Fundamentally Speaking

USDA prospective plantings figures will be released next week, and it will be interesting to see how the corn and soybean figures come in after the USDA at its Ag Outlook conference estimated 2024 corn seedings at 91.0 million acres vs. 94.6 million last year with soybean planted area pegged at 87.5 million acres vs. 83.6 million a year ago.

With talk of an early start to corn plantings this spring, recently released intention figure estimates are edging closer to 92 million for corn and 87 million for soybeans, though the current November soybean/December corn ratio of 2.53 is seen more in favor of soybean than corn seedings.

This is the fourth highest SX/CZ ratio as of March 18 since 2005 and well above the 2000-2024 average of 2.32.

Of course, soybean acreage can vary quite a bit from what the March intentions figures show as for the past five years in a row, the U.S. soybean planted area figure has been lower in the final production report than what was indicated at the end of March, with three of those years by huge margins.

This chart shows the percent change in U.S. soybean planted area from the March intentions to June acreage report, the June acreage to the final production figure and the March intentions to the final number.

Last year's 4.5% decline or 3.905 million-acre drop in soybean planted area was the second largest between the March prospective planting figure and the final production number since 1995, topped only by the 10.0% (8.52 million-acre) drop in 2019 and was even larger than the 3.9% decline (3.505 million-acre) drop seen the year prior.

Both in 2022 and in 2019, a wet spring delayed both corn and soybean plantings as farmers stuck with corn to the detriment of soybeans.

That however was not the case last year as the 4.0 million-acre (4.6%) drop in soybean seedings between the March intentions and June acreage report was a real shocker as final planted area was actually a little higher than the June figure.

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