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Economist concerned about weather influencing corn acres

An ag economist says the continued wet weather might cause additional changes in corn acreage.  Todd Hubbs at the University of Illinois tells Brownfield too much rain could wash out some of the corn that’s already been planted.  “It looks like a really strong system moving in through the midwest, especially through Missouri and parts of southern Illinois, and if it stretches up into the central part of Illinois, we could see that kind of issue occurring and we might see a re-plant or a switchover.”

And, he’s watching for more signs of switching from corn to soybeans.  “The big fear is if we can’t get corn in, farmers will switch over to soybeans and we’re already looking at almost 90-million acres of soybeans in the country, so right now I think it looks okay.  We’ll see as the weeks move along.”

 

Hubbs tells Brownfield it’s really too early to switch since corn still has plenty of time to grow.  “It’s not late planting yet, I mean, you do see yield hits the further along you go but we’re not even into May yet, and the research we’ve done here at University of Illinois, we sort of look at May 20th to really start considering significant yield hits after that for late planting.  In different parts of the country, it’s a different day, of course.”

Hubbs says if weather leads to less corn acres, it might impact corn prices… even with expected record crops coming from Brazil and Argentina.  He says the market might react when the USDA issues its June acreage report.