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Expectations for more wheat acres

A marketing consultant says he expects USDA to increase wheat acreage projections for the Eastern Corn Belt in today’s report.

Mark Talaski with Illinois-based Advance Trading tells Brownfield good weather this past fall and higher prices provided more incentive for growers.

“Most of Michigan and Ohio and Ontario should see a big uptick in wheat acres compared to a year ago,” he says.  “Last year we had a really tough year planting wheat because the harvest on soybeans was late.”

Talaski says Kansas and Nebraska farmers also had the incentive to plant hard red wheat, but dry conditions remain a challenge.

“Do they have the quality and does the wheat even germinate and grow to a number to make sense to harvest?” he wonders. 

He says market volatility is likely in the near term, and then the trade will be closely following South American weather ahead of Brazil’s second crop corn planting.