Row crop planting begins in Arkansas
Arkansas farmers have begun planting, with 2% of corn in the ground, slightly ahead of last year. Wheat conditions are strong, while rice planting is ramping up. Soybean acreage remains steady at 3 million. Cotton acres may decline, and peanut acres could rise. Market trends and weather will shape the 2025 planting season, with key USDA reports ahead.
Arkansas farmers have started the planting season. Corn farmers have 2% of their crop in the ground, according to the Crop Progress report from the federal National Agricultural Statistics Service.
Last year, 1% was planted by this time, and the five-year average is about 1%. It was reported that 3% of winter wheat was forming grain heads, and 58% of the overall crop is rated as in either good or excellent condition.
Jason Kelley, wheat and feed grains agronomist for the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture, said planting corn now is not unexpected.
“It’s 80 degrees and it’s dry and it’s mid-March,” Kelley said. “It’s hard to not plant something, but producers still have concerns about a potential late season cold snap, so up to date, planting has started slow but will be picking up speed as we near late March.”
Kelley said he expects corn acres to rebound from last year due to price pressures on other row crop commodities.
“With corn, our planting date studies have shown there is a fairly wide window when we can maximize yields, generally up to late April, so planting early may be beneficial some years, but getting the optimum stand is what we are really shooting for,” Kelley said. “I think overall the acreage will be up this year. 2024 was a little bit of a down year as far as acreage with 500,000 acres. In 2023, we had about 750,000 acres.”
Rice planting hasn’t officially kicked off in the state, but Jarrod Hardke, rice extension agronomist, said there may have been two or three rice growers who got started last week. This week, many rice growers were doing field prep, but “planting is beginning to pick up speed, and by this coming weekend it will really be getting cranked up,” Hardke said.
Weather is a concern, with very low humidity and high winds. The March 14 storms that spawned deadly tornadoes didn’t bring a lot of rain.
“Rains were variable with some growers receiving 1-2 inches while others may have technically gotten a little rainfall overnight, but by the morning they didn’t know whether they had or not because it was so dry,” Hardke said.
The projection for soybean acres is about 3 million this season, about the same as it’s been the last two years, said Jeremy Ross, extension soybean agronomist. Sometimes farmers will start planting soybeans in late February, but not this year.
“A lot of ground is ready to plant, but we didn’t see the February planting that we have seen the last two years due to rain events over the past month,” he said. “If the weather holds, we could have a significant portion of the soybean crop planted in the next few weeks.”
Two row crops — cotton and peanuts — are still several weeks away from planting. The window for planting those crops is about a month in the spring, said Zachary Treadway, extension agronomist for cotton and peanuts. Cotton acres could slightly decline, while peanut acres could increase, he added.
“If you’re planting past the last day of May, you’ve gone too late,” he said. “In a perfect world, all of our planting will come between April 20 and May 20 — that’s if the planting season is kind to us. We had some issues last year where it was cool and rained and planting got dragged out, and some planting got abandoned all together.”
Scott Stiles, extension economics program associate, said the markets may do some reshaping of expected acres. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will issue its annual Prospective Plantings report on March 31, giving an overview of farmers’ intentions for the 2025 growing season.
Like Treadway, Stiles expected cotton acres to run lower. Arkansas’ cotton acres will be down 7% to 604,000 acres, according to the National Cotton Council.
“That’s not a surprise, and some think cotton acres may be even lower than that,” Stiles said. “Cotton prices for the 2025 crop touched 70 cents last Friday and again Monday but didn’t stay there long. With the heavy supply situation in cotton, there’s little incentive today for it to encourage acres. With so much of the U.S. cotton crop grown in Texas, we may see some weather-related price improvement later in the growing season.”
Corn and soybean prices peaked around Feb. 20, but “unfortunately, both of those have run out of gas,” Stiles said. There was a quick run-up in rice last week, but that rally fell flat too.
“Corn is about 40 cents off its February highs and soybean about 60 cents off its highs,” he said. “Seasonally, we generally see prices for corn and soybeans work higher through planting and oftentimes peaking by mid-June if crop conditions are favorable.”
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Source : Talk Business
