The June acreage report was released yesterday, detailing the planting intentions for several major crops in North Carolina.This report is used for planning purposes and also has a short effect on commodity prices on Wall Street. This report is an update to the Prospective Planting report released by USDA in late March. A follow-up report of surveyed yields will come out in mid-August.
The highlights of the report are:
- Farmers are expected to grow 50,000 more acres of corn than last year. The total this year will be around 920,000 acres.
- Cotton growers intend to plant 570,000 acres of cotton. This is 52 percent higher than last year and is 30,000 more acres than reported in March.
- There are about 95,000 acres of peanuts planted, which is up 42 percent from last year.
- This will be the largest sweet potato crop since 1950, with 50,000 acres planted.
- Soybean plantings are down 14 percent from last year, with 1.55 million acres this year.
- There isn’t a change in hay acreage since last year. Producers expect to cut 847,000 acres this year.
- Winter wheat plantings were down 26 percent from last year.
- Tobacco acreage is down. Flue-cured tobacco is down 6 percent, and there will be 1,100 fewer acres of burley tobacco planted this year.
The complete acreage report can be viewed online at: www.ncagr.gov/stats/release/CropRelease06.pdf.