Farmers Planning to Plant Less Corn, More Beans

By Virgil Larson, Omaha World-Herald, Neb.

Apr. 3–Nebraska and Iowa farmers plan to plant less corn and more soybeans this year, as do U.S. farmers as a whole, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said in its annual spring-plantings report.

The rise in prices for petroleum-based fuel, fertilizers and herbicides are the reason, said Victor Bohuslavsky, executive gated corn.

Nebraska farmers will plant 360,000 acres of sorghum, up 6 percent from 2005 but still off sharply from 2004′s 550,000 acres. No figures were collected on Iowa.

Also in the report for Nebraska:

–Last fall’s winter wheat plantings fell 5 percent in Nebraska to 1.75 million acres.

–Plantings of dry edible beans were forecast to drop 165,000 acres, or 6 percent.

–Sugar-beet acres were forecast at 62,000, up 28 percent.

–Sunflower plantings, at 53,000 acres, would be down 46 percent.

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