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Analyst Suderman weighs in on planting estimates
Many market analysts think USDA’s corn planting estimate of 97 million acres is too high.
Arlan Suderman with INTL FCStone agrees, but he says a lot of it depends on weather over the next 30 days.
“If it turns out dry in the month of April, and good corn planting, and we do dry out the fields enough to get the fieldwork done, very few people are going to wait around for May—and we will come close to that 97 million acres of corn, in all likelihood,” he says.
If it stays wet, Suderman says, the corn planting number will come down, especially with challenges being faced by the ethanol industry.
“I’m at 93.685 (million acres). I still feel pretty good about that,” he says. “Now that doesn’t mean I’ll be at 93.685 in June. I’ll obviously be taking in more data.”
Conversely, Suderman thinks USDA’s soybean acreage estimate of 83.5 million acres will come up and be closer to 84.6 million.
Suderman made those comments during a Tuesday webinar.
AUDIO: Excerpt from Arlan Suderman’s webinar
