Jun 10, 2015
2015 U.S. Corn Planting 100%, Soybeans 79%
Author: Michael Cordonnier/Soybean & Corn Advisor, Inc.
Corn - The weekly Crop Progress report did not report corn planting progress since it is approaching 100%, but some individual states are reporting that not all the corn has been planted. The states with the most corn left to plant include: Missouri (330,000 acres left to plant), Kansas (283,000 acres left to plant), and Nebraska (279,000 acres left to plant). These three states combined still have 892,000 acres of corn that have not been planted, but unfortunately, those states have been receiving nearly daily rainfall and there is more rain in the forecast. The corn planting had been significantly ahead of the average pace all spring, but the corn planting is now coming to a close on a slow note.
It is already the second week of June and it is undetermined when it will be dry enough to resume planting in these southern locations. The prevent plant date has come and gone and it is very late to plant corn in the southern Corn Belt. There are no price incentives to continue trying to plant corn as late as possible, therefore, I do not think all the intended corn in this region will end up being planted to corn. Some of the intended corn acres will be claimed as prevent plant, some will be switched to soybeans, and some will be switched to grain sorghum. There may be as much as half a million to three quarters of a million acres of intended corn that will not be planted to corn.
Additionally, there is now some corn that needs to be replanted in the three state mentioned above as well as in Illinois and Indiana where heavy rains fell Sunday and Monday resulting in ponding. Small corn plants that are completely submerged under the water will probably die if it stays submerged for 36-48 hours. If a corn plant is half submerged, it will probably survive if the water drains away within 2-3 days.
Up until this point, I had been assuming that the corn acreage would be 1.5 million acres more than the March Prospective Planting, but now I think the corn acreage might be only 500,000 acres more than the March estimate. Therefore, I am now using a corn planted acreage of 89.699 million acres (89.199 million acres from the March Prospective Planted report plus an additional 500,000 acres) and I am estimating the corn harvested acreage at 82.34 million acres (91.8% of the total)
Soybeans - The 2015 U.S. soybean crop is 79% planted compared to the average of 81%. The main area where the soybean planting is slow is the southwestern Corn Belt especially Missouri (30% planted) and Kansas (31% planted). In addition to still having some full-season soybeans left to plant, the double crop soybeans still need to be planted after the wheat harvest is completed.
There is still time to plant the full-season soybeans and double crop soybeans, especially in these southern locations. Double crop soybeans can be planted until at least early July. Therefore, it is too early to say for sure that there may be some soybeans that do not get planted due to wet conditions.
Instead, we may end up with some additional soybeans due to switching some corn over to soybeans. I had been anticipating that the soybean planted acreage would be 86.63 million acres or 2.0 million acres more than the March Prospective Planted estimate (84.63 million acres). The soybean planted acreage may now end up being even higher due to switching from corn to soybeans. Therefore, I am now estimating the 2015 U.S. soybean planted acreage at 87.0 million acres and the soybean harvested acreage at 86.3 million acres (99.2% of the total).