Farmers planted 89.6 million acres of soybeans this spring compared to 89.1 million acres of corn, marking only the second time in history soybean acreage topped corn, according to USDA's planted acreage numbers released Friday.
USDA released planted-acre estimates for major crops as well as quarterly grain and oilseed stocks.
USDA's acreage estimates are bearish for new-crop corn and wheat prices and neutral for new-crop soybeans, said DTN Analyst Todd Hultman. USDA's grain stocks estimates are bearish for corn and neutral for soybeans and wheat, he said.
Soybean stocks stored on June 1, 2018, came in at 1.22 billion bushels, which is 26% higher than the same time a year ago. Still, the March-May "disappearance" or use for soybeans was 888 million bushels, up 15% from the same period a year ago.
On-farm soybean stocks on June 1 were 377 million bushels, up 13% from a year ago while off-farm stocks were pegged at 845 million bushels, up 33% from a year ago.
Corn stocks came in at 5.31 billion bushels, up 1% from the same quarter las year. The March-May 2018 usage was 2.59 billion bushels, up 200 million bushels from the same period last year.
On-farm corn stocks totaled 2.75 billion bushels, down 3% from last year while off-farm stocks were pegged at 2.56 billion bushels, up 7% from a year ago.
Old-crop all-wheat stocks totaled 1.1 billion bushels, down 7% from a year ago. On-farm stocks were projected at 130 million bushels, down 32% from the same period last year while off-farm stocks were projected at 970 million bushels, down 2% from a year ago. March-May disappearance for wheat was projected at 395 million bushels, down 17% from the same quarter last year.
All of the quarterly stock estimates fell within the range of pre-report estimates and close to the average analysts' projections.
For the first time since 1983, soybean planted acreage topped corn planted acreage.
Soybean acreage came in at 89.6 million acres, still down 1% from a year ago as planted acreage is down or unchanged for 14 of the 31 largest acreage states.
Corn acreage came in at 89.1 million acres, also down 1% from a year ago. Acreage is down or unchanged in 31 of 48 states in the survey.
While acreage was down slightly for both corn and soybeans from 2017, they were also both higher than USDA's prospective planting acreage released at the end of May.
All-wheat planted acreage for 2018 is estimated at 47.8 million acres, up 4% from 2017. Still, 2018 acreage represents the second-lowest wheat acreage in the U.S. since 1919.
Winter wheat acres were projected at 32.7 million acres, up less than 1% from last year. Of that total, 23.2 million acres represent hard red winter wheat. Soft red winter wheat accounts for 5.89 million acres and white winter wheat accounts for 3.62 million acres.
Spring wheat is pegged at 13.2 million acres, up 20% from last year. Durum acreage is projected at 1.89 million acres.
All cotton acreage is estimated at 13.5 million acres, up 7% from last year. Upland cotton accounts for 13.3 million acres of that total.