percent more barley. Nationally barley acreage could increase three percent.

The USDA report had U.S. corn acreage at 92.2 million acres, up five percent from last year. Soybean acreage down one percent.

I’m Bob Hoff and that’s the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on Northwest Aginfo Net.