Corn futures were hammered lower Thursday morning after the USDA found more corn acres seeded than what analysts had expected.
Wheat and oats are also down a lot, but canola and soybean are down less, as the report was less bearish about oilseeds. Livestock futures are also down.
At about 9.30 CST July canola is down $3.90 per tonne at $581.30. November is down $9.20 at 559.50.
Analysts were shocked at the acreage numbers and the stocks.
They had expected USDA to keep is corn acreage number close to its June 10 forecast of 90.7 million because of the wet spring,
USDA said farmers planted 92.282 million acres with corn this spring. The trade on average had predicted 90.767 million acres.
Also bearish for corn was the June 1 stocks number that came in at 3.670 billion bushels, above an average trade estimate for 3.302 billion and compared with 4.310 billion a year ago.
In soybeans the acreage number was supportive, but the lift was offset by a bearish stocks number.
USDA sees 75.208 million soybean acres, below an average trade estimate of 76.530 million and below its March forecast of 76.609 million.
But June 1 stocks of 619 million bu. topped trade estimates for 596 million and last year’s 571 million.
U.S. canola area was put at 1.14 million acres, down from the March forecast for 1.61 million.
USDA lowered its spring wheat planted acreage number but not as much as expected.
It pegged seeded area at 13.627 million acres, above forecasts for 13.349 million. All-wheat acreage came in at 56.433 million, below the average trade estimate of 56.671 million.
USDA estimated wheat stocks as of June at 861 million bushels, above trade estimates for 826 million and compared with 973 million a year ago.
The report was supportive of durum prices. Durum area was pegged at 1.7 million acres, down from the March forecast for 2.37 million and trade estimate of about two million.
The USDA report suffers from the same problem that the Statistics Canada survey did recently. The agencies talked to farmers when there were still a lot of acres to be seeded. There was a lot of wet weather after the surveys and that might change the final outcome.
A large percentage of land in North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana and Minnesota was not planted in early June when farmers were surveyed.
Earlier this week, officials in North Dakota said a quarter of crop land did not get seeded.
USDA says it will resurvey farmers in those states in July and issue a new report in August if justified.
