U.S. acreage and quarterly stocks estimates out Monday

The United States Department of Agriculture is scheduled to release 2008 U.S. planting intentions estimates and quarterly grain and oilseed stocks figures Monday, March 31 at 13:30 BST.

Generally, analysts see a decrease of around 7 million acres in corn area, with soybeans seeing a significant increase. For stocks, beans, corn and wheat are expected to be well below the previous quarter, with some analysts projecting record or near record quarterly use.

Ahead of the report, 2008 U.S. corn acreage is expected to be around 87.387 million acres, in a range of 85.7 million to 89.75 million. 2007 U.S. planted area totaled 93.6 million acres. Soybeans are pegged at 71.526 million acres, compared to the 2007 total of 63.631 million; the range of estimates runs from 70 million to 74.239 million acres.

Total U.S. wheat planting is estimated at 63.625 million acres, compared to the year ago figure of 60.433 million. By category, winter wheat's seen at 46.986 million acres, which would be up a little less than two million acres, other spring wheat's estimated at 14.147 million acres, an increase of 850,000, and durum's pegged at 2.492 million, with a range of 2 to 2.9 million acres.

David Kohli of Ford and Young Futures is projecting 2008 U.S. corn acreage at 84.5 million acres and sees soybeans at 73.5 million acres.

U.S. corn stocks, for the quarter starting March 1, are estimated at 6.950 billion to 7.254 billion bushels, with an average guess of 7.076 billion bushels. The December 1 report had corn stocks at 10.269 billion, so if realized, the implied usage would be a record or near record 3.193 billion bushels.

Soybean stocks, on March 1, are seen at 1.352 billion bushels, compared to 2.329 billion on December 1. That'd be implied usage of 977 million bushels and could potentially be the largest for any quarter. The range of expectations runs from 1.290 billion to 1.425 billion bushels.

Quarterly wheat stocks are pegged at 647 million to 692 million bushels, for an average of 668 million bushels. The December report put wheat stocks at 1.128 billion bushels, putting implied usage at 460 million bushels, above the five year average of 435 million.