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Wheat acres likely to give way to soybeans

A market analyst expects additional soybean acres to come from winter wheat fields damaged by snow earlier this month.

Elaine Kub says farmers in parts of Kansas, North Dakota and Nebraska were forced to abandon the wheat and planting soybeans makes sense.

“That will almost certainly be contributing to soybean acres in the western part of the Corn Belt, out in Kansas and North Dakota where they have also had delays getting their spring wheat in.  That’s much more likely to be switched over to soybeans.  So the acreage story is still very much alive for soybeans.”

She tells Brownfield it’s still too early to expect a major shift away from corn, but says that could change if planting delays prolong past May 15^th.

Kub adds there are varying estimates on how much winter wheat was lost because of the snowstorm.

“There could certainly be a significant chunk of acres lost.  But when you look at the futures spreads that the commercials (like) elevators are trading as they anticipate this year’s crop, those spreads have basically recovered after last Monday’s big spurt.  So it seems like they are still confident that they’re going to have to be handling a lot of wheat.”

In Wednesday’s WASDE report, the USDA projected a 25 percent drop in winter wheat acres compared to last year without taking into account recent damage from snow or flooding.