Cold, wet spring slams big corn planting intentions

The US Department of Agriculture issued its latest report at the end of March and predicted American farmers would plant over 90 million acres of corn this year - 15 per cent more than what was planted in 2006.
Tempted by high corn prices based on the booming biofuels industry, American farmers hope to plant more corn than they have since 1944. But a cold, wet April has put a big question mark on those plans, and some farmers may switch acres back to soybeans.
The acreage shift to corn projected in the report was bigger than many analysts anticipated. ''It was greater than I was anticipating by three or four million acres,'' says Bob Wisner, Iowa State University economist.
''The biggest surprise was the shift from cotton and rice to corn in the South. We expected a million and a half acres to shift there. But we're looking at 3.15 million acres of the increase in US corn acreage coming in the Mid-South. Another 1.2 million acres in US spring wheat areas are indicating a switch to corn in 2007.''
Many of the extra acres being pulled into corn production this year are on the fringe of the Corn Belt. They're not the most productive acres to grow corn. Also, more corn following corn acres will be planted in 2007, and those acres normally yield 10-15 per cent less than corn in a normal rotation after soybeans.