The long-awaited government acreage report was finally released on Friday. Traders have been talking about it for months — anticipating bigger corn acres and smaller soy plantings.
    But they were quite surprised to see USDA’s forecast for 90 million corn acres — the most land planted to corn since 1944. Soy projected plantings fell 8.4 million acres from a year ago.
    It appears that farmers really liked the price of corn, which hit a 10-year high this winter boosted by demand for corn by ethanol producers.
    As soon as the Chicago Board of Trade markets opened Friday, corn dived the 20-cent trading limit and sat their the rest of the day. The implied futures closing price based on options was $3.60 per bushel — 14-1/2 cents below Friday’s settlement for May corn. Given that, traders expect a weak open in corn on Sunday night which could spillover to the other CBOT grain/soy markets.
    From now through the rest of the growing season, weather will be key. It’s the only thing that matters as Mother Nature will need to cooperate if farmers are really going to plant 90 million corn acres. Any delays will mean less corn and more soy.
    “Every week, every weather report will play a very important role. Anything other than warm, dry weather will not be greeted kindly,” said analyst Gavin Maguire with Iowa Grain.
    The U.S. Midwest is trying to dry out after a wet winter. So field work is already delayed and farmers are getting anxious.
    Traders will also keep an eye on the South American harvest. But big crops are expected and export business is shifting to Brazil.
    Friday’s trade data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission confirmed that large speculators trimmed their long positions in CBOT markets over the past week. Additional long liquidation occurred on Friday as the markets tanked.