USDA issues estimates for farmers’ spring planting plans

Kansas farmers are expected to plant corn on about the same number of acres this spring, even though growers in other parts of the country will cut back because of lower prices, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture report released Tuesday.

The National Agricultural Statistics Service’s prospective plantings report shows Kansas farmers are expected to sow 4.05 million acres of corn this season.

But nationwide, NASS has forecast the lowest planted corn acreage since 2010 – 89.2 million acres, down 2 percent from last year. If realized, this will be the third consecutive year that U.S. corn acres have declined, the agency said.

At his farm south of Gove in northwest Kansas, Roger Beasley has set up a crop rotation schedule and pretty much stays with that regardless of fluctuations in prices. He plants about 1,600 to 1,800 acres each of winter wheat, puts corn or sorghum on another third on his cropland, and then fallows the land on the other third.

In years past, he said he has tried to fool with the rotation if one crop was bringing a little more money than another one. Not anymore.

“I’ve kind of come to the conclusion, when it’s all said and done, that I don’t really increase my net very much more than if I just stay with that rotation,” Beasley said. By the time I get out of the rotation and then try to come back up with it, I am really not that far ahead.”

Kansas growers are also expected to plant 2.9 million acres of sorghum, up 2 percent from a year ago. Kansas and Texas, the leading sorghum producing states, account for 75 percent of the U.S. sorghum acreage, NASS said.

Farmers in Kansas are expected to buck the national trend on soybean acreage, reducing them to 3.8 million acres, down 5 percent from last year.

Overall, an expected record 84.6 million U.S. acres of soybeans are expected to be planted – driven by increased acreages in 21 of 31 major producing states. If realized, soybean plantings would be the largest ever in Kentucky, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Dakota and Wisconsin.

The revised estimate for winter wheat acres planted last fall in Kansas is now at 9.4 million acres. That is down 2 percent from the previous year.

Nationwide, the 2015 planted winter wheat acreage is estimated at 40.8 million acres, down 4 percent from a year ago.

This story was originally published March 31, 2015 at 4:31 PM with the headline "USDA issues estimates for farmers’ spring planting plans."