(AgWeb) – Following the annual Acreage report and ahead of a long weekend, Jerry Gulke shares his thoughts on grain price potential.
Instead of explosions, the grain market fizzled this week. On Monday, June 30, USDA released its annual Acreage report.
Here are the highlights:
Corn acres are estimated at 91.6 million acres, down 4% from last year, representing the lowest planted since 2010.
Soybean acres are estimated at 84.8 million acres of soybeans, up 11% from last year.
All cotton planted area for 2014 is estimated at 11.4 million acres, 9% above last year.
All wheat planted area for 2014 is estimated at 56.5 million acres, up less than 1% from 2013.
Following the report’s release and throughout the week, soybean prices plunged. Corn, wheat and cotton prices also declined.
Normally, long holiday weekends spark some prices action. Not this year. “We may have to light our own real fireworks,” says Jerry Gulke, president of The Gulke Group.
With this year looking like the perfect recipe for high yields, the downward pressure on prices is strong, Gulke says. “If there are going to be any fireworks going forward, it will have to be something telling us we discounted a big crop already,” he says. “Can it get better from here? We’ll see.”
The next big newsmaker day will be July 11, when USDA releases its monthly Crop Production and World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates.
In the meantime, Gulke says, farmers should be watching price action. “We need to see at what levels prices can hold,” he says.
