Marketing

[Jeff_a_Caldwell]

Just kicking around some of the acreage numbers today -- some folks like Darrel Good at UIUC and the folks at FAPRI are weighing in with some crop size estimates ahead of the big Planting Intentions report. Sounds like 94 million is the magic number for corn acres, but neither Good nor FAPRI see us hitting that number. Close, but not quite.

So, what do you think? Will we get them all planted? Another thing FAPRI folks pointed out today is there could be a stall in some of this corn demand and it could make beans more attractive, price-wise, down the road this year. 

So, are you taking this kind of stuff into account as you make your planting decisions, or are your decisions already made and you're just waiting for things to thaw and run the planter?

[Doug N]

In my mind its impossible to take anything one person says.  I bet you could find a person that says we will plant 95 million acres or more. In this day and age there is so much information and even more so, so many opinions out there.  Nobody is right all the time. 

It will all depend on weather if the acres get in or not.  Just like every other year.  We plan and mother nature scoffs.

[GoredHusker]

If the spring continues as dry and warm, we'll more than likely plant more than 94 million acres.  If the spring turns off wet, it could be difficult to reach.  Can anyone imagine the amount of corn acres that would have been planted last year if we'd have had a warm dry spring?  We planted over 90 million acres in one of if not the worst spring planting conditions ever.  There was a lot of corn planted in June last year. 

[unlgrad]

Gored, the last trading day of May 2011, the march 2012 corn was at $6.95,  a high reward situation to plant corn in that environment.  April 21st of that spring, the march 2012 price was $6.60.  Kind of hard not to want to plant corn if you could get it in.   On April 21st of this year, we see $6.60 again for March 2013 corn, I will be only 20% beans instead of 40%.  Off topic, but I was hearing $1.80/ bu premium white corn to yellow, what is happening in your area.

[too close for comfort]

Hi Jeff: Everyone is talking 94 but if the USDA comes out with that number will it be viewed as bearish and drive the price down? What number would it take to be to be bullish? 92 or less?

[frankne]

Depends on the spring.Would not rule out a 95 or 96 with a dry one.Going to have to be a good summer to get their yields though.

[Artifice]

what would 94 planted be, using avg harvested percentage and trend yield?

[Hobbyfarmer]

With the dryness in the west and SW corn belt coupled with the high cost of inputs they can guess at all they want.

The fact of the matter is  it can be planted but herbicide resistant weeds and 2 ft or less of subsoil moisture isn't going to

make a very big pile of corn at the end of the day. My hope would be that the insurance co's have deep pockets. 5 million + or - a few acres on marginal ground coupled with the less productive highly eroaded land that has already be broken out the last 5 years will see a downward yield curve as well.

Every acre of class 1 farm ground that is still being gobbled up around the cities here in the heartland = 3 to 4 on the margin.

As an example pull up a old ASCS photo of the Iowa City to Cedar Rapids area from 15 years ago and then one from last year.

around the Des Moines are is no different. The sprawl out of Omaha has been massive the last 20 years too. Just pick a city in the heartland. It adds up to millions of bu's of lost commodities.

[GoredHusker]

We don't grow white corn out here.  We're too far from any kind of market.  The big decision or so I'm told around here is guys who planted irrigated wheat last fall.  A lot of them are talking about destroying the wheat and planting edible beans.  Everybody now is just wondering when they should start planting.  The last two days have been extremely nice. 

[toughguy189]

We sell our white corn through Debruce in Clarks (bought out by somebody recently but cant remeber who), white corn premium is currently at $1.70 over chicago.