ProAg news featuring USDAThe U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) estimated 92.0 million acres of corn planted in the United States for 2020, up 3% from last year, according to the Acreage report released today. Soybean area planted is estimated at 83.8 million acres, up 10% from last year.

Following up to the Prospective Plantings report released in late spring, NASS surveyed nearly 71,000 farm operators during the first two weeks of June to gather information on what farmers actually planted. Key findings released in the Acreage report include:

Corn

  • Growers expect to harvest 84.0 million acres of corn for grain, up 3% from last year.
  • 92% of all corn acres planted in the United States are biotech varieties, unchanged from last year.

Soybeans

  • Soybean harvested area for 2020 is estimated at 83.0 million acres, up 11% from 2019.
  • Producers planted 94% of the soybean acreage using herbicide resistant seed varieties, unchanged from 2019.

Cotton

  • All cotton planted area for 2020 is estimated at 12.2 million acres, 11% below last year.
  • Upland cotton is estimated at 12.0 million acres, down 11% from 2019.
  • American Pima is estimated at 195,000 acres, down 15% from last year.
  • 96% of Upland cotton planted acres are biotech varieties, down 2 percentage points from 2019.

Wheat

  • All wheat planted area for 2020 is estimated at 44.3 million acres, down 2% from last year. This represents the lowest all wheat planted area on record since records began in 1919.
  • Winter wheat planted area is estimated at 30.6 million acres, down 2% from 2019. This represents the second lowest winter wheat planted area on record since records began in 1909.
  • Other spring wheat wheat planted area is estimated at 12.2 million acres, down 4% from 2019.
  • Durum wheat planted area is estimated at 1.50 million acres, up 12% from last year. This marks the first year of increasing acreage since 2016.

NASS today also released the quarterly Grain Stocks report to provide estimates of on-farm and off-farm stocks as of June 1. Key findings in that report include:

Grain Stocks

  • Corn stocks totaled 5.22 billion bushels, up less than 1% from the same time last year. On-farm corn stocks were up 3% from a year ago, but off-farm stocks were down 2%.
  • Soybeans stored totaled 1.39 billion bushels, down 22% from June 1, 2019. On-farm soybean stocks were down 13% from a year ago, while off-farm stocks were down 28%.
  • All wheat stored totaled 1.04 billion bushels, down 3% from a year ago. On-farm all wheat stocks were up 12% from last year, while off-farm stocks were down 7%.
  • Durum wheat stored totaled 42.8 million bushels, down 22% from June 1, 2019. On-farm stocks of Durum wheat were down 32% from June 1, 2019. Off-farm stocks of Durum wheat were down from the previous year by 13%.

The Acreage and Grain Stocks reports and all other NASS reports are available online at www.nass.usda.gov.

Source: USDA NASS