South Dakota had the most unplanted corn acres in 2019
By Diego Flammini
Staff Writer
Farms.com
Nearly 20 million U.S. acres went unplanted in 2019.
Rain and flooding kept farmers from seeding crops on 19.4 million acres, the Farm Service Agency’s Crop Acreage Data Report said on Monday.
Nationally, farmers had the most unplanted corn acres.
A total of 11.2 million acres of U.S. corn went unseeded in 2019. Soybeans had the next highest amount at 4.35 million acres, followed by wheat with 2.2 million unplanted acres.
Researchers will need time to digest all the data but the numbers seem fairly accurate at first glance, said Adam Kantrovich, an associate professor of agribusiness at Clemson University in South Carolina.
“I’ve only started going through the datasets but, based on reports from my counterparts in other states, it does seem reasonable that the numbers in the USDA report would be correct,” he told Farms.com. “I was up (near Michigan) about a month and a half ago, and you could see as we came through Ohio and in parts of Indiana that it’s pretty easy for the number to be what the USDA says it is.”
Any potential effects the prevent plant numbers have on market prices remains uncertain.
But it wouldn’t be surprising if corn prices remained low, Kantrovich said.
“We have to look at the whole picture and factor in things like trade issues and ethanol use,” he said. “It’s still a bit troubling, but I think we’re going to have low prices for corn this year unless there’s some surprises that come out.”
On a state level, farmers in South Dakota had the most unplanted corn and soybean acres at 2.8 million and about 850,000 respectively.
Texas producers had the highest number of unplanted wheat acres at over 375,000.
The USDA will release another crop acreage report on Sept. 12.
JJ Gouin/iStock/Getty Images Plus photo